Star Trek (TOS): Episode-by-Episode Thread (Part Two)

I have never noticed it. Do you know where it is in the episode?

 

You can see it here:


Try to ignore the idiotic voiceover, though.

 

Wardrobe pants were apparently quite tight in the sixties. James Darren's pants are split in this opening of THE TIME TUNNEL's "The Last Patrol".



Harry

 

The Savage Curtain is definitely one of the above average and quite enjoyable 3rd season episodes for me, flaws and all.

Lee Bergere was wonderful as Lincoln and some of his dialog was exactly what you would hope Lincoln would say if you actually had the opportunity to talk with him.

His earnest apology to Uhura for inadvertently calling her a "Negress" was a great scene , and so "right on" considering that America was still struggling with the concept of Racial Equality, even that late in the 60's.

My other favorite scene in this episode was on the planet when Lincoln, Kirk, Spock, and Surak are making plans for their defense and Kirk gives his input on the best way to defend themselves against the enemy.

Lincoln listens and nods, then asks Kirk "Do you drink whiskey?" Kirk says "Occasionally. Why?" Lincoln replies " Because you remind me of another man who I admire greatly....Ulysses S. Grant." Kirk, still partially caught up in his thoughts automatically says "Thank you" , then....when it suddenly sinks in what a compliment it was..looks up at Lincoln, smiles and says " Thank you " a second time, with an obviously high degree of sincerity.

Very cool scene indeed ...

 

Wish I'd caught this thread a lot earlier.

Cloud Minders: In addition to what everyone mentioned, I always liked the way that the Troglodytes were dressed like members of the Weather Underground, the late 60's ultra radical group who lived underground. Not sure if that was intentional or if it was just one of those wonderful coincidences.

Way to Eden: I always thought it was a very heavy handed and childish attempt to make a very biased commentary about 60's counterculture. The only thing that saves the episode in my opinion is Spock. I watch it for the good laugh and the driver of the Winnebago.

The Savage Curtain: I always enjoyed the concept of this episode, and though it's a little cheesy, my interest in Abraham Lincoln makes this one a winner. Futurama copied the plot a bit in the episode Neutopia, complete with a matter-altering rock creature trying to figure out human concepts, in this case, gender.

 

This episode has serious flaws, but overall I think it's essential Star Trek.

The portrayals of Surak and Lincoln are not just well done, but to me almost heartbreaking. Surak was the Gandhi of Vulcan, and he dies like Gandhi did living his beliefs. Lincoln dies heroically too. Episodes that are emotional are tops with me. And this one, again in spite of its flaws of the silly aliens and the test, somehow has always seemed one of the saddest episodes out there.

And, in my family, I used to to a haunting parody of the Klingon doing a mimic of Surak and Spock's voice: "Help me Spock! Help me Kirk."

But as Spock says, poignantly, realizing Surak's likely dead: "A Vulcan would not cry out so."

 

#78 - All Our Yesterdays

Original Air Date: 3/14/69

Stardate: 5943.7

Kirk, McCoy and Spock beam down to the planet Sarpeidon to learn what has happened to the inhabitants. The planet, which will be completely destroyed when its sun goes super nova in a few hours time, once had a thriving population but has now been reduced to one person, the Librarian Mr. Atoz. It would appear that the planet's entire populace has gone back in time to a period of their choice in the planet's history. When the three crewman unknowingly go through the time portal, Kirk ends up in a society similar to 17th century Earth while Spock and McCoy end up in a frozen ice age. With Kirk arrested and accused of witchcraft and the others having to survive the harsh Arctic-like climate, they have only a short time to find their way back and get to the Enterprise before the planet explodes and their bodies break down on the cellular level. For Mr. Spock, he finds a time from before the existence of logical Vulcan, and is reverting back to the barbaric behavior of his ancestors.

