Episode Title: The Return of the Archons
Air Date: 2/9/1967
Written by Boris
Sobelman and Gene Roddenberry
Directed by Joseph
Pevney
Cast: William
Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk
Leonard Nimoy as Lieutenant Commander Spock DeForest Kelley as Dr. Leonard H.
McCoy AKA “Bones” James
Doohan as Lieutenant Commander
Montgomery Scott AKA “Scotty”
George Takei as Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu Nichelle Nichols as Lieutenant Nyota Uhura Eddie Paskey as Lieutenant
Leslie Bill Blackburn as Lieutenant Haley Frank Da Vinci as Lieutenant
Brent Karl Held as Lieutenant
Lindstrom Sean Morgan as
Lieutenant O'Neil Ron Veto as
Crewman Harrison Harry Townes as Reger Torin Thatcher as Marplon
Brioni Farrell as Tula Sid Haig as First Lawgiver Charles Macaulay as Landru Jon Lormer as Tamar Morgan Farley as Hacom Lev Mailer as Bilar David L. Ross as Guard Bobby Clark as Betan Townsman Lars Hensen as Betan Townsman
Ships: USS
Enterprise NCC-1701
Planets: Beta III
My Spoiler filled
summary and review: The episode
begins with Lt. Sulu and a fellow officer on an alien world in small city
running away from something. The other
officer, who we learn is named O’Neil, panics because “they” are
everywhere. Sulu gets his communicator
and calls up to the Enterprise to
request emergency transport. Lt. Uhura
receives the message and informs Captain Kirk who orders the transporter room
to beam the officers out of there.
Individuals dressed in robes holding poles of some kind approached the
two men. Lt. O’Neil panics and runs
away, Sulu holds his ground waiting to be transported but he is blasted by
something from one of the devices the aliens are holding. Nevertheless he is beamed back up to the Enterprise.
 |
| Alone and outgunned! |
In his
Captain’s log, Captain Kirk explains the Enterprise
has a dual mission of exploring the planet Beta III and trying to discover what
became of the USS Archon the
Federation vessel that disappeared from here over a century ago. They go to check on Mr. Sulu they discovered
that while he’s physically fine he seems to have mentally checked out. Sulu keeps
talking about peace, tranquility, and most importantly he refers to himself as
being “of the body.” Kirk decides this is
worth a further investigation particularly considering they still have a man
missing. He forms the landing party
consisting of himself, Mr. Spock, Dr. McCoy, a sociologist, and a few security
personnel.
 |
| Quite place |
The
away team beams down and they immediately discover something rather odd about
the planet. Every person they meet has a
blank expression on their face, similar to the look of Lt. Sulu. The people who populate the city that they
are in all happen to be extremely polite.
The words "peace", "tranquility", and "of the body" are frequently uttered by
the people who greet them. One townsman
who stops them asks if they are from away, more specifically he asked if there
from the Valley. Kirk thinks it’s a good
story so he says yes he is from the Valley.
They are then asked if they are here for the festival to which Kirk
agrees not yet knowing what this festival is. The away team is then warned that they might
want to get a place to stay before the Red Hour. As they are discussing this the clock strikes
and insanity fills the streets.
 |
| Not so quite |
The
away team can hear glass breaking as rioting breaks out throughout the
city. People all over are smashing
things, lighting things on fire, fornicating in the streets, and raping. To escape this hellish nightmare the away
team enters one of the houses through the front door. There they find three men and Captain Kirk
immediately apologizes for the intrusion but they were trying to escape the
mayhem. One of the three men does not
take their intrusion lightly but he’s not angry at them for entering the
building, he is angry at them because they are not old enough to be excused from the festival. The other two are more calm and try to convince
their friend that these are people from away where things are done
differently. The protesting man doesn’t
want to hear it, “is Landru not everywhere?”
The protesting man leaves claiming he’ll find the lawgivers while the
two remaining more gentle individuals are more hospitable to the Captain and
his team.
 |
| Not of the body then I'll show you! |
The two
men are Reger and Tamar. Reger is the
owner of the place that they are now staying at. When they are alone with the away team these
hosts ask if they are the Archons. There
is a century old prophecy that the Archons will return. Reger goes on to explain that all of Betan
society is under the law of Landru, who is their ruler, and most are part of a
religious cult known as “the Body.” No
one ever sees their ruler except occasionally as a projection but none of have
ever been in his presence. The body is a
very strict form of control and those who are in it are in a mostly docile
state where they’re happy without a care in the world. They are not completely brain numb for they
talk and enjoy each other’s company.
They can even have families and real relationships. Reger himself has a daughter, who was clearly
traumatized from assault during festival.
