SPOCK’S LOVE POEM

 

Name: Star Trek: The New Voyages – Story 9 “Sonnet from the Vulcan: Omicron Ceti III”

Author: Shirley Meech  

Publication Date: 3/1976

Publisher: Bantam Books

Page Number: 1

Historian’s Note: Sometime during the episode “This Side of Paradise”   

Cast of Characters:  Lieutenant Commander Spock              Leila Kalomi      

Starships and/or Starbases: none

Planets: Earth, Omicron Ceti III

My Spoiler filled summary and review: This section is just a single poem that follows:

I thought the memory of you was gone----

I thought it buried underneath the years.

But now, it rises, bright as Vulcan dawn,

And I remember you, and Earth, and tears.

 

Your tears were falling like the rains of Earth;

You were the storms and roses of Earth's spring.

You could not know that, almost from my birth

The rites of Vulcan bound me to T'Pring.

 

I could not break those ties; I had no choice---

Returned to space, left you and Earth behind.

But still I heard the echo of your voice,

Found the rain and wind and roses in my mind.

 

You told me that you loved me, and you cried.

I said I had no feelings. And I lied.

Additional thoughts: There is something that I need to confess right away.  I am both poetry deaf and dance blind. If I watch a “poetry jam” or a dance competition, I cannot tell you why one poem or dance is better than the other.  I can be moved by words and impressed with feats of well-choreographed athleticism, but I cannot distinguish what makes one performance better or more moving than another.   So, I won’t be commenting on stanzas or structure but I will comment just on the Star Trek content alone.

                So on to the Star Trek content.  This poem clearly takes place during the episode “This Side of Paradise.” It deals with Spock’s reaction to seeing Leila Kalomi for the first time since they broke up back on Earth.  Now the poem does not make any mention of the main part of the story, that Leila and her colony were infected with parasitic spores that killed all their ambition and made them want to stay on the planet and never do anything. Spock and most the crew were infected as well until Captain Kirk found a cure by making anyone effected mad, thereby killing the parasite. No, this is just about the romance both old and new.

Leila, the girl who Mr. Spock feel in love

                Since this is also written years after the series the poem has some hindsight and is able to include later Star Trek lore to explore the romance.  It directly confronts the fact that Spock’s relationship with Leila means that he was cheating on T’Pring!  Now this episode was written in the first season where “Amok Time” is written in the second.  Thus, we see an earlier example of the trouble with retcons.  When Jerry Sohl and Dorothy C. Fontana sat down to write this episode T’Pring, as a character did not exist.  When Theodore Sturgeon wrote “Amok Time” he, perhaps unintentionally, cast some unexpected shade onto the earlier story.  So, in the poem deals with Spock’s unseen conflict between duty with his intended or seeking the love of his life.

T'Pring and her Man-friend

                The last lines of the poem deal with Spock telling Leila that he has no feelings, which as the poem notes is a lie.  Vulcans have feelings they just control them.  As I explained before Spock identifies and wants to be seen as a Vulcan, and he associates with humans because they make him feel validated and seen to be Vulcan.  His fellow Vulcans always make reference to his human side that causes Spock embarrassment.  Now while on Earth he falls for a human.  It happened to his own full Vulcan father, that is why he exists, so falling for a human doesn’t make him any less Vulcan.  However, for him to be in a relationship with a human to the point he set aside his own Vulcan intended, would almost be as if he stood out in the middle of the Vulcan Science Council and publicly renounced his Vulcanhood. He can’t leave T’Pring for Leila because he would forever forfeit the recognition he desires from his own people. 

Tormented since a child!

                Now I have always hated T’Pring due to her actions in “Amok Time.” When the two episodes are forced to be compared together her actions can be seen in a different light.  She may have cheated on Spock with Stonn, but Spock had hardly been faithful to her.  I will point out I still think lowly of T’Pring.  Not because of the cheating, but what she did in regards to Spock and Kirk.  Spock may have faults but he didn’t try to put T’Pring in a situation where she was either forced to kill her best friend or die. Between the two of them Spock took the high ground and proved to be the better person, however when the other person is T’Pring being the better person isn’t hard.

Made to fight to the death, the Captain loses but he gets better!

Should it be canon: I actually don’t see any part of it that isn’t already canon.