All Our Yesterdays continues the strong three episode conclusion to ST:TOS. This episode does so many things well. The concept of a people who develop a time machine, and catalog their entire past is believable and great science fiction, and Ian Wolfe turns in a fine performance as Atoz the librarian. The episode then balances the two diverging story lines perfectly. Star Trek always straddled the line between a space adventure and dramatic television. This episode gives us both. Kirk's journey is full of swordplay and jailbreaks, while Spock and McCoy have the penultimate encounter of their relationship. My favorite aspect of Kirk's story line is the Captain meeting The Prosecutor who also came from the future. I particularly like the moment when Kirk puts two and two together.

There have been several episodes where Spock has lost control of his emotions, but this one is played as well as any (save Naked Time). Nimoy does an excellent job of showing Spock slowly transforming, and Zarabeth's character is well played as she encourages his descent. But it is the relationship between Spock and McCoy that carries the story. These two have had a love/hate relationship for 3 seasons, and here it all comes to the surface. This comes to the fore when Spock delivers one of the greatest lines of the series. After McCoy unleashes one of his "pointy-eared Vulcan" insults, Spock hisses "I don't like that. I don't think I ever did, and now I'm sure!" At the climax of this story line, Spock is close to crushing McCoy's windpipe, when earlier he would rather die than leave his friend. In the end, you feel Spock and McCoy have been forever changed by the events that take place. And that is a good thing. By stardate, this is the final adventure of ST:TOS, and it is the perfect send off.

Personal Rating: 4.5 Stars

 

Trivia:

The title is taken from "Macbeth" by William Shakespeare, Act 5, Scene 5: The title character speaks "Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, / Creeps in this petty pace from day to day / To the last syllable of recorded time, / And all our yesterdays have lighted fools / The way to dusty death."

This is the only episode of Star Trek (1966) The Original Series with no scenes set aboard the Enterprise.

George Takei (Sulu), Nichelle Nichols (Uhura) and Walter Koenig (Chekov) do not appear in this episode. James Doohan (Scotty) does not appear on screen but has several voice-over lines. In no other episode are only three regular members of the crew seen in person.

The name of the librarian Mr. Atoz is a play on the phrase "A to Z".

A scene in the story draft that was cut would have had McCoy "stuck" in the time doorway, with part of his body in the present and the rest in the past.

Mr. Atoz's name is a word play – a librarian named "A to Z." Author Jean Lisette Aroeste was a UCLA librarian at the time she wrote this script.

Mariette Hartley (Zarabeth) was not allowed to show her belly-button in this episode, despite the appearances of other navels in previous episodes. To comment on this censorship, Gene Roddenberry gave Hartley's character two navels in his pilot, "Genesis II", stating that "the network owed me one."

The brief sword fight scene is the only outdoor shot in the series after "The Paradise Syndrome".

The stock footage showing the endless snow fields on the disc McCoy watches was also used as the surface of Exo III in "What Are Little Girls Made Of?".

The atavachron device is the reused prop of Gary Seven's Beta 5 computer from "Assignment: Earth".

David Gerrold joked at a 1986 Star Trek convention in Spokane, Washington, that the inventors of the compact disc got their inspiration from the data discs, or "verism tapes," used in Atoz's library. James Russell is generally credited with inventing the compact disc three years prior to this episode in 1965, ending up with a total of 22 patents for various aspects of it.

TAS: "The Counter-Clock Incident" briefly references the fact of Enterprise's presence near Beta Niobe when it began its supernova explosion.

Contrary to online published reports, file footage of Toronto City Hall was not seen in this episode. It does appear in TNG: "Contagion".

According to the stardate this episode is chronologically the last of the series, even though its production number and air date are earlier than "Turnabout Intruder". This is therefore the last voyage of the USS Enterprise in the original series.

 

Another trivia note: the sound effect used for the Atavachron was the sound of the IRIG-B timecode that shortwave radio station WWV used to air in the '60s.

Harry

 

One of my favorite season 3 quotes was in this episode.