The festival that occurs during the Red Hour is needed for the younger
members of the Body, to release all the energies that are kept in check while
they’re in their mind numb state.
 |
| Nightmare |
Reger
and Tamar are part of a group of people who are immune to the will of Landru
and are not of the body. They exist in
groups of threes but they have yet to make contact with their third
person. The angry man from earlier
returns with two Lawgivers and one of the Lawgivers kills Tamar. When Captain Kirk refuses to cooperate, the
two Lawgivers don’t know how to handle the rejection and freeze. Reger encourages them to go into hiding. They have to move quickly for the Body is
able to get the entire town to turn against them. They use their phasers to ‘stun’ the crowds
trying to apprehend them. Among the
knocked out Betans is Lt. O’Neil whom the away team carries with them to the
hide out.
In
hiding Reger convinces Captain Kirk to have Dr. McCoy keep Lt. O’Neil knocked
out because since he is “of the body” he could alert Landru of their
location. Spock notices the light that Reger uses comes
from very advanced technology. Reger
explains about 6,000 years ago they had a rather advanced society. They were torn apart by warfare until Landru
took over. He ended the war, he
simplified the technology and he created “the Body” a religious cult that
dominates the planet. Kirk and Spock have a brief discussion about
the Prime Directive but Kirk dismisses this on a technicality.
 |
| Phasers are a nice thing to have |
Reger also tells them of the
Archons who were strangers from the sky who challenged Landru. Landru however was too great a power for the
Archons and he pulled down their ship from the sky. With the realization that Landru can destroy
a starship Kirk calls up to the Enterprise
and Scotty confirms to their horror that there are heat beams coming from the
planet pulling the ship down. If they
aren’t stopped in twelve hours the Enterprise
is doomed. While they are still
planning the image of Landru appears and sonic weapon is used to knock them out.
 |
| Landru |
When Captain Kirk awoke he
discovered that he was in prison with his away team. Dr. McCoy, who had been taken away, was
brought back. Unfortunately he had been “absorbed
into the body” and most of his mind was gone.
McCoy was now speaking only of the will of Landru with peace and
tranquility. It is now time for Kirk and
Spock to be “absorbed.” Fortunately for
them Marplon, the third member of Reger’s group, used his position within the
cult’s organization to prevent them from suffering Dr. McCoy’s fate. Kirk has his new ally take them to the Hall of
Voices. Although they almost lose their
nerve, Marplon and Reger comply. The two free Betans start to panic when they arrive at the Hall.
 |
| Unlikely ally |
In the Hall, Kirk and Spock see the
image of Landru one more time. This causes them to pick up their phasers and blow a hole in the wall exposing Landru as a
machine. Landru retaliates by depowering
their phasers. It is too late however
because now Landru, who has ruled over the people of Beta III for 6,000 years
and pulled the Archon out of the sky,
is now being forced to match wits with against Captain James T. Kirk, the Bane of
All Artificial Intelligence. With Spock
acting as support, Captain Kirk talks the tyrant computer into suicide.
 |
| The true Landru |
With the death of Landru the Enterprise is saved with the crew fully
recovered and the people of Beta III are now free to follow their own destiny. With Federation cultural experts sent to help
out the Enterprise leaves to its next
adventure.
Additional thoughts: In coming up with a title for this review I
thought good one might be “Captain Kirk and Crew Look for Gene Roddenberry’s
College Buddies!” When he was in college
Gene Roddenberry belong to a group called the “Archons.” Jon Lormer as ill-fated Tamar is a step up
from his appearances in “The Cage” and first part of “The Menagerie” where he
was only an illusion.
Lt.
Lindstrom has to be one of the worst Starfleet officers I’ve ever seen. He is supposed to be an expert in alien
societies is one the most ethnocentric characters on the show. Lindstrom continues to ask of Reger about his
daughter even as it was becoming more and more apparent that it was not
appropriate to ask that. He should have
seen the obvious writing on the wall that things were not as they appeared to
be that he doesn’t have the full picture.
Yet here he was being judgmental about everything. Did Captain Kirk leave him behind because he
thought Lindstrom was going to do good job or because Kirk wants to be rid
of him?
The
Prime Directive sticks out its nose and Kirk pops it right on the snout. That type of legal trickery probably would
impress his old lawyer, Samuel T Cogley.
Yes there is a Prime Directive but it only technically applies to
developing societies, if a society is being ruled by computer they clearly are not a
developing society therefore the rule does not apply. It is not the last time that we will see that
excuse being dragged out by our good Captain.
I wish
they could have given us a little more detail about the festival. I assumed, as I stated in the summary, that it is necessary to allow the
machine to keep their emotions in check all the other time. This is never expressly stated however I
think it would’ve been nice if they done so.
The entire society that Landru built was very interesting, sure right
after their own absorption a person is practically a docile robot but that appears to change over time. Reger’s daughter seems
to have a personality even though not a very strong one and they could be hurt
in the festival. Not only hurt but traumatized. It would be interesting to
see how Landru dealt with that in the long term.
In the
end no artificial intelligence no matter how great can match wits against
Captain Kirk. Landru should have, if he
were truly wise, begin his negotiated surrender as soon as Kirk arrived. In some ways is not a fair fight, AI can’t do
much against Starfleet’s most legendary captain.
FINAL GRADE 4 of 5
FINAL GRADE 4 of 5