Cover Art: What I said in the review of the first story: 

“The cover is beautiful.  You have the Enterprise flying in all its glory in the bottom center of the image.  Behind it looks like a space station built on an asteroid.  Flying above in the opposite direction is an unknown starship whose design I don’t recognize.”  

Final Grade: Final Grade 4 of 5

INSANE CAPTAIN KIRK TRAPPED IN THE PAST DOESN’T RUIN THE TIMELINE

 

Name: Star Trek: The New Voyages – Story 8 “Mind Sifter”

Author: Shirley S. Maiewski, with an introduction by William Shatner  

Publication Date: 3/1976

Publisher: Bantam Books

Page Number: 58

Historian’s Note: Sometime after The Second Season of the Animated Series   

Cast of Characters:  Captain James T. Kirk         Commander Spock              Dr. Leonard H. McCoy AKA “Bones”              Lieutenant Commander Montgomery Scott AKA “Scotty”        Lieutenant  Hikaru Sulu              Lieutenant Nyota Uhura          Lieutenant Kyle         Nurse Christine Chapel          Ensign Pavel Chekov      Nurse Jan Hamlin                 Dr. Thomas Wright       Orderlies Frank and Fred      

Starships and/or Starbases: USS Enterprise NCC-1701, Starbase 11

Planets: Earth, Guardian’s unnamed homeworld

My Spoiler filled summary and review: The story begins in a medical hospital in the 20^th century.  It is told through the view of a nurse named Jan Hamlin.  Hamlin is a good person in a bad system, where most the orderlies are low paid workers who can’t get jobs anywhere else and often abuse patients for kicks.  To her patients Hamlin is a safe port in a terrible storm.  It becomes apparent to the reader that the main patient that has captured her attention is none other than Captain James T. Kirk, who is some how trapped in the past.  In the 23^rd century Captain Kirk is missing and no one knows what happened to him.  He was enjoying some shore leave and then he vanished without a trace.   After a week goes by Starfleet is ready to declare him MIA and appoint a new Captain of the Enterprise.  To the shock of most the crew Spock accepts the commission and takes command.  

                Time goes on in both stories.  Trapped in the past insane Captain Kirk with the help of Hamlin starts to recover although he does have set backs at times.  On the Enterprise, life goes on under Spock’s command and the crew gets use to not having Captain Kirk.  Three-fourths of the way through the story we get the background.  While on shore leave, Kirk is kidnapped by Klingons, working for Kor, who spiked his drink.  While in their custody Kor demand information from him or they will use the dreaded mind sifter.  Kirk won’t give in so the mind sifter is applied.  Kirk’s pain is so great that Spock becomes aware, telepathically, the exact moments the Captain is being tortured.  This is similar to his feeling the deaths of hundreds of Vulcans in “The Immunity Syndrome.” However since “telepathic feelings aren’t evidence” Spock remains silent.  The result of the mind sifter the Klingons make so that any mention of his surname or his rank will cause his mind to burn with painful images and feelings, causing his mind to break. 

Spock can sense Kirk's pain

                After Captain Kirk is broken the Klingons pry him for information.  Thorough him they learn of the Guardian of Forever.  They take the Captain to the Guardian planet but in his confused mental state he freaks out and tries to find Edith Keeler.  Still having the ability to use supreme fighting skills that are unequaled in the galaxy, Kirk escapes the Klingons and dives into the Guardian and travels to the Earth of the 1950s.  With good fortune he doesn’t harm the time line McCoy-style instead he ends up in a mental hospital in the care of Jan Hamlin.    

Kor gets his chance to break Kirk's mind

                Kirk is getting better each day.  Hamlin gets him to talk and explore as much of his past as he can remember. He discusses “shore leave,” “the ship”, and one thing she doesn’t understand such as “Omicron Ceti III with its deadly Berthold rays.”  She comes to the conclusion that he is a former officer in the United States Navy.  After seeing Kirk’s confidence restored when she brought in his Starfleet uniform, she convinces Dr Wright, the head of the hospital, to take out a missing persons ad in the papers.  After they take the pictures for the ad, Kirk remembers his name and that once again sends him into a universe of mental pain. 