"A library serves no purpose unless someone is using it." Mr. Atoz

Darryl

 

Great episode. One of the finest in the series. I love when Spock get very angry and almost kills McCoy. I love Spock's "I Don't Like That" line. A great Spock and McCoy episode. Mariette Hartley is very fine to look at. She would have made it very tolerable to live in such a cold desolate setting.

 

Just got the box set.
Thanks for all the info so far.

 

After you see the Spock/McCoy relationship in this episode, Spock's choice of who to give his katra
to in Star Trek 2 : The Wrath Of Khan makes logical sense.

Darryl

 

Still hopelessly behind, but my random thoughts:

Balance of Terror: agree that this is as good as it gets for Star Trek. Powerful message, but they don't beat you over the head with it, and great acting by the Klingon commander. Nearly as Shakespearean as The Conscience of a King, but not by alluding to Shakespeare; they came up with a great tragedy on their own terms here, with the two commanders respecting each other, but being forced to do their duty to the end.

Shore Leave: pretty bad. You can figure out what is going right away, but, unlike Arena, there's no real message or moral or point revealed at the end. Kirk's fight with Finnegan goes on way too long, and the hokey fight choreography made this a real slog to get through.

The Galileo Seven: not a lot of love for this episode in the first thread, which surprises me. The special effects of the creatures lobbing spears at the shuttlecraft are hopelessly hokey, and the message/moral is laid on with a trowel, and you can see it coming a mile away, but it's a good message: i.e., Spock initially appears to be a heartless detached leader who doesn't care about life, but, in the end, he's the one who's willing to sacrifice himself so that the others can get off of the planet. A good episode to show Trek is not about the special effects, which are laughable* in this episode, but about the story/message.

*Talking about the depiction of the creatures on the planet surface, obviously, not about the cool updated outer space effects.

Squire of Gothos: took a little longer for me to figure out the twist here than it did in Shore Leave, but, again, not much of a payoff to the reveal that Trelane is really just a spoiled child.

Arena: As in The Galileo Seven, I could see the big reveal (Kirk refuses to kill the Gorn) coming as soon as the duel was initiated, but it was a good message. The alien revealing himself as a space hippie in a toga at the end was pretty cool. As others noted, the Gorn costume is so hilariously awful that it becomes cool. But, again, the message, and Kirk reasoning his way to victory by inventing gunpowder on the spot, more than make up for the ridiculous production values.

 

I agree with Luke, this is a surprisingly strong episode. Mr. Atoz is great—I love him! Don't have much else to say that hasn't already been said, but I'd rate it about an A or A-.

 

Mark Lenard certainly played many different roles. He did comedy quite well in The Bob Newhart Show, look for the Season 6 episode
Carlin's new suit. He played a lawyer representing a woman played by Loni Anderson. Bob even waits in line to see Star Wars!

 

#79: Turnabout Intruder

Original Air Date: 6/3/69

Stardate: 5928.5

In answering a medical emergency at an archaeological expedition, Kirk confronts the deep hatred of an old love, Janice Lester, who supposedly lies severely ill from celebium radiation. In payment for jilting her back at Starfleet Academy, and driven by her rejection at Starfleet, Dr. Lester arranges for an alien machine to swap her consciousness with that of the captain and takes command of the Enterprise. Once aboard, Kirk (in Lester's body) tries to convince Spock that he is trapped in her body. As a result, Janice (in Kirk's body) conducts a court-marshal with the intent of executing Spock and Kirk (in Janice's body), and later McCoy and Scott, to keep her secret. The crew realize something is seriously wrong with their captain and, not wishing to incur an illegal death-penalty themselves, begin a passive resistance.

