THE TV SHOW THAT NEVER WAS

 Episode Title:  Assignment: Earth  

Air Date: 3/29/1968

Written by Gene Roddenberry and Art Wallace

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”        George Takei  as Lieutenant  Hikaru Sulu              Nichelle Nichols as Lieutenant Nyota Uhura          Eddie Paskey as Lieutenant Leslie                 Bill Blackburn as Lieutenant Hadley and Rocket Base Technician    Frank Da Vinci as Lieutenant Brent       Walter Koenig as Ensign Pavel Chekov                 Robert Lansing as Gary Seven          Teri Garr as Roberta Lincoln       Don Keefer as Cromwell        Morgan Jones as Colonel Nesvig               Bruce Mars as First Policeman         Ted Gehring as Second Policeman              Paul Baxley as Security Chief           Barbara Babcock as Beta 5 Computer  and Isis (voice)              Bob Johnson as                 Ground Control (voice)            Edwin Rochelle as  Man With Newspaper April Tatro as Cat Girl

Ships and Space Stations: USS Enterprise NCC-1701

Planets:  Earth

My Spoiler filled summary and review: The Enterprise is in orbit around Earth in year 1968. (Present time when this episode aired.)  They have come back not by accident nor are they on a mission to fix the timeline from damage caused by some reckless time traveler.  No, they are here strictly to do historical research.  Historians of the 23^rd century are curious to how exactly Earth survived the chaotic year of 1968.  (I have to say that is amazing prediction.  Considering this aired at the end of March, Dr. King would be assassinated in less than a week with Bobby Kennedy following a few months later. 1968 was one hell of year in terms of politics, international relations, and social change.) So at these historians behest the Enterprise took a slingshot around the sun to come back to this famous year to see if an up close investigation will allow them to discover how the Earth survived.  Next week they should go back to the library of Alexandria to find out what caused the fire and see if they can preserve some of the ancient text.  

All of a sudden the ship begins to jerk.  It appears they have intercepted a long-range transporter beam that should not even be theoretically possible.  Kirk and Spock head down to the transporter room and witness a man materialize on the pad.  He is dressed in 20^th century clothing and has a cat named Isis.  The man introduces himself as Gary Seven and explains that he is a human from this time who is trained by advanced aliens to aid Earth in its coming crisis.  Kirk for some reason has hard time believing this, and even though he is in the past to get these types of answers, he decides to lock Seven in the brig.  Seven puts a fight and displays immunity to the Vulcan neve pinch but ultimately succumbs to Kirk’s forces.

Kirk not quite sure what to make of Mr. Seven

Kirk is having second thoughts about having Seven locked up.  He tells Spock who is taking care of the cat, that he is unsure about what to do and wants to be certain before making any decisions.  It all turns out to be an academic thought experiment because Seven takes it out of Kirk’s hands by escaping from the brig using a poor man’s psionic screwdriver.  He retrieves his cat and beams down to the surface.

  Now on Earth, Gary Seven proceeds to their headquarters to meet the agents that he is supposed to supervise.  When Seven arrives he doesn’t see his operatives anywhere.  He accesses the Beta 5 computer and identifies himself as Supervisor 194 and asks for the locations of the two agents listed as 201 and 347.  The Beta 5 demands more information to give him security clearance this leads Seven to explain his mission and what he his organization is all about.  He does this to the stratification of the Beta 5 and now the audience is aware of his complete backstory.  A woman named Roberta Lincoln enters and at first Seven thinks she is one of their operatives but it turns out she is not an agent just a secretary the agents hired. In questioning her Seven discovers that she knows absolutely nothing about who her employers actually are.  

Gary Seven and Roberta Lincoln

With the Beta 5 now finally obeying him Seven discovers that his two operatives are both dead from a car accident.  He however will assume their mission and stop the launch of a nuclear satellite warhead.  With someone fake IDs created by the Beta 5 he manages to win over Ms. Lincoln.  She is also very impressed with the typewriter that responds to oral commands. 

Kirk decides to go to the surface looking for Seven.  Kirk chooses to bring Spock with him, which really seems like a poor choice considering they are in the Earth of the past.  You would think Kirk would choose one of the 400 some odd humans on the Enterprise who could probably blend in a little better?  Well Spock does have some experience in Earth’s past from last season.  Spock also explains to Kirk and the audiences about how satellites armed with nuclear warheads were such a danger in this time period.  The transporter records allow them to beam down fairly close to where Gary Seven had gone down to the surface.  They find Seven’s headquarters and barge in.  Lincoln tries to stop them but it doesn’t matter as Seven has made an escape using his own transporter.  Lincoln called in the police forcing Kirk to do some tricks with his own transporter in order to lose them. 

Kirk and Spock looking for answers!

Seven arrives at NASA and almost gets caught by some guards before pulling the wool over their eyes with his gadgets and gets to work on the rocket.  Kirk and Spock also head there but are not as lucky when it comes to not being captured.  Despite being under arrest Kirk manages to get word to Scotty to try to lock on Gary Seven.  While this is going on Lincoln is exploring the office and discovers its secrets and accidently makes their transporter bring Seven back before he was finished.  Seven is angry at Lincoln at first but realizes she prevented the Enterprise from taking him back.

