ALIENS WHO TRY TO BE HUMAN FALL DOWN

 

Episode Title:  By Any Other Name

Air Date: 2/23/1968

Written by Jerome Bixby and Dorothy C. Fontana

Directed by Marc Daniels

Cast: William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk    Leonard Nimoy as Commander Spock             DeForest Kelley as Dr. Leonard H. McCoy AKA “Bones”              James Doohan  as Lieutenant Commander Montgomery Scott AKA “Scotty”        Nichelle Nichols as Lieutenant Nyota Uhura                 Carl Byrd as Lieutenant Shea                     Eddie Paskey as Lieutenant  Leslie                 Frank Da Vinci as Lieutenant Brent       Bill Blackburn as Lieutenant Hadley           Roger Holloway as Lieutenant Lemli                Majel Barrett as Nurse Christine Chapel      Walter Koenig as Ensign Pavel Chekov                Julie Cobb as Yeoman Third Class Leslie Thompson          Warren Stevens as Rojan                       Barbara Bouchet as Kelinda                  Stewart Moss as Hanar            Robert Fortier as Tomar             Lezlie Dalton as Drea               

Ships: USS Enterprise NCC-1701

Planets:  unnamed and uncharted planet

My Spoiler filled summary and review: The Enterprise answers a distress call on an unnamed and uncharted planet.  When they get there the landing party, consisting of Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Lt. Shea, and Yeoman Thompson, have a hard time finding any survivors or a ship at all.  Then out of nowhere arrive a man and a woman who we learn are named Rojan and Kelinda.  Rojan is the leader of his group, and he thanks Captain Kirk for responding to their distress single so promptly.  With the same breath he then demands that the Captain surrender his ship to him immediately.  His directness makes Kirk think for a moment that the man is joking.  Then Rojan presses a button on a device he has which causes the entire landing party to freeze in place.

Rojan and Kelinda

Having disarmed the landing party, Rojan unfreezes them and explains that he and his crew are Kelvans.  They come from an empire that rules the Andromeda Galaxy.  It turns out that rising radiation in that galaxy will render it unable to support life.  However even though they can’t stop it, the rising radiation is happening slowly enough to make some plans.  So they sent a multi-generational scout ship on a mission to our galaxy to evaluate for conquest.  Kirk tries to offer the Federation’s help but Rojan dismisses this out of hand as, like the Greyjoys, they do not sow.  Kelvans are conquerors and if they need a new home they will conqueror for it.  However their ship was destroyed when they entered the Milky Way and passed through the barrier.  That is something Kirk understands since he had been there before.  With that the Rojan sends the rest of his people up to the ship via their own transporters that are clearly superior to the Federation as they are instantaneous.  The Kelvans quickly conquer the Enterprise with their freezing technology.

Wearing red on away mission

Despite being a generational ship they are able to get from one galaxy to another within centuries as opposed to millennia that it would take a Starfleet vessel to do so.  The Kelvans plan to modify the Enterprise with their technology to make the return trip on their planed schedule. This takes a bit of time so they hold the landing party hostage on the planet to insure the crew’s corporation.  As they are preparing for takeoff, two of the Kelvans note the strange sensations that they have in these human forms in a statement full of unabashed foreshadowing.

Vulcans are normally touch-telepaths but Kirk remembers on an earlier mission where they decided to blatantly violate the Prime Directive, Spock was able to use his abilities at a distance.  Spock attempts it again here and despite some blow back this works and the landing party gets out of their cave-like cell.  Only to be caught and frozen in place again.  The Kelvans are not happy about this and decided that punishment is in order.  They separate Thompson and Shae from the rest of the landing party because they are wearing red or it has something to do with them not having necessary skills, I forget.  Then using another button on his device he transforms the two dressed in red to from flesh and blood humans into a distilled cuboctahedron shaped form the size of a softball. 

Rojan explains to Captain Kirk that these cuboctahedron objects are his crew members and they are still alive in this state.  Then he crushes one of them and explains that this person is now dead.  Then he restores the remaining one to human form and it is Lt. Shae.  Yeoman Thompson is dead.

With the loss of one Yeoman instead of creating compliance among the Starfleet crew it just increases the urgency to do something.  They decided to get McCoy and Spock back to the ship by having Spock fake an illness.  This works but it’s pointless because the Kelvans have finished their work and Rojan brings the rest of the landing party up anyway.

A strange way to kill a person!