Last week we noted that the last recorded journey of the Enterprise crew was actually "All Our Yesterdays", a fitting end. The actual end of ST:TOS is "Turnabout Intruder". This episode seems to illicit strong reactions, and differing opinions. I have always liked it, and find it to be a fitting end to the series. We see Shatner able to overact one last time, with spectacular results. We see fine material for Spock, McCoy, and Scotty. There is also a fine scene for Sulu and Chekov. The only shame is the lack of Uhura. One feature of this episode, is that I do "believe" that Kirk is in Lester's body, and I do "believe" that Lester is in Kirk's body. The actor's did a fine job projecting the switch. Some despise the episode, because it claims that women can not be captains (which contradicts canon), and it seems to suggest women long to be men. This kind of lazy writing is found throughout season 3. But, there is enough here to enjoy.

Personal Rating: 3 Stars

And so ended the greatest televison series ever produced. We could argue over what the best television series was, but when one takes into account the influence of ST:TOS, its greatness is unchallenged. What other series could lay claim to a movie franchise, spin-offs, cultural references, a cult following, and inspiration of future leaders? Not bad for a little science fiction show. I will post a countdown next week to finish up.

 

Trivia:

This episode was originally scheduled for broadcast on March 28, 1969. Special network coverage of the death of Dwight D. Eisenhower pre-empted it, and it didn't air until June 3.

Leonard Nimoy (Spock) and Majel Barrett (Nurse Christine Chapel and Number One) are the only actors to appear in both this episode and first pilot "The Cage".

Leonard Nimoy is the only actor to appear in every episode of the series. William Shatner appeared in every episode with the exception of the first pilot, "The Cage".

In Roman mythology, Janus was a 2-faced head representing opposite aspects in nature such as chaotic nature and controlled civilization. "Lester" means in Old English: locality. Hence, Janice Lester. A split personality from nearby or within.

Regular blonde Christine Chapel appears with auburn hair in this episode and in "Operation -- Annihilate!"

Uhura is the only regular character absent in this, the final episode. The actress, Nichelle Nichols, had a singing engagement at the time.

Lieutenant Galloway reappears in this episode, despite being killed by Ronald Tracey in "The Omega Glory". He was credited as Galloway (misspelled as "Galoway") even though actor David L. Ross had been recast as Lieutenant Johnson in "Day of the Dove" after the character of Galloway was killed off.

After two years on the series, Roger Holloway finally gets to speak dialogue – all of two words. His character's name (Lemli) was the same as William Shatner's license plate at the time, a mixture of his daughters' (Leslie, Melanie, Lisabeth) names.

Starfleet's General Orders appear to have changed by this time. Sulu and Chekov say that only violating General Order 4 warrants the death penalty. In "The Menagerie, Part I", though, it was stated that violation of General Order 7 (the ban on contact with Talos IV) was the "only death penalty left on the books."

For story reasons, Janice Lester convalesces in a private, never-before-seen room down the corridor from sickbay.

The planet Benecia is pronounced differently in this episode than it was in "The Conscience of the King", i.e. "beh-NEE-shee-a" as opposed to "beh-neh-SEE-a".

In this episode, Kirk mentions the events of two previous episodes ("The Empath" and "The Tholian Web") to Spock.

The final four episodes of the series opened with the same music cue, taken from the opening titles of "Spock's Brain" and the final two episodes ended with the closing music cue from "Elaan of Troyius".

The physical exam scene in sickbay with William Shatner and DeForest Kelley is very similar to the first appearance of those two actors in the first regular-season episode of the series to be filmed, "The Corbomite Maneuver", right down to the detail of a shirtless Shatner undergoing a stress test on the leg-exercising machine.

The very last Enterprise crew member to be seen in the original series is Scotty. As he, Kirk, and Spock enter the turbo-elevator at the end of Act IV, we catch a glimpse of his forearm, grasping the control handle, before the doors close.

According to writer Joan Winston (referenced above), who was on the set for the filming of this episode, NBC passed on an option for two additional episodes (a 25th and 26th) for the third season. William Shatner would have directed the twenty-sixth episode.

The transposition sequence was the last footage shot for the series.