Seven discovers through the Beta 5 that while his work was unfinished he may be able to take control of the rocket due to the adjustments that he did make.  This however scares poor Ms. Lincoln who thinks he is now some foreign agent who is out to harm the United States.   She hits him over the head and takes his weapon.   While this is going on Kirk is able to get Scotty to beam them directly from NASA to Seven’s apartment as the NASA personnel are responding to the rocket seemly gone rogue. 

Attempting to stop a bomb

When they get there they find there is now a serious chance this nuclear weapon will go off over Florida.  Spock doesn’t understand the Beta 5 enough to something about it in time.  Seven begs Kirk to let him help and Kirk reluctantly agrees.  Seven takes the controls and stops the nuke.  History tapes on the Enterprise show that this instance leads to a ban on nuclear weaponry in space. This makes Kirk think that everything that has happened was supposed to.  He wishes Seven and Lincoln luck as the same records show that the two of them will have many interesting adventures together.  For a moment Lincoln looks over at Isis and sees a woman in her place.  When she calls attention to her and the others turn their heads Isis is once again a cat.

Additional thoughts: This was not a Star Trek episode.  It sounds strange to say considering it is Star Trek’s season 2 final, but it isn’t a Star Trek episode.   This is a supposed to be a pilot episode to a new series called “Assignment: Earth.”  In it humans whose ancestors had left Earth with some friendly aliens some 6,000 years ago have returned with a special assignment to help Earth survive its nuclear age.  Gary Seven the main character is one such person.  The character strikes me as a type of Dr. Who-lite and he even has his own psionic screwdriver.  The pilot was rejected and so they decided to re-work it as a Star Trek episode. 

Caught at NASA

The fact that it is a pilot remade into a Star Trek episode is precisely its problem.  The Star Trek characters seemed roughly hammered in.  The crew of the Enterprise does not do anything useful and are entirely pointless to the plot.   If they had not been there Gary Seven would have gone straight to Earth, discovered his agents dead, meet Roberta Lincoln, gone to NASA before being pulled back by Lincoln, almost stopped by Lincoln until he talks her down and allows him to save the day.  Even Kirk’s point at the end about how they were supposed to be here is a poor argument.

Many adventures together just not live action!

Speaking of Kirk he is very poorly written in this episode as he comes off as almost incompetent.  If Assignment Earth was its own TV show and the Star Trek crew was guest staring I don’t think they would have won over any Assignment Earth fans.  First Kirk forgets why he is in the past. He is not on some mission to save the time line by someone who might disrupt it.  He is there to get some answers for 23^rd century historians on how Earth survived the year 1968.  When he meets Gary Seven his only real concern should be confirming he is from this time period.  Once that is confirmed then Kirk should realize whatever Seven is doing he is supposed to be doing it. In fact he now his answer to the historians question: friendly aliens who clearly don’t have a Federation-like prime directive.  The worst part is the end when Kirk tells Seven and Lincoln that he was able to confirm on his ship’s computers that everything was supposed to happen as is and all the adventures that the Seven and Lincoln will have together.  Well if he could do that then what was the whole point locking up Seven?  Kirk should have been able to find out who he was and what he was all about rather quickly.  Next time they should check their records sooner. 

Okay all working together now!

It is interesting that season 2 started with a lady that could turn into a cat in Catspaw and ends with a lady that can turn into a cat here.  Considering the problems the first one gave them we are lucky that I it was only Ms. Lincoln that saw the transformation.

So is she a cat that turns into a lady or a lady that turns into a cat!

So Starfleet has had a reasonable option for time travel for about a year now.  Instead of keeping this a super-secret they are already using it to send ships back to the past for no other point than to just check up on some things for local historians’ curiosity.  Am I the only one who finds that strange?

 FINAL GRADE 2 of 5

TWO CAPTAINS DUKE IT OUT ON A FAKE EARTH!

 

Episode Title:  The Omega Glory

Air Date: 3/1/1968

Written by Gene Roddenberry

Directed by Vincent McEveety

Cast: William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk    Leonard Nimoy as Commander Spock             DeForest Kelley as Dr. Leonard H. McCoy AKA “Bones”              George Takei  as Lieutenant  Hikaru Sulu              Nichelle Nichols as Lieutenant Nyota Uhura          Eddie Paskey as Lieutenant Leslie                 Bill Blackburn as Lieutenant Hadley       Roger Holloway as Lieutenant Lemli                        David L. Ross as Lieutenant Galloway                                      Frank Da Vinci as unnamed security guard                 Ed Fury as unnamed security guard             Morgan Woodward as Captain Ronald Tracey                       Ed McCready as Dr. Carter     Roy Jenson as  Cloud William          Irene Kelly as          Sirah                    Morgan Farley as Yang Scholar            Lloyd Kino as Wu             Frank Atienza as Kohn Villager               Adele Yoshioka as Kohm Servant

Ships: USS Enterprise NCC-1701, USS Exter NCC-1672

Planets:  Omega IV

My Spoiler filled summary and review: The USS Enterprise arrives in the Omega system and goes into orbit around the fourth planet to find their fellow Starfleet vessel and sister ship, USS Exter already there.   The ship isn’t responding to hails and the sensors aren’t picking up life forms aboard.  Since sensors are not always perfect, Captain Kirk decides an investigation is in order.  He forms an away team of himself, Mr. Spock, Dr. McCoy and Lt. Galloway. 

