{"id":2808,"date":"2022-02-18T12:00:11","date_gmt":"2022-02-18T12:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/?p=2808"},"modified":"2023-03-06T11:09:21","modified_gmt":"2023-03-06T11:09:21","slug":"trekaday-009-wolf-in-the-fold-the-trouble-with-tribbles-the-gamesters-of-triskelion-a-piece-of-the-action-the-immunity-syndrome-a-private-little-war-return-to-tomorrow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/2022\/02\/18\/trekaday-009-wolf-in-the-fold-the-trouble-with-tribbles-the-gamesters-of-triskelion-a-piece-of-the-action-the-immunity-syndrome-a-private-little-war-return-to-tomorrow\/","title":{"rendered":"Trekaday 009: Wolf in the Fold, The Trouble With Tribbles, The Gamesters of Triskelion, A Piece of the Action, The Immunity Syndrome, A Private Little War, Return to Tomorrow"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>TOS S02E14 Wolf in the Fold <\/strong>(<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"usr\" src=\"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/universal-star-rating\/includes\/image.php?img=01.png&amp;px=12&amp;max=5&amp;rat=1.5\" alt=\"1.5 out of 5 stars\" style=\"height: 12px !important;\" \/>) never quite commits to being a \u201cScotty\u201d episode. Despite the fact that the teaser in three minutes of belly-dancing we don\u2019t get to see the incident which earned the ship\u2019s chief engineer his shore leave and he is rapidly sidelined after his arrest for a knife murder in foggy old London Town (by way of <em>Aladdin<\/em>\u2019s Agraba). Kirk suddenly remembers the Prime Directive and his diplomatic responsibilities. He has a flashback\/mind-reading machine sent down from the ship, but he makes the rookie error of having a woman sent down with it who is promptly gutted. (This gizmo seems like a handy thing to have. Odd that it was never mentioned before.)<\/p>\n<p>This episode is very peculiar mix of <em>Perry Mason<\/em>, <em>Sherlock Holmes<\/em>, <em>Arabian Nights<\/em> and <em>12 Angry Men<\/em> with very little actual <strong>Star Trek<\/strong>. (It turns out that <em>Psycho<\/em> author Robert Bloch repurposed his short story <em>Yours Truly Jack the Ripper<\/em>, crossing out existing character names and writing in \u201cKirk\u201d, \u201cScott\u201d and so on. Bloch also wrote <em>What Are Little Girls Made Of<\/em> and <em>Catspaw<\/em>, so at least I know who to avoid from now on.)<\/p>\n<p>Of course, it all works out for the best, and everyone\u2019s laughing and smiling at the end, as they wash the blood of their friends and co-workers off their hands. That\u2019s par for the course. What\u2019s also common, but far far worse than usual here, is the patronising and parochial treatment of women who are practically treated here as a separate species, even harder to understand than Klingons or Romulans.<\/p>\n<p><strong>TOS S02E15 The Trouble with Tribbles <\/strong>(<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"usr\" src=\"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/universal-star-rating\/includes\/image.php?img=01.png&amp;px=12&amp;max=5&amp;rat=4\" alt=\"4 out of 5 stars\" style=\"height: 12px !important;\" \/>) is one of the show\u2019s most famous episodes and it is quite a treat, especially given the recent run of mediocrity. Again, it\u2019s one I knew from the Blish books (although I at first mis-read the title as <em>The Trouble with <u>the<\/u> Tribbles<\/em>, which I still think sounds better). There isn\u2019t a lot I can add to the thousands of words already written about this instalment, which is basically tremendous, if not quite hitting the heights of the very best of the season, such as <em>The Doomsday Machine<\/em> or <em>Amok Time<\/em>. Herewith some stray observations.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Chekov is easier to write for than Sulu. Chekov is young and silly and thinks everything good was invented in Russia. Sulu\u2019s just this guy.<\/li>\n<li>Even by the standards of this series, the lighting here is bonkers (in a good way). Every wall is a different colour.<\/li>\n<li>Cyrano Jones (Stanley Adams) is far preferable to Harry Mudd and other comedy characters that the series has visited on us. Like Indiana, in early drafts his surname was Smith.<\/li>\n<li>It\u2019s nice to spend some time with some of the other bridge crew.<\/li>\n<li>The unit of currency is \u201ccredits\u201d.<\/li>\n<li>These Klingons again look quite similar to the ones we will meet in future incarnations of the show. In fact, Koloth looks <em>very<\/em> similar (because it\u2019s Trelane actor William Campbell). The brusque Klingon attitude has not been refined yet, however.