Kirk escapes through the Guardian

                In the 23^rd century Spock discovers the old ad going through Earth records of strange things that happened in the 20^th century.  He informs McCoy and the rest of the crew and they go on a mission to find Captain Kirk.  Not bothering to make use of the Guardian they do the time-tested sing-shot around the sun routine that they once discovered by accident.  They arrive in the 20^th century and rescue the Captain.  Jan, who during the recovery, learns her patient and now love interest is from the future. Spock convinces her that she may love Kirk, he doesn’t truly know her and its irresponsible to bring someone to the past back with them as such a person would be out of place.  Using a mind meld he allows Jan to remember Kirk but not where he came from.

                They bring Kirk back to the Enterprise and head home to the 23^rd century.  As Starbase 11 Spock using a mind meld with Kirk to help him overcome the mind sifter.  Kirk is restored to his previous self and given his job back.  It is reveled that Spock had only accepted a temporary commission and command pending the finding of Captain Kirk.  All is right again.      

Additional thoughts: Of the all stories contained in “The New Voyages” this one is by far the best. Maiewski has a such a strong grasp of the characters that you feel like you are watching and episode of classic Star Trek while you read it. I love how she pulls from the original series by continuing the adventures seen in “Errand of Mercy” and “The City on the Edge of Forever.”  We have the Klingons with their contempt for Kirk under the leadership of Kor attempt to kidnap him.  Kirk under the mind shifter tries to find Keeler by entering the Guardian of Forever as the Klingons were exploring it. 

                The story also returns to a theme explored earlier in “The Tholian Web.” How the crew would handle the loss of Captain Kirk.  Here Maiewski follows a similar pattern and shows how the relationships between the senior officers almost total breaks down.  While even in this deluded state Kirk makes a friend and potential love interest.  I did think it was a bit odd that Spock did not confide in McCoy and Scotty that he was aware of what was happening to Kirk.  Telepathic feelings may hold no sway in a Federation Court but given their history together I think his fellow officers would be inclined to believe Spock.  

                 I think its hilarious that when Dr. McCoy accidentally went back in time high on drugs, he did so much damage that the very United Federation of Planets was wiped out of existence.  When a deluded Kirk goes back in time and nothing of the sort happens. Luck of the draw?  Kirk just being a better and more natural time traveler?  I guess we’ll never know.  The truth is Kirk was simply protected by indestructible plot armor. 

A far more dangerous time traveler!

Should it be canon: Here is the funny thing, despite the fact that I love this story, the answer is “no.”  My reason is it just can’t fit.  The one problem this story has is too much happens.  Kirk is missing for two years.  When reviewing the episode “The Paradise Syndrome” (a much inferior story by the way) one of the many things that were wrong with it was that for one of the years in their five-year mission Kirk was missing for over two months.  With this story for two years out of their five-year mission Kirk was missing and no one knew where he was! Combine with early story and Captain Kirk was missing for over forty percent of his original mission.   

                The funny thing is the story didn’t need to do that. Its fine for Kirk to be experience having been gone for two years in the past, however with the ship the same amount of time doesn’t have to pass.  You could have lowered the time in the 23^rd century with no real change to the function of the story.  Shrink two years down to six weeks and you can tell same story on the Enterprise’s side of things. Kirk is missing for two weeks is declared dead and Spock made the captain, the new status quo lasts for a whole month and the senior staff is at each other’s throats.  We already seen this in the aforementioned episodes.  So, unless that is resolved then this should remain a good “what if” story.

Cover Art: What I said in the review of the first story: 

“The cover is beautiful.  You have the Enterprise flying in all its glory in the bottom center of the image.  Behind it looks like a space station built on an asteroid.  Flying above in the opposite direction is an unknown starship whose design I don’t recognize.”  

