Star Trek: Amok Time

Episode: "Amok Time"
Series: Star Trek: The Original Series
Season 2, Episode 1
Original Air Date: September 15, 1967

via Memory Alpha

For its second season, Star Trek was moved to a new time slot: 8:30 ET on Friday nights.   "Amok Time" is a significant episode for many reasons.  Most importantly, the regular cast got its final member with Walter Koenig playing the role of navigator Pavel Chekov.  Also, it is the only original series episode to offer a glimpse of Spock's home world, Vulcan.  The story introduced both the Vulcan hand salute and the "live long and prosper" blessing.

Compelled by biological urges, Spock must return to Vulcan for his marriage to a bride arranged for him as a child, T'Pring.  T'Pring demands that he win her in a challenge.  Surprisingly, she picks Kirk as the opponent.  Kirk agrees, figuring he can throw the match, only to discover that it is a fight to the death.  With Dr. McCoy's help, he is able to fake his own death well enough to fool even Spock.  A grieving Spock frees T'Pring to be with the mate she truly loves and returns to the ship prepared to face the consequences of his actions.  The surprising appearance of Kirk alive and well inspires a rare joyful display from our favorite Vulcan.

*****

via Wikipedia

Walter Koenig was born on September 14, 1936 in Chicago.  Clearly a very smart man, he attended Grinnell College in Iowa.  Apparently, the draw of southern California was too strong as he transferred to UCLA where he discovered acting.  He was cast in the role of Chekov largely for his resemblance to Davy Jones of the Monkees. 

Davy via 30 Days Out

Not originally intended as a regular cast role, Chekov grew in popularity while George Takei (Sulu) was busy finishing The Green Berets with John Wayne.  When Takei returned, tensions arose, Takei even threatening to leave the show.  Fortunately for all involved, peace was made and the two actors became good friends.

*****

via Memory Alpha

Over the summer of 1967, Key Comics published the very first Star Trek comic book, entitled "The Planet of No Return."  Unfortunately, the writer credit for this issue is long lost but the artist was Nevio Zeccara.  The Enterprise discovers a planet where the plant life holds dominion over the animals.

There were many advantages in telling a science fiction story in comic book form rather than television in the 1960s - no need for special effects.  If you could draw it, it could happen.  People turning into trees?  No problem.  However, it is abundantly clear that neither writer nor artist was especially familiar with the source material apart from character names and basic appearances.  For instance, the crew are exploring "Galaxy Alpha" rather than our own.  Transporting is referred to as "teleportation" - probably a more accurate description but that's beside the point.

More important than the nomenclature though was the very different character of the mission's approach to exploration.  In the comic book, the crew take a more Flash Gordonesque attitude toward encounters with alien beings: "They are different and they must be trying to kill us.  We must kill them first."  Most disturbing is the Captain's decision to destroy the planet in order to prevent its plant spores from infecting worlds.  That wouldn't jive with the Prime Directive at all.

It is interesting to note, though, that the Captain faced a very similar prospect in the last episode of the first season.  A parasite was destroying one world after another and the opportunity came to stop it in its tracks, but at the cost of the lives of millions.  It was not a happy choice but it was considered.  The comic book Captain, on the other hand, barely flinched in the decision.

Family Movie Night: Spirited Away

Title: Spirited Away
Director: Hayao Miyazaki
Original Release: 2001
Choice: Our Girl's
My Overall Rating: 4 stars out of 5

via Spirited Away Wiki

Few movies in history have achieved the commercial and critical success of Miyazaki's Spirited Away.  It is the highest grossing Japanese film of all-time and added plenty of hardware to Studio Ghibli's trophy case.  In addition to winning best animated feature at the Academy Awards and best film at the Japanese Academy Awards, Spirited Away was a juggernaut at the international film festivals.  When the British Film Institute compiled its list of 50 films you should see by the age of 14, Spirited Away received the most votes of any movie.



Even by Miyazaki standards, Spirited Away is weird and wild an wonderful.  Chihiro is a sullen 10-year-old girl moving to a new town.  On the drive to the new house, the family detours and enters the spirit world.  Her parents are turned into pigs so she is left to figure things out for herself.  She makes her way to an extraordinary bath house and gets a job until a solution to her predicament can be found.

via Spirited Away Wiki

Artwork is dazzling, of course, but the real fun is in all of the extraordinary spirits who inhabit the bath house.  Characters slide back and forth quite freely on the moral spectrum but Chihiro finds a few friends in the mix.  Miyazaki managed to build quite an amazing world on a very small scale.

The film's score was composed by Joe Hisaishi, long-time Miyazaki collaborator.  Not long after we watched the movie the first time a few years ago, Our Girl hatched the idea of composing her own music for the story.  Mind you, she didn't know a thing about writing music or even playing an instrument at the time but I found the inspiration fascinating.  I haven't heard much about that particular ambition in a while.

On the Coffee Table: Jeffrey Brown

Title: Vader's Little Princess
Writer and Artist: Jeffrey Brown

via Amazon

Okay, everybody get your geek hats on, propeller beanies recommended.

