“I have tried Captain.”

What a cool name you have. Gene L. Coon made Star Trek great. He was like the Harve Bennett of the Star Trek movies. Even though Gene Roddenberry created Star Trek, Gene Coon made it work and turned it into, IMHO, the best television show.

Must’ve been typing while I was.

This is a great episode, in my mind. It has all the fun I could ask for, excellent performances, tight pacing, humor, and nifty surprises.

I Googled “E Plebmnista norcom forcom perfectumum” because about 3 decades ago, a girlfriend claimed it was Latin, and wondered why Spock didn’t notice…

I didn’t find a definitive answer. But it looks suspicious. Anyone?

Anyhow, In the process, I found a number of reviews, which like this one, said the ending was flag-waving. And thus suited to July 4th (too bad it had to be one day after).

Well, I liked this review, more than the others. Except for the negative parts, of course.

So, here’s my view…

I like, what I see, as it’s intended message. One particularly suited to July 4th. Patriotism, yes, but the kind that was (and is) often looked at as subversive.

Cloud William = far too many of my fellow Americans.

Kirk = Roddenberry

And that’s why it had to be exactly the US, and exactly the US Constitution.

It was his message to leaders and followers who believe that we can solve problems, by making exceptions to rights. Who think people should be treated differently according to race, belief, class, or whatever is popular.

Think about then. Descendents of Africans were sub-citizens in parts of the country. And seen as less-worthy by a huge swath of the entire country’s population. They were here, and had endured a bad history, because, at the beginning, rights didn’t apply to them. And, more than a century after freedom, many were still shorted on rights. The second-most shameful racism in our history (keep reading).

Hollywood was still licking its wounds after McCarthyism – people had been accused and brought before Congress, their careers destroyed because they disagreed with the structure or management of our system, or ventured into forbidden politics – they must be communist sympathizers!

“We must protect ourselves from the commies!” “We don’t need rights!”

Freedom of speech (protest, or just speech) was called unpatriotic, by many.

Now we have to protect ourselves from terrorists, we don’t need rights.

Freedom of speech has been called unpatriotic.

Persians and Arabs are suspect. And gays – well, if civil unions carried all the rights of marriage, then there wouldn’t have been that political football, two presidential elections in a row. There are weird disparities, and expectations, for each group, from society, employers, government, and beuraucratic catagories.

Changing to the next subject:

“Lily-white” “Blonde”. Ok, I know there’s a little exaggeration for humor and emphasis. :)

But I see a strong message against racism, and not just in Kirk’s words.

Yes the tribe, who brought in the sacred books was cacasian (although of a variety of skin tones, features, and hair colors, ahem).

Should we be surprised that they self-segregated, as groups did then, and now?

They were Roddenberry’s White Indians. (A concept he took to Genesis II and Planet Earth).

It was a jab at the most shameful bigotry in our country’s history. Most, in our country’s history, had looked down on the Indigenous Americans (both continents) as “savages”. At the time, it was still a popular view.

No coincidence, in the writing of the episode, that Tracey would also see them as unworthy barbaric aggressors…

And, oops, our heroes, and first time audience, see his point of view… until they figure out the other side of it.

The Americans were fighting for their land back. You know, the “savages”.

And changing the subject again:

Was there evidence of sexism, here? Not on the creators’s parts.

Cloud William’s mate didn’t “have much to do”. Well, they were primitives, one would expect some traditional roles.

But we didn’t see as much as you’d expect. He took her with him, into front-line battle.

She was right there, fighting Kirk, alongside him, even once after C.W pushed her away. When the fight carried itself away from her, she started to spectate. And only when Kirk started whomping on the greatest warriero they hade, did she gawk, and back away, as she realized how terrifying, this strange member of the firebox-wizards, was.

(Concessions had to be made to studio and network, but they did their best to keep it plausible).

And she didn’t hesitate to speak up with “Yes. It is written.”. There were husbands in the 60’s who would’ve glared at her for that.

The stunning Asian woman really was subservient. It was her job, for one thing. And one would’ve expected her culture to have reverted to an earlier set of rules, as well. (The Communist Chinese system was moving away from sexism, by the 60’s. But, after an apocalypse…). She noticed McCoy’s attraction, and reacted flirtatiously. One might read submissivness in part of her flirtation, as well. If so, it wouldn’t be surprising if she was raised to think that subservient gestures enhanced attractiveness.

“McCoy, himself trapped replaying his makeshift laboratory scenes from “Miri,” comes up with some good business of his own, especially when Kirk and Spock return from what must have seemed certain death and the doctor is too wrapped up in his studies to offer more than a distracted “Oh, hello Jim…” ”

Slight nitpick:

“Ahhh. Good morning, Jim.” :)

(He’d worked through the night).

There is another way to interpret his underreaction.

It might indicate that was utterly unsurprised that Kirk and Spock escaped. :)

And one last thought (no, really!).