Final Grade: Final Grade 5 of 5

 

THE CREW OF THE ENTERPRISE CHASE BUTTERFLIES

 

Name: Star Trek: The New Voyages – Story 7 “The Winged Dreamers”

Author: Jennifer Guttridge, with an introduction by DeForest Kelley  

Publication Date: 3/1976

Publisher: Bantam Books

Page Number: 37

Historian’s Note: Sometime after The Second Season of the Animated Series   

Cast of Characters:  Captain James T. Kirk         Commander Spock              Dr. Leonard H. McCoy AKA “Bones”              Lieutenant Commander Montgomery Scott AKA “Scotty”        Lieutenant  Hikaru Sulu              Lieutenant Nyota Uhura          Lieutenant Langely        Lieutenant Kyle         Nurse Christine Chapel          Ensign Pavel Chekov      Crewman Caros Durban                 unnamed security guards      

Starships and/or Starbases: USS Enterprise NCC-1701, unnamed shuttlecraft

Planets: unnamed planet

My Spoiler filled summary and review: The Enterprise is exploring a strange new world. It is a M-Class planet, right in its star’s goldilocks zone. Yet, no intelligent life has developed on the planet.  As they walk along the planet’s surface this little fact has the trio of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy confused. In a short while Kirk and McCoy head back to the ship via the transporter, Spock stays behind to supervise things on the surface.

Just exploring the planet!

                At this point members of the crew start to hallucinate.  Their dreams seem to be manifesting in reality.  Forty of them suddenly stop reporting in and go missing.  When Captain Kirk becomes aware of this on the Enterprise, he orders all crew members currently on the planet to get back to the ship and cancels all shore parties.  Things go from bad to worse.  A crewman dies and McCoy can’t tell what it was that killed him.  Mr. Spock finds the missing members of the crew, but they flat out refuse to return to the ship and they don’t think Spock should be allowed to go back either.

Dreams becoming real

                Kirk and McCoy try to transport back down to the surface but massive power failures have caused the ship’s transporters to go offline.  This forces the two officers to use the shuttlecraft, which doesn’t bother McCoy because he hates the transporter anyway.  When they get to the planet and they find Spock unconscious but McCoy is able to revive him.  At this point both the Captain and the Doctor start to hallucinate.  Only Spock seems to be immune, but they don’t know how long that will last for.  So, it is decided that the best they could do would be to get on the shuttlecraft, get off this planet, and get back on to the ship.  This works although Kirk almost ruins everything trying to take the helm controls away from Spock when he hallucinates that the Enterprise is on fire.

On fire! Maybe not!

                They manage to get on the ship but find the power of illusions hasn’t been stopped. At one point Kirk is given the illusion that they have already won and all the missing have been returned before Spock brings him to reality.  They determine that there is a native species that is a collective consciousness and that they were simply caught in the middle of it.  At first, they thought this may have been an aquatic species but they determine it was actually this planet’s version of butterflies.  They negotiate with the butterfly collective.  This insures peace and the return of the missing crew.  The adventure is over.

 Additional thoughts: This was an interesting little story.  If the episodes “Shore Leave” and "This Side of Paradise” had a baby this story is it what probably look like.  Like the former, the crew on shore leave are on an apparently empty planet and all of a sudden their dreams start coming to life.  Like the later, the crew gets addicted to the planet and munity in order to stay.

                Now I was a little taken back at the beginning when Kirk and Spock were confused about no intelligent life on the planet. Now I remember the old saying that if the life of the Earth put onto a 24-hour clock then all of human history would be in the final two minutes to midnight.  So how do Kirk and Spock don’t know they have shown up on this planet three minutes to midnight? 

Fun times! But this time its butterflies!

                Of course we learn that there is life here just not the kind we would expect to run into.  This could have been one of those great Star Trek moments like “The Devil in the Dark.”  Where we come to know and respect life radically different from our own and be able to see similarities as well as differences.  However, the whole thing is ruined by Spock and McCoy speculating what life form on the planet would be best to evolve in order to get or the smart butterflies.

                I thought it was very ironic that shortly Captain Kirk is given the illusion that he has already unexpectedly won and his crew returns, a paragraph later he really does unexpectedly win and has his crew return.  It was almost as if the writer got board with her own story and just wanted to end it now. It was not a clean stop however.        

Should it be canon: Yes, I don’t see any problem with this story becoming part the official voyages of the USS Enterprise.  The story has flaws but so don’t many episodes.

Cover Art: What I said in the review of the first story: 

“The cover is beautiful.  You have the Enterprise flying in all its glory in the bottom center of the image.  Behind it looks like a space station built on an asteroid.  Flying above in the opposite direction is an unknown starship whose design I don’t recognize.”  