First, let's make very clear that Vader's Little Princess is a non-canon, satirical work.  We all know Darth Vader didn't really raise his children.  So, don't get your Underoos all bunched up, 'kay?  This is supposed to be fun!

Alright, now that's out of the way...  Vader's Little Princess is a graphic novel parody of what a father-daughter relationship might have been like between Darth Vader and Princess Leia.  Actually, calling it a novel is a stretch.  It's more a collection of comic strips.  Leia embarrasses Vader as he's dressing down an admiral who has failed him for the last time.  He disapproves of Han Solo as a boyfriend and the golden bikini as a socially acceptable outfit.  He gives her a TIE Fighter for her birthday.  She makes him a helmet cozy.

And so on.

via Amazon

The book is fun, a decent five-minute read.  I see T-shirts and coffee mugs in the licensing future, if they haven't happened already.  I'm not inspired to run to the book store to read Brown's other Star Wars parodies, Darth Vader and Son and Jedi Academy.  But if they come my way, I'll read them.

On the Coffee Table: H.G. Wells

Title: The Invisible Man
Author: H.G. Wells

via Barnes & Noble

Like many of the early science fiction writers, H.G. Wells was himself scientifically trained.  His field was biology.  In The Invisible Man, he considers the genuine potential for achieving invisibility and also the moral implications of such a possibility.  The title character, a man called Griffin, dreams of the power invisibility would gain for him but lacks the foresight to weigh its limitations.  As a morality play, The Invisible Man is not entirely unlike Frankenstein, though in this case the mad scientist's monster is himself.

I expected the story to be dark and creepy.  However, I did not expect Wells's highly satirical depiction of those who people the English countryside.  The tale is as much about the speed of gossip as it is about the arrogance of playing God.  The story begins with a mysterious stranger, covered in bandages, checking into a country inn.  Eventually, as a result of his own arrogance but also the townspeople's curiosity, his secret is exposed.  A mad chase ensues.  He stumbles upon the house of a former colleague, to whom he reveals all.

As with Robert Louis Stevenson's Jeckyll and Hyde (review here), I was inspired to read The Invisible Man by The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill.  Griffin is one of the five League members.  Whereas the comic book depiction of Hyde is tweaked a little, Griffin is spot on: full-blown psychopath.  The League story also incorporates Griffin's Reign of Terror concept.  In the comic, he is given a first name, a luxury denied him in the novel: Hawley.  In fact, it is revealed in the end that Hawley Griffin is not even the original Griffin but only a guinea pig of the original scientist.  I suppose this is intended to work around the fact that Griffin (SPOILER) is killed at the end of the novel, though I think the change is unnecessary.  The name Hawley is derived from the real-life murderer Hawley Crippen.

The Invisible Man is a good novel, well-worth reading for cultural literacy and geek cred.  While there are certainly dark elements, the book has more humor than other Wells novels I've read: The Time Machine and The Island of Dr. Moreau.  The obligatory techno-babble slows things down a bit for me but overall, it's a fun read.

On the Coffee Table: Lois Lowry

Title: Gooney the Fabulous
Author: Lois Lowry

via Amazon

Our daughter's school is hosting a "Family Adventures in Reading" event in a few weeks time.  It's really a great idea: the librarian provides a list of books for families to choose from, we read them, then come to the school on the appointed night to discuss them.  Sure, fine.  Now I have to figure out how to be diplomatic about the fact that I don't like the book.

Gooney the Fabulous is the third of four books in the Gooney Bird series.  Gooney Bird is an ultra-precocious second grader.  One day, as her teacher Mrs. Pidgeon is reading Aesop's Fables to the class, GB comes up with a plan: all of the students should write their own fable and share them with the class.  Mrs. Pidgeon loves the idea, and naturally all of the students do, too.  Faburiffic!

Ms. Lowry is a very accomplished author, with two Newberry Medals to her name.  There is certainly nothing technically wrong with her writing.  I just don't find the elementary school world she created to ring true.  Full disclosure, I teach elementary school as well as middle school and have done so for many years.  While I realize not every grade school is like the one I know best, I find it difficult to believe there are any like the one idealized in this book.  All of the students are pigeon-holed within the first two chapters - the shy girl with the lisp, the boy who's memorizing the dictionary and the African-American boy who raps everything he says... Really?  He did a back spin during his fable, too.  Oh, boy...  Between them, Mrs. Pidgeon and her mini-me, Gooney Bird, always seem to have the right answer to any problem that crops up.  There's hardly anything an arm around the shoulder won't fix!

The book is cute and fun and I'm sure it teaches valuable lessons about how schools should be but it's not a world I believe.  Our Girl liked the book.  I need to find ways to explain why I didn't while still respecting the fact that she did.

On the Coffee Table: The Four Encounters

Title: Buddha, Volume 2: The Four Encounters
Writer and Artist: Osamu Tezuka

via WorldLanguage.com

As I lay in bed last night with a charming new stomach bug, My Wife brought me a delightful gift: the second book in Tezuka's Buddha series (Volume 1 reviewed here).  I knew she'd ordered it but didn't realize it had arrived.  Being sick stinks but it is a reasonable excuse to stay in bed and read.