Spock and Scotty try to get at the source of the Kelvans technological power but when the find it in engineering they discover that the metal surrounding it makes it impossible for them to do anything. The last resort Spock and Scotty can come up with is a way to rig the Enterprise to explode the moment its hits the galactic barrier killing the entire crew and their captors.  Kirk rejects the suicide option. There is a dramatic-not-dramatic moment as head to the barrier of will he or won’t he.  However since this is an ongoing television show we were all aware that the crew the Enterprise was going to survive.   We later found out Rojan knew about and had the means to stop the suicide mission so it’s moot point.

 Now that they are out of the Milky Way the Kelvans don’t need most of the crew so Rojan and company turned all but Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and Scotty into distilled cuboctahedron balls.  So it looks like our crew is defeated fated to live out their lives as slaves to the Kelvans or as neat looking paperweights.  Or are they?  At that moment one of the Kelvans, a man named Tomar, challenges the four officers to explain why they eat actually food where pill supplements would work fine.  McCoy challenges him to try actual food and Tomar takes him up on his offer.  He orders from the processor and the four men are amazed that he practically gorges his food.  Spock notes that when his mind connect with Kelinda he learned that their natural forms were nothing like humanoid species and they have no experience with human like emotions and senses.  This will be their opening.

You don't want to challenge this Scotsman to drink!

Just keep taking this.

Each officer takes a Kelvan and has a mission to get their control device.  Scotty invites Tomar for a drink, in fact for several drinks.  They go back to Scotty’s quarters for some binge drinking.  McCoy gets the Kelvan Hanar to accept injections of stimulants because he maybe malnourished but all it the drugs will do is make him irritable.  Kirk decides to seduce Kelinda, which seems to be rejected at first but it turns out she likes the way he “apologizes.” This allows Mr. Spock to provoke the emotion of jealousy in Rojan by bringing up the subject of Kelinda and Kirk during a game of chess.   Rojan pretends to be unaffected but later he forbids Kelinda from seeing Kirk and that is something that Kelinda refuses to do.  

Kirk putting the moves on Kelinda

The plan works and doesn’t. They never get the devices from the Kelvans.  Scotty almost did, but after clearing out his liquor cabinet including this weird green stuff and 200-year old scotch, it causes both men to pass out.  However it is working in other ways.  Hanar can’t focus, Kelinda is chasing after Kirk for some more of that “apologizing,” and Rojan is chasing after Kelinda afraid he will lose her to Kirk.  After getting in a fight with Kirk (which is a mistake considering Kirk is greatest fighter in the known universe) and getting pinned in the process Kirk makes Rojan understand something: that in taking human form they have become human and by the time they get back to their own galaxy their descendants will be a crew of humans.  Kirk reoffers the Federation’s assistance. Rojan accepts their help.  He and his crew will colonize that world they were on and an unmanned vessel will be sent to Kelva with the Federation’s offer of assistance.  Kelinda now wants to “apologize” with Rojan now.  A happy ending for all involved except for Yeoman Thompson. 

Spock winning in chess and in life!

  

Additional thoughts: Since the Kelvans ended the episode agreeing to be friends shouldn’t the Enterprise have kept the great upgrades that the Kelvans added to their ship?  Alter all, as explorers, wouldn’t they want their ship to be able to go as fast as possible?   In my head canon I came to the conclusion that long term use of Kelvan technology was ultimately unstable and would cause warp cores to explode if kept.  They didn’t mention this is the episode because it would have killed the drama to realize the Kelvans never really could win.  This is just as well because despite the speed how good could their ships have really been?  They couldn’t go through the galactic barrier without suffering from damage beyond all possibility of repair.  The Enterprise has now made multiple trips.

Apologizing 

So I guess there were no ESPERs on the ship this time?  Last time Gary Mitchel and Elizabeth Dehner got all silver eyed and developed god-like powers.  That would have been some major shock to the Kelvans who always believe the superior should conqueror.  “Well who is inferior now?  You think you’re going to turn me into weird shaped object I am going to turn you into pea!  Then I’ll send you back to the Andromeda Galaxy to show your people what happened.”  If only we weren’t limited to an hour in each episode.

Surprise Kelvans! Just what happens when some humans go through the barrier!

Shouldn’t they do something for the crew that was transformed into cuboctahedrons instead of leaving them in their chairs and on the floor?  Leaving them there seems to invite a possible accident with someone carelessly stepping or sitting on them.  I would have placed them all in the unused beds. What did that feel like to be turned into one of those things?  I wish they had explored that a bit.  Perhaps had another scene with Shea begging not turned into one again or violently charging them instead of standing still?

It is one of those episodes with a diplomatic feel good ending.  Unless you are the family of Yeoman Thompson, then you are rather sad.  It will also become really awkward when Rojan is told apologize and he tries just like Kelinda showed him.

FINAL  GRADE  4 of 5