re: Star Trek: TOS Watchers - Season 1 Wrapup *Page 25*

*MIRI*



Kirk and crew stumble onto a planetary "twin" to Earth, but also a deadly plague. There are only children remaining, and they die when they go through puberty. There is a deadly race against the clock to find a cure - or the landing party will be lost.

This is a fun episode from a trivia perspective. I won't dump it all here, but Michael Pollard (Jahn) was 27 years old, playing a character who was biologically in his mid-teens. Kim Darby was almost 20 and was a couple of years away from her signature role in the original True Grit with John Wayne.

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Nobody completed their assignment?

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Not yet Teach, I need a few days.

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We have an interesting look at the uniforms here, as the TOS colors really pop against the dreary planetary background.

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No shite - that was Mayberry, brah.

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Useless to the story. I can't imagine what they were thinking.

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I thought I read somewhere they wanted to utilize some of the higher resolution images coming back from the Apollo Program, and this was an awkward use of those resources.

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Interesting concepts of man destroying himself trying to gain immortality.

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They succeeded, but at what cost, right?

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Also the clash of childhood v adulthood.

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It was an interesting take on this issue, vaguely Peter Pan-ish or even suggestive of Lord of the Flies in some ways. This episode was also parodied, at least partially, in the fourth season South Park episode, "The Wacky Molestation Adventure".

The other thing that bothers me about this episode, other than the "parallel Earth" thing, is that this group of Onlies lives near an automated distress beacon. Now, other than this little town of Mayberry, there must be millions of children all over the world living in communities like this. Kirk left "a" team - presumably they sent in a rush order to Earth to get more teams because that's going to be a big job - innoculating millions of children and setting up a society so they can begin feeding themselves in a few years (or evacuate them.)

I guess that's a different problem for a different crew...

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No shite - that was Mayberry, brah.

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Really.

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Yes I thought the same while watching. Wendy and the Lost Boys.

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2/3 of the Shatner girls appeared in Miri as Onlies, Leslie and Lisabeth.

*THE CONSCIENCE OF THE KING*



Almost certainly triggered by the Nazi hunts of the 60s, the plot was an interesting turn, a twist even, on "The sins of the father..." question.

Fairly intense acting performances from all of the guests in this episode, including Bruce Hyde as Riley (in a departure from his much lighter turn in The Naked Time).

Barbara Anderson (Lenore) was a beauty queen who had just started screen acting when she landed this role, as she was just 21 years old. She is a former Miss Memphis and competed in the Miss Tennessee pageant. She would go on to play the blonde police officer Eve Whitfield on the long running show, Ironside.

Arnold Moss (Karidian/Kodos), as you might expect, was a veteran stage actor - most notably as Prospero in Shakespeare's Tempest - during the longest run of the play in Broadway history. Moss also fathered Jeff Moss of Sesame Street fame (invented Cookie Monster, wrote the Rubber Duckie song, etc.)

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plot hole. they wouldn't have had fingerprints and other type of records for governors and space travelers? SO hard to change identities today, think of how hard it would be in the future.

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The whole computer system of TOS is quite dated now, but they were making extrapolations from the technology they had - think how prescient they were (and in fact, may have been source material for) for communicators (cell phones) - I cut them some slack for basing future projections off of Apollo Program technology.

However, having said that, as long as there is a "system," there are ways around it. Think about the projected Federation population - in the trillions, so altering or adopting a new identity wouldn't be impossible. It was only superficial in the episode as everyone who looked closely was able to pull it apart.

DNA would be the chosen method in such a large society, but I suspect there are even ways around that.

Plus so much time had passed.

But, in this case, "Body burned beyon recognition..." was clearly a reference to Hitler, so this was, sort of, a Hitler with a "heart of gold" story.

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The only odd thing is the emphasis on Riley and Kirk being eyewitnesses, especially since Kirk pulls up Kodos's photo easily from the computer. Lenore needed a motive to keep killing, though, and this is a way to establish survivors as a threat to her father, at least in her mind.

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I think the significance is two-fold - 1. Yes, as you suggest, Lenore needs a motive to kill and these witnesses are a real or imagined threat to her, and 2.) The witnesses are the only people with a motive to do anything to Karidian - first Leighton, then Kirk and finally Riley are all pulled into this melodrama - the traumatic events of the past, no doubt, overshadowing their normal lives.

It makes sense, overall.

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Kirk points out the "flight deck" where the shuttles are kept. I believe this is the first mention of shuttlecraft aboard the Enterprise.

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This scene was interesting for several things - I believe you are correct that it is the first mention of shuttles in TOS. It is also the only time we see the observation deck in TOS and the only time the simulated "night time" is seen or referenced in TOS (contrast that to 10 Forward on TNG, which seemed to simulate evening all the time.)

Finally, it is the overt courtship between Kirk and a guest star with the greatest disparity of age (Lenore is 19, Kirk is ~35 during the episode). But that's not the truly unique part, the dialogue between the two, particularly Lenore's best line -

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And this ship... All this power, surging and throbbing yet under control. Are you like that, Captain?

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is the most aggressive pickup line used by anyone in TOS - and spoken by the youngest, reasonably possible female companion of Kirk (Miri in the immediate previous episode was likely about 15, but it was obvious it was treated as a schoolgirl crush, and Kirk used it to manipulate her, rather than seriously contemplate furthering the relationship).

I'm amazed they got that past the censors.

She almost immediately follows this up by saying:

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Caesar of stars. Cleopatra... to worship him.

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Kirk's dialogue ranged from cheesy to malevolent - it was a good balance, and yet another example of why Shatner was the best man for the job.

Shatner was really in his element in this episode - a true romantic lead, a driven investigator, a wiley schemer (leaving them stranded) and a dangerous opponent. He did appear obsessed and this almost got Riley (and himself) killed, due to lack of proper precautions.