The Enterprise and the Exter

The four men board the ship via the transporter when they fully materialize they begin to look around.  There is no one on board but they do notice all these uniforms lying around with some strange substance in them.  They find all the shuttle craft in shuttle bay and no transporter logs to account for the entire crew’s disappearance.   Dr. McCoy looks into the “abandoned’ uniforms and with his tricorder discovers a horrible and disgusting truth.   That “substance” around and in the uniforms is the crew.  It’s all that’s left of their bodies when all of the water was removed.    They have seen the human reduced like this before but it was under a controlled environment by the Kelvans.  The Kelvans were at least able to restore the humans to their pervious form, providing that the objects the humans were turned into were not damaged.  This however was just plain ugly death.    

The turn on the final log entry from the Exter’s chief medical officer, Dr. Carter, who warns that if anyone is listening to this message is on the ship then they too are infected.  The only hope they might have is if they beam back to the surface as the Captain went down and seems okay.  The Doctor then dies and Kirk glances over and sees the empty medical uniform next to the command chair where he had been sitting.  

Once a CMO no dust

Not needing to be told twice the away team quickly heads down to planet’s surface by transporter.  As they arrive they find themselves in the middle of an execution, Kirk wants to interfere but won’t do to the Prime Directive.  However the whole thing is called off by Captain Tracey himself.  Tracey explains several things to his fellow Starfleet officers.  First he explains that the virus that killed his entire crew is incurable and they can only survive so long as they are on the planet’s atmosphere. 

Captain Tracey shows them around

Tracey then explains the political situation.  There are two groups down here.  The “Kongs,” who resemble humans of East Asian descent, are peaceful, civilized, and welcoming.  The other groups are the “Yangs” who are brutish and savage.  The Yangs cannot be reasoned with.  They also resemble human Caucasians.  As a Caucasian himself, it took a little while to get the Kongs to trust him.  Right now the Kongs are under heavy threat from the Yangs.

 Dr. McCoy uses the equipment sent down from the Enterprise to research their condition.  They have something bad and it reminds McCoy of one of the plague weapons from the 1990s. (So if they went back to Ceti Alpha V Kahn should be able to recognize it.)  Spock however has developed another more pressing concern.  From his interactions with the Kong villagers, Spock has learned that Captain Tracey has been more than friendly.  He is in fact aiding them in their conflict and has gone so far to battle Yangs using his phaser.  As evidence Spock points to an empty phaser battery that Tracey had discarded near an area where Spock and Galloway were attacked by Yangs.  Upon hearing this McCoy tries to defend him as a captain who just lost a crew and had found hospitality amounts these villagers.   Naturally he would want to defend them from harm.  Spock points out that it doesn’t matter and reminds Kirk of his duty. 

One Captain reveled to be a traitor 

Kirk feels conflicted at first about what he must do.  It is a conflict that he doesn’t need to resolve however as Captain Tracey gets the jump on them with a phaser.  Lt. Galloway tries to pull his on phaser quietly but Tracey vaporizes him.  That’s right he doesn’t stun him, he vaporizes him.  Tracey then takes Kirk’s communicator and calls up to the Enterprise to tell Sulu, who is in command because Scotty is clearly on vacation, that their illness has caused the away team to fall unconscious and they don’t want to send anyone else down here for fear of making it worse.

Tracey then tries to recruit Kirk to his cause, apparently forgetting he just killed one of his men right in front of him.  Tracey points out that the guard Wu is over 400 years old, and his still living father is over a thousand.  Tracey said this planet is the key to discovering a super-immunity that can give them a dozen lifetimes.  Kirk pretends to be interested but it is just a ruse to get Tracey to point his phaser away from him.  Kirk attacks him using his amazing fighting skills that are known to be peerless throughout the galaxy.  Actually it turns out he does have a peer, for Tracey also has a similar set of amazing fighting skills. Tracey defeats Kirk.  He places Spock in his own cell and Kirk a cell with a male and female Yang. 

Kirk battling a couple of Yangs!

Kirk gets to practice his fighting skills in his cell as the two Yangs try their best to defeat the Captain.  From his own cell Spock is able to land a quick nerve pinch on the female which allows Kirk to focus on the male and outfight him.  Later the male, who we later learn is named Red Cloud, hears Kirk use the word “freedom” with Spock that he identifies as one of his people’s worship words.  Kirk and Red Cloud bond a little and work together to remove the bars from their decaying cell.  However, Red Cloud betrays Kirk by using a bar to hit Kirk from behind on his head.  Kirk is knocked out and the two Yangs escape.