Did Kirk violate the Prime Directive?

Of all the times he is alleged to have, I would say yes. This time he did.

Why? Perhaps the same reason Tracey did…

Infection, and response to the immune factors, could have easily impaired brain functions. Specifically of restraint and judgement.

Or… Kirk knew that would be a plausible defense for the both of them.

Medical experts would offer it as a strong possibility, and no one could dispute it (no way to experiment).

Kirk would get to do something about the tragedy of the Yang’s lost heritage, save everyone’s life, avert a slaughter, and keep the insanity from wiping out the accomplishments in Tracey’s carrer.

Even if Tracey got out of a psychiatric penal colony, at some point, he would still be a social pariah.

So at least let people’s memory of what he was, before that, mean something. Not have his entire service record cancelled out by him betraying his oath.

Too bad they didn’t seem to think of that. Perhaps after “Mirror, Mirror”, they could’ve found various rifts, in nearby places, that would lead them to parallel Earths. Of course there wouldn’t be the surprise, but that could be disposed of.

It could be suggested with rift-like effects. Implying they followed the Exeter through something. (But after any dialog that would’ve explained it to us). I wouldn’t want to give them that level of retcon power, though.

#69 “Sure you can. And they did.”

LOL!

Can you have a 20th-Century Rome, where they speak “Twentieth Century colloquial English.”? (So that they can communicate without their communicators’s universal translators).

But that’s a great episode! Can’t talk crap about that!

I think the difference is that the parallel was put out of the way quickly, in “Bread and Circuses”. Somehow, having it as the “point” of a seeming “twist ending” is distasteful. (It was for me, for many years).

I’ve always been uncomfortable with Roddenberry’s parallel development planets idea.

It was explicitly pitched as a cost-cutting measure – costumes, exterior sets, props. And also as a way to generate stories that the average viewer could relate to – and judging from the reactions of casual viewers, over the years, they tend to be favorites.

But it’s hard for us hard-headed sci-fi lovers to accept.

But, sure you can have it.

There are, of course, The Preservers. And the other classic explanation – mischievous beings like Tralane and Q.

And I imagine portions of “Hodgkin’s theory of parallel planetary evolution” might read like this:

“Given an infinite number of universes, one can regard coincidence as almost a force of nature. Such that we might reasonably expect so called “parallel universes”.”

“And given that parallel universes might exist, it is also reasonable to expect that at least one universe might have planets which are parallel in their development..”

But we might be more comfortable with physical phenomena. Some, from
the Neo-Treks, have potential. But you’d probably want to have something a little more refined to the purpose..

TNG “Parallels”. Worf keeps finding himself on parallel Enterprises. Eventually, a fissure opens up, and Enterprises from at least 285,000 quantum parallel (timeline branch) universes appear in the same region of space.

It might not be uncommon for parallel (timeline branches, or coincidence-parallel) universes to leak material into each other, with time & spatial offsets. There could be disruptive effects which could trigger geological changes.

ST:V “Deadlock” – a quantum frammazamma (I forget the technobabble) causes a duplicate Voyager to occupy the same physical space, but be out of phase, or whatever. (Not much point trying to follow Voyager technobabble. They took it a lot less seriously than TNG).

TNG “Remember Me”

Doc Crusher is trapped in a static warp bubble experiment. As The Traveler explains, it was a miniature reality which was shaped by Crusher’s own thoughts. Imagine a galactic historian, wandering into the physics lab at the wrong time… :-)

That leads to an interesting supposition (if the script were rewritten) where its later revealed that the Exeter and Enterprise had passed through a tear in space into an alternate reality/timeline, which they later learn is earth, thousands of years after the great war. Of course that might have worked as a two-parter. Then Rod Serling would have probably sued Roddenberry .

Its still a fun episode – even with the extreme stretch of Hodgekin’s Law.

Did you know that the U.S. Army spent 25,000 to investigate the possibility of transporters? Star Trek has proven to be right in many areas. Today we have cell phones, shots without needles (when I found out we had these I flipped out), medical panels that monitor all bodily functions, language translators on the Internet, GPS (gotta have transporter coordinates), Focused Ultrasound Surgery, and transparent aluminum armor (also being tested by the army). Although we are not even close to breaking the speed of light, we have greatly surpassed the speed of sound. All of these things seem more believable than a planet with our exact same constitution.

As for speaking English with the Romans, that kind of conceit is still present in modern SF like Stargate SG1 and Atlantis.

Of course, you also have the surprise revelation at the end that the hero is actually in a post-apocalyptic “America.” That revelation is made by the appearance of an iconic American symbol.

One half expects Kirk to get down on his knees and cry out “D*mn, you all to Hell!”

Roddenberry’s script, though, may well predate the introduction of the Statue of Liberty into the “Apes” script and Pierre Boulle’s novel does not have quite the same kind of surprise ending.