<\/li>\n<li>Comedy episodes (or moments of episodes) of <strong>Star Trek<\/strong> tend to marred by tiddly-pom musical cues to tell us how amusing everything is, and this is no exception. The difference is that this genuinely is amusing and the problem manages to be both absurd and very nearly intractable.<\/li>\n<li>Who threw the first punch? If only we had a machine on board which could replay memories, or tell whether or not someone is speaking truthfully.<\/li>\n<li>Same issue here as in Peter Harness\u2019s majestic <em>Kill the Moon<\/em>. You can\u2019t get two 1lb tribbles from a single 1lb tribble unless you first give it at least 1lb of food. Sure, they gorge themselves on quadrotriticale, but what are they eating on board the Enterprise? Dilithium? You don\u2019t care about it here, so why do you care about it there?<\/li>\n<li>The whole cast is having a wonderful time, and Shatner in particular is effortlessly charming and charismatic.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>TOS S02E16 The Gamesters of Triskelion <\/strong>(<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"usr\" src=\"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/universal-star-rating\/includes\/image.php?img=01.png&amp;px=12&amp;max=5&amp;rat=2\" alt=\"2 out of 5 stars\" style=\"height: 12px !important;\" \/>) suffers from a lot of drawbacks of sixties <strong>Trek<\/strong>. This is another recycled plot \u2013 in this case it\u2019s a re-run of <em>Arena<\/em> (with a dose of, yawn, <em>The Cage<\/em>) \u2013 but this time with extra-ridiculous costumes, a Batman villain pulling the strings and some pretty shoddy fight choreography. The silliness isn\u2019t helped by a couple of really nasty moments. It\u2019s implied at one point that Uhura is going to be raped in her cell which is a bit fucking much for a show that won\u2019t allow a bare navel or an \u201copen-mouthed\u201d kiss. I almost stopped watching at that point.<\/p>\n<p>All the good stuff happens on board the ship, and it\u2019s a relief whenever we cut back there. Ensign Haines is treated by acting Captain Spock as a valuable member of the crew, and not on object of lust or a subject of mystified speculation, which is something of a rarity. In fact, Spock, Scott and McCoy get some good material throughout \u2013 frustratingly good. All three act according to their natures, and they almost constantly butt heads, yet my estimation of all of them does nothing but increase.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, on the planet, we have a scantily-clad handmaiden in a tinfoil bikini and green hair, asking Captain Kirk what love is. He explains: \u201cLove is the most important thing on Earth. Especially to a man and a woman.\u201d A short while later, Kirk kisses her, belts her hard enough to knock her out, and then starts fishing around in her underwear. Jesus.<\/p>\n<p>The problem isn\u2019t just that it\u2019s a rehash of <em>Arena<\/em> (and it really is, the shots of the <em>Enterprise<\/em> crew watching the fight are almost identical) it\u2019s that it\u2019s far less interesting version. Of course Kirk isn\u2019t going to slaughter tinfoil bikini girl. The point of <em>Arena<\/em> is that he didn\u2019t murder ugly lizard guy \u2013 because killing&#8230; is wrong. The message here seems to be that impaling big burly men to save your own skin is fine, and nobody should shed a tear over it, but sticking a knife in a pretty young woman is barbaric.<\/p>\n<p>No jokey tag scene, we end on the moist eyes of the woman Kirk manipulated, lied to, snogged and abandoned (in that order).<\/p>\n<p><strong>TOS S02E17 A Piece of the Action<\/strong> (<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"usr\" src=\"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/universal-star-rating\/includes\/image.php?img=01.png&amp;px=12&amp;max=5&amp;rat=3.5\" alt=\"3.5 out of 5 stars\" style=\"height: 12px !important;\" \/>) does give us a cool set-up. We get to revisit a planet that had contact with the \u201cFederation of Planets\u201d 100 years ago and see what transpired. It\u2019s a lesson in why the Prime Directive exists. In reality, of course, this is just a flimsy excuse for transporting our crew into a Damon Runyon-style gangster movie. What works well about this is that the balance between the fun of the pulp world and the reality of the high concept science-fiction show is maintained. Kirk takes responsibility for what has happened on Sigma Iotia II and wants to fix it. But we also have the fun of hearing our noble Captain using the local slang and seeing him in fancy duds. Once again, it\u2019s utterly impossible to connect the charming and amusing Star Fleet captain who struggles with a 1930s automobile to the brash and cocky asshole stealing a sports car in the JJ Abrams parody version.