Getting hit on the head gave Kirk a nice nap about eight hours long.  When he comes to he gets Spock out of his cell and they head for Dr. McCoy.  When they reach McCoy he has quite the tale to tell with his research.  It turns out the true story of USS Exter is the disease that killed her crew could have been avoided all together had her landing party stayed on the planet a few more hours.  The planet’s atmosphere that had exposed them would have run its course and they would have been fine.  They are fine now to go back to the Enterprise.  Also Tracey’s idea of a thousand year life is a delusion.   The life cycle of the people of this planet was extended due to natural evolution.  Tracey’s life expectancy is the same as it ever was.  

Helpful nerve pinch!

Tracey then enters armed with a phaser and looking overwrought.  He explains the Yangs attacked by the tens of thousands and even though he drained multiple phasers it was not enough.  Tracey takes Kirk outside and threatens him demanding that he call his ship for more.  Kirk tries to explain how that is pointless but relents just to demonstrate its pointlessness.  Kirk and Tracey fight again but this time the fight is unresolved as they are both captured by the Yangs.

This is the point we find out we are on a fake Earth it turns out the Yangs are really the Americans with “Yangs” short for “Yankee.”  The Kongs are the Chinese Communists.  They bring in the US flag and try to say the pledge but the way they recite their “holy words” is garbled and Kirk is able to correct them.  As we are about to get our dish of Americana, Tracey being a spoil sport tries to ruin everything by trying to convince the Red Cloud that Spock is the devil.  This almost works but Kirk gets Red Cloud to agree to let him and Tracey fight it out.  As they are fighting Spock uses his telepathic mental powers to make the female Yang, Sirah, to open the Starfleet communicator.  Lt. Sulu beams down with two security guards (interestingly no one seems to think he is a Kong) and takes Tracey into custody.  Kirk explains to Red Cloud and his people more about the “holy words” that are meant for everyone not just a few.     

Additional thoughts: I am really not a fan of Hodgkin's Law of Parallel Planet Development.  I think it just shows a complete lack of imagination.  The crew of the Enterprise should be running to alien civilizations not more Earths.  The one interesting thing about this fake Earth is, unlike the others we have encountered before, this one seems older than us.   In Miri the long lived children were said to be centuries old.  That would mean our worlds probably developed at the exact same time with the only difference being in their 1960s they tried to extend their life and instead caused the zombie apocalypse.  The Roman Earth from Bread and Circuses was an Earth that not only had a Roman Empire but a 20^th century Roman Empire.  This means their Earth was three hundred years behind us.  Yet the Earth that we encounter in this episode had people living on it who were thousands of years old and they all were born after the Great War.  This means out in the galaxy there was another Earth developing their societies exactly like ours but thousands of years ahead of us.  The only difference is with them taking a very different turn in their 1990s.  I guess we can see what became of Earth if Kahn was left unchecked.

One thing this episode screws up is the racial demographics of the participants, which is odd when you consider that Star Trek generally speaking is noted for its diversity.  According to census data at the time the United States was 87% White, 10% Black, 2% Hispanic, Native Americans and Asian Americans were under 1%.  So the “Yangs” instead of being all white should have been mostly white with over ten percent of their number being people of color.  While China may have been the Communist nation with the largest population, Communism got its start in the Soviet Union.  So even if the “Kongs” should be mostly Asian there should be a sizable Slavic minority.   

Captain Tracey won't accept defeat!

So here is what I think the episode is trying to say.  During the Cold War it was not unusual for movie and TV propaganda to try to depict our side as a “good and virtuous side” and the Communists as the evil and vicious side.  A good example would be The Manchurian Candidate. In this episode when we first meet the Kongs they are the civilized, reasonable and productive people; where the Yangs are angry violent savages by comparison.  It isn’t until we meet the Yangs that we discover that they have depth and maybe even a reasonable grudge.  In fact the American audience learns they are us. The episode is trying to challenge the perception of the good guy/bad guy mentality.  We first encounter the Kongs who we see are decent people and start to hate the Yangs for how they threaten them.  When we learn the Yangs are us the episode wants us examine our own prejudices in how we regard certain people as enemies.  That being said, the episode doesn’t live up to its task.

Oh no! Fake Earth time

If any Starfleet captain loses his or her crew it is important to know you can’t ever trust them again.  Captains care for their crews and their sanity surviving them is very unlikely.  First we saw Matt Decker and now Ron Tracey both men of fine reputation whose mind was unable to cope with their loss.  Decker turns into Captain Ahab and Tracey gets obsessed with finding the fountain of youth.  Starfleet needs to establish a regulation that if a captain loses his or her crew that captain must be immediately committed for their safety and that of others.

Kirk explaining what the holy words mean!

              My favorite scene in this episode is when Captain Tracey has Kirk at phaser point and demands he call up to the Enterprise to have them send down more phasers and packs.  Kirk tries to explain that this won’t work but Tracey is beyond reason at this point, so Kirk is like okay and opens his communicator to make the request.  As soon as he makes it to Uhura she immediately calls Sulu over and they are both like WTF!  They try to respectfully explain that such an order doesn’t make any sense, as Kirk predicted they would.  Tracey has moment where he remembered how Starfleet officers actually behave.