This episode is subtly referenced in the TNG episode "Legacy". In it, Jean-Luc Picard mentions that they are bypassing an archaeological survey on Camus II, the same planet that this episode begins on. This was mentioned because, with the airing of its 80th episode "Legacy", Star Trek: The Next Generation officially became longer than TOS.

Jeffrey Hunter, who had played Christopher Pike in the first pilot episode "The Cage", had passed away a week before "Turnabout Intruder" aired.

 

It's so nice one of the most influential television series of all time ends with its most blatantly sexist episode.

 

I remember the airing of this episode as if it were yesterday. STAR TREK had been buried on Friday nights at 10 all season long. That meant that I had to watch a number of episodes in black and white at our weekend summer place. There had been news of Season Three getting a Monday night berth before the season started, but NBC reneged and put LAUGH-IN in there, relegating STAR TREK to the death slot on Fridays.

Then when this episode was preempted for the Eisenhower funeral in March, I searched the TV Guide high and low for the rescheduled episode and NBC ran it in the Tuesday at 7:30 PM slot on that first week of June. All of the other series were in reruns at that time, so having a fresh STAR TREK episode - and on a Tuesday when I could see it in color - was a real bonus.

I found the plot eerily similar to the "Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling" episode of THE PRISONER where Number 6's mind is transferred into another's body, but since I liked that show too, I didn't mind a STAR TREK take on that plot device.

Harry

 

I took my user name on a Trek message board from this episode. Janice was one wacky lady!

 

Turnabout Intruder may have come off as being sexist, but
I believe its real intent was the awareness of the current women's movement at the time. I don't think its as much as women wanting to be men, but at the time, women almost have to be like men in order to get to that higher status. In some ways, it doesn't make any sense to have that kind of inequality in during their time period, but like "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" covered issues regarding the civil rights movement during that time in the 60's, Turnabout Intruder focused on the women's movement and the strive for equality.

 

Wow. Looks like we are close to the end...my friends...

A quick weigh in on All Our Yesterdays as I've been away and negligent.

A cool story concept first-off, and ...I really like the visual appearance of "the library". Even with the tight budget that they working with, it has a true futuristic/alien look that is pleasing, and more than convincing.

And you have to admire that Mr. Atoz. Their sun is just hours away from super nova, and as he alluded to Kirk, he has his wife and family waiting for him sometime in his planet's past as well, yet here he is , duty-bound to make absolutely sure that any "stragglers" get processed and sent to their chosen safe haven.

Kirk's coming to the defense of the damsel...well...wench in distress is pure Kirk. And her obvious carnal interest in her rescuer after the rescue is in a sense pure Kirk as well.

Until she decides he is "A WITCH" of course.

The dynamic between Spock, McCoy, and Zarabeth is compelling and well written. And Mariette Hartley understated delivery still manages to portray the painful depth of Zarabeth's loneliness prior to their arrival very convincingly. And of course, there is Spock's obvious emotional dilemma of either staying with Zarabeth and enjoying the presence of her company and the growing feeling of love between them, or remaining loyal to his one closest friend next to Kirk.

Zarabeth's expression as she realizes that Spock must and will ultimately choose McCoy is gripping and always fills me with sadness. Her slow walk away from the egress site back to the library shows her well bundled against the freezing cold but still totally unprotected from the deep well of despair that she must surely feel at that moment. A very brutal scene where you can not help but feel her anguish.

This is one of my favorite episodes of the troubled 3rd season and to me, it showed that even with all the various problems that the production staff and actors had to deal with, they could still come up with an occasional script and episode that still managed to contain some of that inherent "Roddenberryness" that made Star Trek such a wonderful weekly Television series.

 

Great concept poorly executed for Turnabout Intruder. The actresses playing Janice does a marvelous job. The director needed to rein in Shatner a bit although he could be so campy here because he realizes the writing is just plain bad.

 

A weak and annoying episode to end the show imho.

But thanks so much, Luke, for running this thread! Great work!++++