<\/p>\n<p>There probably isn\u2019t quite enough plot for the run-time. Spock and McCoy get captured, escape, beam up to the ship, beam back down to the planet and promptly get captured again. And the final negotiation is largely free of tension, as Kirk comprehensively has the upper hand throughout, but this is largely very entertaining stuff. I\u2019m sure I heard James Doohan doing one of his silly voices on the radio. And that\u2019s Vic Tayback (from TV\u2019s <em>Alice<\/em>) as the number two boss who wants to be number one.<\/p>\n<p><strong>TOS S02E18 The Immunity Syndrome <\/strong>(<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"usr\" src=\"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/universal-star-rating\/includes\/image.php?img=01.png&amp;px=12&amp;max=5&amp;rat=4.5\" alt=\"4.5 out of 5 stars\" style=\"height: 12px !important;\" \/>). Long before Nicholas Meyer conceived of the <em>Enterprise <\/em>as a submarine, or before Wolfgang Peterson created <em>Das Boot<\/em>, <strong>Star Trek<\/strong> was playing around with these story ideas, and there\u2019s an amazingly oppressive atmosphere of doom in this story, which starts off with some familiar tropes involving missing planets and mysterious blobby things on the viewscreen, but which develops into something very tense and chilling in which Kirk makes some of his toughest ever command decisions. It\u2019s very linear and maybe gets a little repetitive in the third act, but these are minor criticisms of a very strong episode, with decent sci-fi concepts, palpable tension and wonderful character work. There\u2019s a very good chance that if you don\u2019t like this episode, you don\u2019t like <strong>Star Trek<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>TOS S02E19 A Private Little War <\/strong>(<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"usr\" src=\"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/universal-star-rating\/includes\/image.php?img=01.png&amp;px=12&amp;max=5&amp;rat=2\" alt=\"2 out of 5 stars\" style=\"height: 12px !important;\" \/>) begins strongly as Spock is shot in the back (it\u2019s not a very gory wound, with or without the green blood). For the second time in three episodes, we\u2019re going on a return visit to see how things have changed since we last made contact, but here the Prime Directive is summarily suspended so that Kirk can personally arm the natives in a heavy-handed Vietnam allegory that smothers everything else about this episode, but can\u2019t quite eclipse the ludicrous sight of a very silly unicorn teddy bear monster with poison fangs which nobbles the Captain and causes him to speak only in single word sentences.<\/p>\n<p>Of all the things that <strong>TOS<\/strong> struggles with, the one I really can\u2019t stand is the patronising depiction of primitive cultures. This is better than embarrassments like <em>The Apple<\/em> and <em>Friday\u2019s Child<\/em> but it\u2019s still not great. Nancy Kovack (with another bare belly button on flagrant display) does a huge amount to try and make this work but it\u2019s uphill all the way. Nurse Chapel\u2019s chief character trait turns out to be: has the hots for Spock (and has to spank him back to health).<\/p>\n<p><strong>TOS S02E20 Return to Tomorrow (<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"usr\" src=\"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/universal-star-rating\/includes\/image.php?img=01.png&amp;px=12&amp;max=5&amp;rat=4\" alt=\"4 out of 5 stars\" style=\"height: 12px !important;\" \/>) <\/strong>gives us our first sight of Diana Muldaur in a Star Fleet uniform (accompanied by soaring strings as if the mere sight of a female officer is the most surprising and alluring vision imaginable). We haven\u2019t done much with alien possession on this show so far, which is surprising as it\u2019s a) cheap and b) plays to the strengths of the show: casting and characterisation. Taken over by Sargon, Shatner goes for broke, and luckily doesn\u2019t go full Kroagnon on us. He teeters on the brink a few times though.