While Volume 1 primarily developed fictional side characters, Volume 2 is entirely devoted to the early life of Siddhartha, the man who would become Gautama Buddha.  Siddhartha, born into royalty, is a misfit from the beginning.  Perceived as weak, he shows neither interest nor aptitude for becoming a warrior.  From an early age, he demonstrates disdain for India's caste system and great sympathy for all humans and animals as well.  His curiosity about death leads him to ask questions and no one in his immediate sphere is able to provide satisfying answers. The Four Encounters follows his efforts to break away from the world of his parents in order to pursue a monastic life.

The strengths of the first volume all carry over for the second.  The artwork is stunning.  I'll admit, as a comic reader, I don't spend as much time on each individual frame as I probably should.  I'm a text guy.  But with Tezuka's work, it's impossible not to linger over a panel from time to time.  Landscapes are his greatest strength, not unlike Hayao Miyazaki, a film director who was greatly influenced by Tezuka. 

I'm looking forward to Volume 3.

Star Trek: Operation: Annihilate!

Episode: "Operation: Annihilate!"
Series: Star Trek: The Original Series
Season 1, Episode 29
Original Air Date: April 13, 1967

via Wikipedia

"Operation: Annihilate!" was the final episode of Star Trek's first season.  In this story, we get to meet part of Captain Kirk's family, though the reunion is a tragic one.  His brother Sam is a scientist on a planet in the path of a mass insanity which is sweeping its way through the galaxy, destroying civilizations as it goes.  The Enterprise crew arrives too late, Kirk's brother dead, his nephew unconscious and his sister-in-law in the throes of madness.  The rest of the planet is losing it, too, though the cause is not immediately apparent.  Eventually, predatory parasites are discovered to be the culprits and one of them infects Spock before the landing party is able to return to the ship.

I didn't care for the episode in the early going as everyone infected screams incoherently.  However, the story gets more interesting as solutions are explored.  First, Kirk must grapple with the possibility of having to destroy the planet and its million inhabitants just to keep the creatures from spreading further.  Then, when the parasites' vulnerability to intense light is discovered, Spock submits himself as a test subject with dire consequences.  He is left blind.

Immediately after the test on Spock, Nurse Chapel reveals that the creatures are only vulnerable to ultraviolet light - great news for the population on the planet but not so great for Spock who was blinded needlessly.  Spock takes it like a Vulcan, of course, but both Kirk and especially Dr. McCoy are racked with guilt.  Considered independently, the story might have been better if it had ended there.  But this is television and the series must go on, a blind Spock too much of a limitation for the screenwriters going forward.  Due to a peculiarity of Vulcan eyelid anatomy, Spock's condition is only temporary and his sight is restored.  Kirk and Bones are off the hook.

*****

Thoughts on Season 1

 General Impressions

I was very impressed by the first season of Star Trek.  A more casual fan of the series growing up, I thought of Trek as stilted and formulaic.  Exploring in-depth, I was more impressed by the acting than I expected to be, particularly that of William Shatner.  Yes, he can chew the scenery from time to time but his investment in character is total from Day 1, as if he had been Jim Kirk his whole life.  That's a lot harder than most people realize and contrasts with the stiffer performance of other cast members in the early going.

As to formula, I know that becomes more of an issue in the next two seasons but the writers did a respectable job of mixing things up in the initial run.  A lot of their story lines became franchise staples over the decades to follow.  All of those cliches had to start somewhere.


Favorite Episode: "Balance of Terror"

The episodes I enjoyed most in Season 1 were the ones in which Kirk engaged in mental sparring with a well-established adversary: Khan in "Space Seed" or Kor in "Errand of Mercy."  The Romulan Commander in "Balance of Terror" is unnamed.  He and Kirk bear no hatred toward one another - merely soldiers, playing their parts, seeing to their duties.  Mark Lenard's performance in the role is subtle, convincing and thoroughly chilling.  Other episodes have garnered more praise over the years but for me, this was the best of the batch.


Least Favorite Episode: "Mudd's Women"

Perhaps it is not fair to judge a story from the 1960s by the moral standards of the 2010s.  But for a television producer who made admirable efforts at social progressiveness, Gene Roddenberry dropped the ball with this one.  Harry Mudd is essentially a pimp who keeps his interstellar mail order brides beautiful with drugs.  When off the meds, they're not so much ugly as ordinary and all of the men are horrified.  This episode left me feeling icky.


Favorite Guest Star: Mark Lenard as Romulan Commander in "Balance of Terror"

See above.


Onward?

This would be a logical jumping off point if I were to discontinue my weekly Star Trek posts but I'm definitely up for more.  The months in between the two seasons were certainly interesting times in world culture.  In June of '67, The Beatles would release Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, an album that transformed the music industry.  The Summer of Love was soon to follow.  The audience had been through a lot by the time the series resumed in September.  I don't expect similar upheaval between now and next Wednesday, but you never know.

Set a course, Mr. Sulu...