Final Grade: Final Grade 3 of 5

SPOCK BECOMES A GROWN-UP BY RUNNING WITH THE ANIMALS

 

Name: Star Trek: The New Voyages – Story 6 “The Hunting”

Author: Doris Beetem, with an introduction by Sondra Marshak and Myrna Culbreath  

Publication Date: 3/1976

Publisher: Bantam Books

Page Number: 17

Historian’s Note: Sometime after Second Season of the Animated Series   

Cast of Characters:  Captain James T. Kirk         Commander Spock              Dr. Leonard H. McCoy AKA “Bones”                           Lieutenant Nyota Uhura          

Starships and/or Starbases: USS Enterprise NCC-1701

Planets: Rhinegelt

My Spoiler filled summary and review: Once again it is shore leave time for the crew of the Enterprise.  This time, unlike our last adventure that had Dr. McCoy practically dragging a workaholic Captain Kirk off the bridge, it is the Captain practically dragging a workaholic Dr. McCoy out of sickbay.  Kirk is able to lure McCoy out with one little fact.  Mr. Spock is also taking shore leave.  Typically, the Vulcan Science Officer, likes to spend his down time meditating and conserving his energy in rest.  He has criticized in the past the human need to run around in the grass using energy rather than conserving it. This time Mr. Spock has taken out a hunting license.

Spock needed drugs to allow him to walk in the grass before

                This arouses McCoy’s suspicions and he heads down to Spock’s quarters to see if he would like some company and to his surprise Spock accepts as he is required to have a companion.  For Spock this is more than a simple hunt it is the scared Vulcan ritual called the mok farr.  It is a coming-of-age ritual, meaning that despite having a career in Starfleet where he has risen to become First Officer of the Flag Ship of the Fleet with the rank of commander, he is not by Vulcan standards an adult.  The reason Spock gives is his human half delayed his telepathic abilities and by the time they came to full force he had left Vulcan for Starfleet. His job is not simply to hunt the animal, in fact he brings no weapons with him, but to find an apex predator and perform a mind meld. 

boyhood pet who he didn't mind meld with 

                McCoy and Spock go on their way and McCoy witnesses the hunt for the owl tiger, as it is called. Spock is going to have to defeat this creature with his Vulcan strength in order to perform the mind meld.  Spock is successful in the attempt however the impact of sharing a mind with such a beast programed by nature to kill has serious effect on Spock.  He begins to assume the identity of the animal.  Even as McCoy gets them separated Spock seems lost as the beast.  He runs wild like a wild man who was raised by wolves.

                It gets bad as Spock acts violently towards McCoy and chases another animal into the wilderness.  Things get so bad that McCoy pulls a projector on out of his kit to record his last message to Kirk telling to make Spock forgive himself for what he might do in this state to McCoy.  McCoy says in the message that he brought this all on himself. The noise lures Spock back to him, he attacks but the Vulcan is distracted by the projector and slowly his sense come back to him.  The two officers return to the Enterprise and for Spock its his first time arriving there as an adult. 

Productive end

   

Additional thoughts: This is fun little story.  For all their commitment to logic it is amazing that the Vulcans will have the most outlandish rituals tied to their culture.  Although it is easy to tell the difference between an adult and a child most of the time the actual moment when someone stops being a child and becomes an adult is not so easy.  As someone who works with teenagers, I can attest to that, some of them a very mature almost indistinguishable from an adult, while others are very immature, and others are in the middle.  By “mature” I am referring to both mental and physical traits.  Some societies put as a strict number “you are an adult if you are X-age.”  Currently that age in my society is 18 (sort of).  However, if I have a random mixed group of 17-year-olds and 18-year-olds I would not be able to sort them by age without them telling me.   Yet one is supposed to be an adult while the other is a child. Then there are societies that would have their children complete a rite of passage to become an adult.  Sometimes this is a task the other times it’s just a ceremony. 

Spock in Amok Time

  

                We first learned in the episode “Journey to Babel” that Spock was not on speaking terms with his father because of his career choice.  In addition to that his mother Amanda talks with Spock about his childhood and that he was relentlessly bullied as a young child for not being “Vulcan” enough.  This was also confirmed in the episode “Yesteryear” when Spock journeyed to this past the audience got to see it upfront.  I wrote a while back that Spock joins Starfleet and surrounds himself humans not to embrace his humanity but instead to reconfirm his Vulcan-ness.