<\/p>\n<p>The deal that the incorporal aliens make seems acceptable at first \u2013 they merely want to borrow Star Fleet bodies and will return them unharmed (I recall a very funny <em>Red Dwarf<\/em> episode which played with this idea). They even let the crew return to the ship to think it over, which they do while munching the scenery. Kirk\u2019s big speech at the conference table is pure Shat through and through (but I kinda love it). DeForrest Kelley is a very underrated actor. His speech to Kirk when he\u2019s restored is pure nonsense but Kelley sells the shit out of it.<\/p>\n<p>Pretty soon, Kirk, Spock and Diana Muldaur (why isn\u2019t it Nichelle Nichols??) are all mere vessels for alien minds. As soon as the all-powerful pure energy being wakes up inside Spock, he starts coming on to Nurse Chapel, natch, but Nimoy has great fun playing the chipper psychopath. It\u2019s a slight issue that three all-powerful mind-reading aliens have no clue that one of them is plotting to kill one of the others. Maybe Henoch is \u201cshielding\u201d his thoughts?<\/p>\n<p>Kirk\u2019s \u201cdeath\u201d is exciting but it\u2019s clearly not going to be a permanent state of affairs, although it is hard to guess how the resolution will play out. Thalassa attempts to swap Mulhall\u2019s life for Kirk\u2019s and McCoy turns her down, which is a great bit of nobility from the irascible doc. In fact, the only real problem with this story is that our heroes don\u2019t have much to do. The fact that it\u2019s their lives that are at risk sustains our interest, but almost all the crucial decisions, nefarious and noble, are taken by the telepaths with Star Fleet officers merely observers until \u201cNurse Chapel\u201d turns that hypo on \u201cSpock\u201d. The ending is pure <strong>Trek<\/strong>, compassionate, complicated, and slightly ridiculous \u2013 but it works. I can\u2019t help thinking that Kirk needs a Picard-style ready room, though.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Stray thoughts<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I can see why this show was so beloved, but also why it was so endlessly parodied. When it goes silly, it doesn\u2019t just go a bit wonky, it goes fully ridiculous.<\/li>\n<li>For a series which can go anyway and do anything, a small number of plots get recycled an awful lot \u2013 the quixotic alien with godlike powers, the gilded cage, the infection which sends the crew mad, the naive alien species which needs to learn about how to live freely (or how to bone). The best episodes are often the ones which find something genuinely new \u2013 <em>Devil in the Dark<\/em>, <em>Space Seed<\/em>, <em>City on the Edge of Forever<\/em>, <em>Amok Time<\/em>.<\/li>\n<li>Some weaker episodes are saved or nearly saved by the interplay between the main characters. This cast really is fantastic and when the writers keep the emphasis there, the series can do little wrong.<\/li>\n<li>Even the weaker episodes are very well paced. Watching some 80s shows like <em>Moonlighting<\/em> or <em>The A Team<\/em> now they seem amazingly sluggish. With very few exceptions, these episodes fill 50 minutes amply with plenty of plot, action, and character detail.<\/li>\n<li>Why are these episode titles so vague and so hard to remember? I never have any trouble recalling which Doctor Who story is which (you\u2019re a real Doctor Who fan if it\u2019s never even occurred to you that people might mix up <em>The Seeds of Death<\/em> and <em>The Seeds of Doom<\/em>) but without looking, I couldn\u2019t tell you now which one was <em>Wolf in the Fold<\/em>, which one was <em>Return to Tomorrow<\/em> and which one was <em>Errand of Mercy<\/em> if my very life depended on it.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>TOS S02E14 Wolf in the Fold () never quite commits to being a \u201cScotty\u201d episode. Despite the fact that the teaser in three minutes of belly-dancing we don\u2019t get to see the incident which earned the ship\u2019s chief engineer his shore leave and he is rapidly sidelined after his arrest for a knife murder in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[11],"tags":[19,79,534,528],"class_list":["post-2808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","tag-reviews","tag-star-trek","tag-tos","tag-trekaday"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5JY5l-Ji","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2808"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2808\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2818,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2808\/revisions\/2818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}