When your Captain says something really stupid!

I actually enjoyed this episode.  It starts out interesting with the missing crew, and continue to be so with a captain who was violating the Prime Directive, it is too bad it falls off the rails with the fake Earth nonsense and insensitive racial set up for the Yangss and Kongs.

Holding a relic!

 

FINAL GRADE 4 of 5  

A MACHINE TRIED TO TAKE THE WRONG MAN’S JOB

 

Episode Title:  The Ultimate Computer

Air Date: 3/8/1968

Written by Laurence N. Wolfe and Dorothy C. Fontana

Directed by John Meredyth Lucas

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”        George Takei  as Lieutenant  Hikaru Sulu              Nichelle Nichols as Lieutenant Nyota Uhura          Eddie Paskey as Lieutenant Leslie                 Bill Blackburn as Lieutenant Hadley Roger Holloway as Lieutenant Lemli                        Frank Da Vinci as Lieutenant Brent       Sean Morgan as Ensign Harper       Walter Koenig as Ensign Pavel Chekov                 William Marshall  as Dr. Richard Daystrom         Barry Russo as Commodore Robert Wesley        

Ships and Space Stations: USS Enterprise NCC-1701, USS Lexington NCC-1709, USS Excalibur NCC-1664, USS Hood NCC-1703, USS Potemkin NCC-1657, Starbase 6

Planets:  Alpha Carinae II

My Spoiler filled summary and review: The USS Enterprise is arriving at Starbase 6.  Kirk feels the orders he received were rather strange and wants an explanation but the only message he gets from the Starbase is telling him to head down to his own transporter room for instructions.   Kirk complies going to the transporter room with Mr. Spock accompanying him.  When they arrive they find that Commodore Bob Wesley has beamed aboard.  Wesley says that they are all here to participate in wargames.

Commodore arrives on the Enterprise 

Commodore Wesley explains that Richard Daystrom, the famed scientist who had invented the duotronic computers which became the foundation of modern computers systems throughout the Federation including the systems on board the Enterprise, has a new invention.  The new invention is called the M-5 computer.  This new system can carry out the functions of a starship more effectively than a crew can.  This will make Starfleet officers and enlisted personnel no longer needed.  In other words it is here to steal their jobs.  To prove its efficiency Starfleet has arranged wargames in which Commodore Wesley will lead a squadron of starships against the Enterprise run by only the M-5 computer with twenty crew members assisting it.  

This machine will replace you!

Kirk can’t believe that a Federation starship would be able to run with only twenty crew members but he is set to meet Dr. Daystrom himself in the ship’s engineering section.  After giving Scotty the approval to allow Daystrom to took hood up the M-5 to the main engine, the two discuss the future of Starfleet.  Daystrom tells Kirk the purpose is to steal his job, for he doesn’t believe men should have to die in space.  He thinks all of Kirk’s concerns are just based on his fear of losing the prestige of being a starship captain.   This comment shakes Kirk up a bit to the point he consults Dr. McCoy who tells him to get over it.

The first test is arranging an exploration of a planet.  They go over to the planet Alpha Carinae II that they were scheduled to visit.   Kirk makes a landing party list and compares to the list that the M-5 generated.  There some minor differences such as deciding which geologist to assign, but there was also a major difference in that Captain Kirk and Dr. McCoy weren’t included in the landing party for they were “unessential personnel.”  Kirk’s pride is hurt but more concerning the M-5 seems to be shutting down areas of the ship for no apparent reason.   Daystrom claims the reason is M-5 knows that with only twenty people aboard life support on empty decks makes no sense.

Kirk has no time to think this over because it is now time for the battle simulation.  Commodore Wesley leads his squadron against the Enterprise. With the M-5 in charge the Enterprise makes short work her four sister ships.  Wesley, shocked at their clear and quick defeat, has the Lexington communicate with the Enterprise.  In his message he congratulates the M-5 and “Captain Dunsel.” With this Kirk looks very hurt and walks off the bridge.  When McCoy asks Mr. Spock what that means Spock responds by telling him it is the phrase Starfleet Academy Midshipmen use to describe something that was useless.  With that in mind the two both decide that the each to give Kirk a pep talk to get him out of his funk for losing his job to a computer.

 During McCoy’s pep talk to Kirk he points out something strange he found on Daystrom’s psyche profile.  Daystrom invented his award winning duotronic computers at the age of 24.  Since then he hasn’t had any award winning breakthroughs and now he is middle aged.  He attends conferences and is often a guest and honor due to his past success.  McCoy thinks he came up with the M-5 to relive his past glories.  Kirk doesn’t think this is very reasonable for brilliance doesn’t work on a schedule.  They don’t get to finish their conversation as the Enterprise comes across an automated cargo vessel.  The M-5 destroys it because it came to view that ship as a threat. 

More trouble than its worth!