Very disappointed in Spock

                Spock says in this story that his telepathic abilities had developed late, he doesn’t mention it but you can see that is something else his bullies would torment him over.  “He is so human he can’t even mind-meld.”  The fact he left Vulcan and couldn’t complete this coming-of-age ceremony, the mok farr, would be even more torment coming in the form Vulcan gossip for him.  His old bullies could at best still see their old and clearly grown classmate as still a child, and at worst view him as a type of adult, a human one.

T'Pring and her chosen

                You would have to wonder if this would also have impacted T’Pring’s decision to abandon Spock to Stonn.  She said it was because she didn’t want to be the consort of a legend, but maybe that was T’Pring’s way of being nice.  Perhaps what she wanted to say is “Sorry Spock, I need a real man one who can mok farr before he can pon farr.”  That would have been cruel.        

This my weird way of being nice!

Should it be canon: Yes, I would love for this story to be added to the Star Trek lore.  For all the reasons I talk about above, especially with T’Pring. 

Cover Art: What I said in the review of the first story: 

“The cover is beautiful.  You have the Enterprise flying in all its glory in the bottom center of the image.  Behind it looks like a space station built on an asteroid.  Flying above in the opposite direction is an unknown starship whose design I don’t recognize.”  

Final Grade: Final Grade 4 of 5

KIRK GETS IN TROUBLE AT A BAR AND GOES TO JAIL

 

Name: Star Trek: The New Voyages – Story 5 “The Face on the Barroom Floor”

Author: Eleanor Arnason and Ruth Berman, with an introduction by George Takei  

Publication Date: 3/1976

Publisher: Bantam Books

Page Number: 23

Historian’s Note: Sometime after The Counter-Clock Incident and before the Motion Picture.   

Cast of Characters:  Captain James T. Kirk         Commander Spock              Dr. Leonard H. McCoy AKA “Bones”              Lieutenant Commander Montgomery Scott AKA “Scotty”        Lieutenant  Hikaru Sulu              Lieutenant Nyota Uhura          Lieutenant Palmer        Lieutenant Kyle         Nurse Christine Chapel          Ensign Pavel Chekov      Captain Antonio Perez        Second Navigator Lo Chah         Renee            Bud      Morrie Singh          Renee’s two unnamed friends       unnamed bartender     unnamed law enforcement officers

Starships and/or Starbases: USS Enterprise NCC-1701, Deneb Queen, Starfarer

Planets: Krasni’s Folly

My Spoiler filled summary and review: The story begins as the crew of the Enterprise is about to embark on some overdue shore leave.  Kirk, as is typical, is to duty obsessed to want to engage in the practice.  The Captain would rather not engage in anything that is not mission related that takes him away from his precious ship.  He has to be almost dragged by Dr. McCoy to the planet. 

Yes, Jim you must go on shore leave

While on the planet, called “Krasni’s Folly” for reasons we never discover, Kirk wonders around with McCoy and Sulu.  At one point they come across a samurai outfit that both Sulu and Kirk admire.  Sulu talks about buying it, but Kirk doesn’t think he find anywhere to wear it. McCoy find three women for them to hang out with and one named Renee.  Kirk gets bored with Renne, leaves his shipmates, and goes and buys the samurai outfit. 

At least Sulu can have a good time

Kirk puts his captain’s uniform in a storage locker and proceeds to another bar.  In this bar Kirk pretends to be a crewman of the Deneb Queen.  That turns out to be a mistake as no one here likes people from that ship. Eventually a drunken brawl breaks out that Kirk mostly avoids but the authorities show up an arrest everyone.  As everyone at the ‘police station’ thinks Kirk is a spacefarer who has gotten in trouble for the first time and not use to how things worked. He tries to explain that his captain won’t come to bail him out like everyone else here because he is his own captain.  No one believes him so he is stuck.

                While this is all going on the Enterprise gets contacted by a ship called the Starfarer.  The Starfarer is a passenger ship that is suffering from a serious malfunction and they are now losing life support.  Spock is forced to cancel shore leave and bring everyone back to the ship, but they can’t find the Captain.  A frantic search begins. 

                Back on the planet Kirk arranges an escape by using supreme tactics and fighting skills to assault a guard and then quickly leave the premises with some other prisoners.  Kirk makes his way back to the ship, looking a bit ridiculous, and they leave to save the Starfarer.  

Additional thoughts: I must admit I didn’t really like this one.  It’s supposed to be a comedy, but I don’t find it to be that funny.  Last I checked Starfleet officers are bound by the laws of the planets they are visiting, particularly worlds with space travel that interact with the Federation.  The episode “Wolf in the Fold” had much to be desired but it at least established that important concept, and it was repeated in the episode “Albatross” in the Animated Series.  

                I just don’t like the idea of Kirk who was arrested in a brawl deciding that the local law enforcement on a planet that Starfleet allows shore leave on and is a center of intergalactic commerce, is too inconvenient and bureaucratic to deal with so he breaks out and runs a way.  When they are giving him a chance to contact his ship just explain that he is a Starfleet officer out of uniform and his captain is Kirk on the Enterprise.  The locals would probably be more likely to believe that then the bold (but true claim) that he is Captain Kirk.  The break out might be justified if Kirk knew about the plight of the Starfarer and felt he was the only one who could rescue them.  Of course, Kirk should then come back to settle things with the planet.

                The only parts I liked about this story was Kirk buying the samurai outfit and the captains of the Deneb Queen and Starfarer both being friends of his.  Other than that, this story fell short.

Should it be canon: No, for the reasons listed above. I would rather not have Kirk violating local laws and customs on purpose because he thinks they are inconvenient and have it be official canon. 

Cover Art: What I said in the review of the first story: 

“The cover is beautiful.  You have the Enterprise flying in all its glory in the bottom center of the image.  Behind it looks like a space station built on an asteroid.  Flying above in the opposite direction is an unknown starship whose design I don’t recognize.”

  

Final Grade: Final Grade 2 of 5

 

THE STARS OF STAR TREK BEAM UP TO THE ENTERPRISE

 

Name: Star Trek: The New Voyages – Story 4 “Visit to a Weird Planet--Revisited”

Author: Ruth Berman, with an introduction by Majel Barrett

Publication Date: 3/1976

Publisher: Bantam Books

Page Number: 16

Historian’s Note: Sometime between 1967-1969  

Cast of Characters:  William Shatner         Leonard Nimoy              DeForest Kelley              James Doohan    Lieutenant Commander Montgomery Scott AKA “Scotty”        Lieutenant  Hikaru Sulu              Lieutenant Nyota Uhura          Vincent McEveety         Nurse Christine Chapel          Ensign Pavel Chekov     Gene L. Coon        Commodore Kor      Unnamed Klingon Officer

Starships and/or Starbases: USS Enterprise NCC-1701, IKS Klothos

Planets: Earth the Real One, unexplored planet name in dispute

My Spoiler filled summary and review: The story begins on the set of a Star Trek episode.  I don’t know what episode exactly but it is one that is directed by Vincent McEveety.  Shatner trips getting off the transporter pad upsetting McEveety as it ruins the take.  They start over and get back on the transporter pad and that is when it happens. A strange feeling goes over the three actors as unbeknownst to them they are being beamed up to the actual USS Enterprise! 

                As soon as Shatner and Kelley step of the transporter pad, they know something is up.  They are now in an enclosed room and there are no cameras to be scene.  Nimoy is a little late to come around, he thinks this is a prank by Bob Justman and gets openly annoyed when “Jimmy” refuses to break character and continue to talk in his Scottish accent.  Shatner and Kelley force Nimoy out of the transporter room and into the corridor.  It’s at that point Nimoy realizes what his co-stars do.  That somehow and someway they are aboard the USS Enterprise for real.

Three actors on a big adventure.

                The three actors struggle but find sickbay and when they get there, they start talking about what has happened.  How did they get here and how do they get home?  Then they are called to the bridge they are being attacked by the Klingons.  Shatner has Uhura hail the Klingons and when they respond the actor finds himself face to face with Kor.  Kor tells the man he thinks is Kirk that they are claiming the planet for the Klingon Empire.  Since the Federation has the right to file a dispute that reduces the need to come up with a solution right away. 