Kirk orders the M-5 shut down.  However the controls are not responding.  Now with a real emergency on their hands Kirk demands an explanation from Daystrom.  Daystrom tries to explain that the M-5 viewed the other ship as a threat that and it was just a minor malfunction.  Kirk demands that he shut the machine down.   They head to engineering with Mr. Scott and Ensign Harper try to disconnect it manually.  The M-5 responds by killing Ensign Harper.  Daystrom is still making excuses for the machine.  Spock and Scotty try another way to disengage it only to find out the M-5 had already rerouted and had tricked them into thinking their disconnection method would be effective.

Daystrom tries to reason with the M-5 talking to it like one would a child.  The bridge crew then learns the secret of the M-5.  One critique of computers is they have no humanity so Daystrom decided to scan a human mind into the M-5’s system and he confesses to have used his own mind.  Daystrom keeps trying to appeal to their shared values to no avail.  As the Starfleet Squadron returns M-5 has the Enterprise attack with full force.  The Excalibur is severally damaged with life support failing.  The life support completes its failure resulting in the death of the entire crew.  

With Daystrom not being helpful and still protective of the M-5 Spock is forced to nerve pinch him to get the scientist of the bridge.  Then Kirk, the Bane of All Artificial Intelligence, shows the universe that M-5 chose the wrong Captain to try to put out of work.   Appealing to the Daystrom-programed morals Kirk convinces the M-5 that it is a murder and deserves to be executed.  The M-5 is successfully talked into suicide and shuts itself down.  Kirk has Scotty disconnect the system but he is informed that communications is not yet up.  They do have shields but instead of raising them Kirk orders them to cut all power and be dead in the water.  This is the space ship equivalent to an animal lying on its back and exposing its belly.  However there is a danger that the squadron might see this as a trick, like Kirk did to the Romulans in The Balance of Terror, and attack on full.  Kirk decides it is a worthy sacrifice to make in order to save the life of the squadron.    Commodore Wesley gambles that this isn’t a tick and calls off the attack.

That poor redshirt didn't even get to leave the ship!

The end of the episode has Kirk and Spock reflecting that Wesley, following conventional tactics, should have destroyed them.  Kirk pointed out that he know what type of man Bob Wesley is and choose to have faith in his humanity.  In the end that is something that you cannot do with a machine. 

When your ship's destroying everything and there is nothing you can do!

Additional thoughts: Although outsourcing and immigration have often been convenient political targets to explain the loss of jobs, the truth of the matter is the number one killer of human jobs is automation.  Every year more and more jobs disappear due to machines taking over.  Bank teller jobs have never reached what they were once the ATM was invented, the E-Z pass system has eliminated the need for toll booth operators, and many more examples can be seen through society.  One can only imagine what will happen once automated cars and trucks become a thing of the future.  It has gotten to the point that industrialists such as Bill Gates and Warren Buffett have even suggested that in the future it may be necessary for the U.S. government to actually provide direct income to American citizens.  That thought goes against our American nature but maybe where we are heading.

In our literature and other fiction we have had man vs. machine stories aimed with humans prevailing as the heroes.   Some examples include John Henry vs. the steam powered steel driving machine, the horse that raced the train, and in Star Trek James T. Kirk vs. the M-5.   The movie War Games taught us that we always want a human hand at the control of any doomsday device, no matter how inefficient.  

The Enterprise vs. the Squadron 

When talking the M-5 into killing itself Kirk asks it “what is the penalty for murder?”  Kirk is lucky the M-5 didn’t take that too literally.  Last I checked violating General Order 4 was the only death penalty left on the books. If the M-5 thought hard enough it wouldn’t have committed suicide. 

Also someone needs to explain to Dr. Daystrom if we wanted to live our lives ruled by intelligent and benevolent machines then Kirk and crew would have just allowed the androids from planet Mudd to take over earlier this year.  Not only could they think at the same level as the M-5 and provide the same protection, they also had the added benefit of being beautiful and you could fornicate with them.  Just ask Ensign Chekov.    

It is all about finding the right type of A.I.

Since the series is about a single Starfleet vessel it always a treat when we get to see other Starfleet ships.  This episode spoils us with a squadron of starships.  All of them are Constitution-class.  It would have been nice I think if they had included some other classes of starship, but it was a sixties TV budget.  However, I will add the modern remastered effects make the whole thing look rather beautiful. 

I really liked the character of Commodore Wesley, and I wish they explored his relationship with Captain Kirk a little more.  They seem to know each other well.  Did Kirk once serve under him?  He has a higher rank and he is older than Kirk so it’s very possible they once served on ship together when Wesley was one of the ship senior officer’s and Kirk one of the junior officers.  I would have liked it better if they said that Kirk had once been Wesley’s first officer.  That would explain why the two men seemed to know how the others mind worked.  Also why does he have such a big Captain’s chair? I know the real reason, but what is the story reason?  Is because he is a commodore or is it that standard chair for those Constitution-classes built after the Enterprise?  