                This convinces the three of them that something must be done about their situation.  While on the bridge Nimoy had to excuse himself before he broke into uncontrollable laughter.  He was also scared that someone might get too close to him and see that is not really a Vulcan and that his ears are fake. Shatner and Kelley didn’t have that problem since their characters are human.  However, Kelley doesn’t have any real medical knowledge to help if someone gets hurt. Only Shatner is comfortable to still “play Captain Kirk” for an unexpecting audience. 

Shatner's comfortable while the other two are in trouble

                  The three actors choose to confide in Mr. Scott.  Scott arrives armed with a phaser because is convinced the three of them are Klingon spies. They however convince him by reminding the Chief Engineer of the events from “Mirror, Mirror.”  Scott is convinced they are who they say they are, and a little concerned that he is now in command.  He realizes Shatner needs to continue to pretend to be Captain Kirk because the Klingons might want to speak with him.

                The three actors return to the bridge and there they brainstorm with Uhura, Chekov, and Sulu about what the Klingons could want with the planet.  The planet appears worthless however when Nimoy notices there are still tides on a moonless planet.  With an investigation the six of them discover that there is a new cloaking device that is hiding planet’s moon.  Since the Klingons got their cloaking technology from the Romulans they must be in on this as well. 

                Scotty has found away to swap the actors back to their universe with their counterparts.  The three of them wish Scott good-bye and good luck with the mission.  The three strangers pointed the crew of the Enterprise in the right direction but now it was time for the real Kirk, Spock, and McCoy to take over.   Back in the real world, Shatner tries to tell Gene Coon about their adventure but angers McEveety when his action once again ruins the take.

Additional thoughts: Well, that was a fun little story.  Apparently according to the introduction this one is a sort of play on another story from the fanzines that came around in the 1970s, titled “Visit to a Strange Planet.”  In the earlier story it was Kirk, Spock, and McCoy who came to the real world.  I have never read that original story in its entirety.  To be honest I don’t see how that wouldn’t turn into a horror story.  Kirk and crew discovering that they are fiction.  In this story when they explain their origins to Scotty he doesn’t completely understand what they are telling him avoiding that pitfall there.  However, if Captain Kirk showed up in the real world, wouldn’t everyone just assume William Shatner had gone insane?

                I do like how each actor responded differently to the situation. Leonard Nimoy had the hardest time coping.  If someone got too close, they could tell his ears were fake, that he didn’t have Spock’s scientific knowledge nor his Vulcan strength.  Not to mention the fact he has to be “on” all the time and not show any emotion what so ever.  Nimoy is deprived of the escape of the word: “cut!”  At one-point Nimoy has to remove himself from situation in order to prevent himself from laughing.  I love when he tried to check Spock’s viewer at his station and saw nothing since he didn’t know how to turn it on.  Although he did figure out how to work his tricorder with the help of the ship’s computer.  Kelley has the problem of no actual medical knowledge but it doesn’t come up. Shatner is actually at ease and slips into his role of Captain Kirk quite easily including handing a Klingon negotiation.

Klingons

                Speaking of the Klingons I thought it was great when Shatner, while talking with Kor, notices Kor’s assistant looks a little different despite clearly being a Klingon.  He then realizes that the other Klingon looks more like the one from “Friday’s Child” than Kor and his “Errand of Mercy” Klingons.  Fred Phillips, the make-up artist, had errored when he forgot to include the bushy eyebrows and facial hair on his second time doing the Klingons that he had done on the first.  It appears the look of Klingons has always been a problem for Star Trek.

               

Also a Klingon!

The only thing I think I would change is I would have the actors come up with a solution to the Enterprise’s problem by just remembering that they had already read the script and therefore know what the answer is. Then they just come up with an excuse to give it the crew.       

Should it be canon: No, I am sorry I love the story but I think it would be a bad idea for the suspension of disbelief if it were confirmed as a matter of canon that Star Trek wasn’t real.  Having the characters realize they are just characters in a TV show would be a terrible thing going forward. Therefore, I think it should it remain just a fun side story to enjoy.

Cover Art: What I said after the first story: 

“The cover is beautiful.  You have the Enterprise flying in all its glory in the bottom center of the image.  Behind it looks like a space station built on an asteroid.  Flying above in the opposite direction is an unknown starship whose design I don’t recognize.”  

Final Grade: Final Grade 4 of 5