FINAL GRADE  5 of 5

THE SMARTEST STUPID PERSON IN THE UNIVERSE

 

Episode Title:  Patterns of Force

Air Date: 2/16/1968

Written by John Meredyth Lucas

Directed by Vincent McEveety

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                 Bill Blackburn as Lieutenant Hadley           Walter Koenig as Ensign Pavel Chekov                Richard Evans as Isak             Eddie Paskey as Trooper                   Frank Da Vinci as Soldier at Party              Roger Holloway as Soldier at Party                       Valora Noland as Daras               Jeannie Malone as Blonde in Audience          Skip Homeier as Melakon                       David Brian as John Gill                 Patrick Horgan as Eneg            William Wintersole as Abrom             Gilbert Green as S.S. Major               Lev Mailer as S.S. Lieutenant             Ed McCready as S.S. Trooper          Peter Canon as Gestapo Lieutenant         Paul Baxley as First Trooper         Chuck Courtney as Davod        Bart La Rue as Newscaster         Benjie Bancroft as.          Soldier at Party       Sean Morgan               as Second Trooper        Joe Paz as S A Brigadier     Basil Poledouris as Trooper       Robert Strong as Soldier at Party

Ships: USS Enterprise NCC-1701

Planets:  Ekos and Zeon

My Spoiler filled summary and review: The Enterprise is on a mission to the planet Ekos looking for a lost Federation official named John Gill.  Ekos is in a system with another planet named Zeon.  Both planets have humanoid populations but Zeon is the more technologically and culturally advanced of the two having achieved both space flight and planetary unified government.  Ekos however has been fractured into small warring states for a number of years.  John Gill was sent there as an observer.  Gill himself is a professional and accomplished historian.  He was Captain Kirk’s history professor at Starfleet Academy.  Spock didn’t take his class but had read his publications and was impressed with his analysis. Spock especially liked Gill’s interpretation of history through causes and motivations rather than dates and events.   

Travel the universe and still run into Nazis!

Suddenly the Enterprise is attacked with an interplanetary missile with an armed nuclear warhead launched from Ekos.  They manage to destroy with ease but that raises another concern as Ekos were centuries away from such technology at last report.  Kirk decides to that he and Spock will have to investigate directly.  Kirk doesn’t want the Enterprise to stick around in orbit too long.  So he has Scotty drop them off and then come pick them up at a set time.  To insure and immediate extraction Kirk has Dr. McCoy place emergency transponders under their skin. 

Not so good at playing Nazi

Kirk and Spock beam down wearing civilian clothing that their records say match the local population.  When they get there they find a young man being chased by a squad of SS Nazis.  Wearing uniforms that seem to have come straight out of the 1930s or 40s, the squad beats up the poor man and drags him away.  Kirk wanted to interfere but their code of non-interference.  Thinking about this Kirk asks Spock about what are the odds that another culture could have developed an ideology identical to the Nazi party of Earth.  Spock says it’s impossible and I have lot more to say about that in the additional comments section because I don’t want to rant here.

Let's play the game who can get whipped the longest and not cry!

Kirk and Spock then come across a public broadcast.  In the broadcast they learn that the Nazis have managed to dominate the entire planet, which actually makes them much more successful than the Earth Nazis. Their target however in place of Jews and other minorities is the people of the planet Zeon.  They are trying to find every Zeonian living on Ekos and eliminate them before launching and interplanetary attack.  Kirk and Spock also learn of a new hero of the fatherland, a woman by the name of Daras.  Kirk reacts with some amusement when the broadcaster refers to the Enterprise as invader who was “ultimately destroyed.”  Lastly, they learn that John Gill is the Führer.  That last part is the most shocking of them all.  Kirk thought Gill was one of the gentlest people he had ever known. 

They decide they need to confront Gill, the two beat up some Nazis and steal their uniforms.  After leaving the two Nazis beaten and naked, Kirk and Spock head to Nazi headquarters. However they are caught immediately when Spock is forced to remove his helmet and expose his ears.  Next we see Kirk and Spock taking a whipping in the Nazi prison.  After the two Starfleet officers are put in a cell.  They find the Zeonian from earlier who the Nazis had captured.  His name is Isak and from him they learn that his people had sending over groups to Ekos to help them become more civilized and develop their planet.   While they received some support from the locals this also triggered the rise of the Nazi Party.  Kirk and Spock dig out their tracers and use the crystals inside to build a make-shift laser.  They beat up and steal the uniform of another Nazi and use the stolen uniform and some pick pocketing skills to get access to their lab where they are holding their communicators.  They find the communicators in pieces but take them anyway. 

Isak takes them to the Underground a place where the Resistance hides from the Nazis.  They are introduced to Abrom, their leader, and he is skeptical but trusts Isak’s recommendation.  Isak also learns that his wife has been killed brutally by the SS.  Later, it looks like they are discovered but it turns out Daras, the woman from the newsreel is actually a resistance spy.  She had been rewarded for exposing her father as a traitor to the party.  It was his idea so she could get into a trusted position.  Kirk revels to the Resistance that he and Spock are from another world, in fact a Federation of Planets, and the Führer is one of their people gone rogue. 

As a hero of the Fatherland, Daras is invited to party headquarters for the announcement of the Final Solution to the Zeonian problem.  As they sneak into the party they are able to get a glace of Gill, who was behind a secure bunker and he looked out of it.  The speech he was giving on camera seemed to be dubbed over.  Now once again in communication with the Enterprise, Kirk has Lt. Uhura send down Dr. McCoy dressed as a Nazi military physician.  After almost nearly getting caught, and especially odd that they didn’t considering they met the Chairman while they were imprisoned, Kirk gets his team into the same room with Jon Gill. When he is revived Kirk is able to confront him about what he had down.  Gill explained that the world was tearing itself apart and he felt that National Socialism was the answer so long as the racist and genocidal elements were removed.  He claimed the Nazi was the most efficient state Earth ever knew.  Spock clarifies his arguments for Kirk.  However it seems Gill was very wrong and that this type of government naturally generates hatred.    Deputy Führer Melakon is now the real power.  He seized control, drugged Gill to use a figurehead, and is waging the war on the people of Zeon. 

Escape with homemade lasers

As he recovers Gill gets on the radio again, to tell them that they have all been betrayed, ends the war, and recalls their space fleet.  A gun fight then ensues and the Führer and Deputy Führer are both killed.  It turns out the Chairman of the Party was also a Resistance spy with the two major leaders dead, he and Daras feel that they can lead their planet and Zeon back to peace.  Kirk and Spock are both hopeful that the two planets will one day join the Federation together.

I can play Nazi and pick pocket

Additional thoughts: Back when I was eleven in 1992 my cousin Tim who was about fifteen explained the concept of a “really smart dumb person” to me.  The example Tim gave was kid he went to school with who generally got good grades and was regarded by his teachers as rather smart.  “But,” he said, “if he were given a basketball that had the autographs of every member of the Dream Team on it, he would go out and try to play basketball with it.”

In response to the horror in my eleven year old mind of someone carelessly abusing such a precious object I asked him what he would do.  Tim answered “Simple, I would have him pass me the ball and then I would run away with it.  He is so dumb he wouldn’t understand what had just happened.  He would just figure that without his basketball he couldn’t play basketball anymore so he would just go home and do his homework.” 

Later I would learn the phrase “people smarts” or “street smarts.” It appears John Gill was deprived of those traits.  He might have been good as a historian but like my cousin’s classmate he was a really smart dumb person.  I mean who goes to a planet whose native inhabitants are ravaged by war and thinks “You know what this chaotic planet needs? Nazism, and lots of it!”   Even if you thought that there could be a begin sort of fascism that may create order from chaos, why didn’t you make up your own symbols, salutes, and all the rest?   He could do something like the Wave Experiment for example.  No, he decides what he must do is plagiarize the entire Third Reich.  You get the impression that Gill must have been thinking about this for quite some time. 

Not really a Nazi

The funny thing is fascism once had its defenders and admires even in the United States.  Joseph Kennedy is a famous example.  However this was before its true nature became exposed to the entire world.  Gill has knowledge looking back at the Nazis that is centuries old to say he should have known better is the understatement of the millennium.

 There are also some holes in the narrative.  Primarily how long was Gill there for?  In the beginning they state that Kirk had studied under him at the Academy and that he has been out of contact for months.  Now granted how long he was out of contact is not necessarily an indication of how long he was there, however given everyone actions it seems like he had been there for only a short time.  Until we actually get to Ekos.  Daras states that she grew up admiring him this would indicate that he had been there her whole life, and no one in the Federation was aware of his activities. 

A meeting of real Nazis and fake Nazis

Gill had to be there long enough to come to the conclusion the planet was helpless on its own, form a Nazi party, take over one of the states, conqueror the rest of the planet, then get overthrown and drugged by the Deputy Führer.  I think he would have to have been there for at least a decade and a half.  He must have left right after teaching Kirk’s class.

Asleep at the wheel

There are also problems with in the metaphors.  In this the people from the planet Zeon are more advanced and had been coming to Ekos to try and help them catch up.  The Ekosians see them as interfering outsiders, and despite their benevolence that is not entirely wrong even with the Nazi reaction definitely being wrong.   In real life the Jewish community had been living amongst the gentiles of Europe for almost two thousand years.  Some victims of the Holocaust had been war heroes for Germany in World War I, despite the Nazi demand to drive them out the truth was they were a part of these European communities not apart from them. 

You feel as if the average human "people smarts" IQ went up five points!

I am glad in this episode we got to see the effects of contamination like in A Piece of the Action, as opposed to the tired troupe of Hodgkin's Law of Parallel Planetary Development.  Although I was sort of taken back when Kirk asks Spock what the chances of a parallel world forming a Nazi party with the same symbols and set of beliefs as Earth’s Nazis, Spock’s response was to tell the Captain it was all but impossible.  At which point Kirk should have responded with, “Are you sure, Mr. Spock?  Didn’t we come across a 20^th century type Roman Empire just a few months ago?  What about that planet last year with the immortal kids that looked like Earth from the 1960s?  Impossible? We run into this stuff all the time?”  It would have been better if Spock just quoted a number.

FINAL GRADE 3 of 5