“Requiem for Methuselah”
Written by Jerome Bixby
Directed by Murray Golden
Season 3, Episode 21
Production episode 60043-76
Original air date: February 14, 1969
Stardate: 5843.7
Captain’s log. The Enterprise is in the grips of an epidemic of Rigellian fever. Three crew members have died (they don’t get named, of course, so they’re not anybody important or anything…) and twenty-three more are ill. They’re in orbit of a small uninhabited planet that has tons of pure ryetalin, the only substance that can cure the fever (which makes you wonder why they don’t stock any on the ship…). Kirk, Spock, and McCoy beam down to collect the ryetalin, but it turns out the uninhabited planet is not so uninhabited as all that. There’s an old human named Flint, who says this world is his retreat and that the landing party is trespassing. He refuses to allow them to collect ryetalin, and if they don’t leave, he’ll kill them. He’s got a big ol’ robot with a powerful ray beam (and very bad aim) at his disposal to back it up.
McCoy tries to appeal to his sense of decency—which is good, as Kirk’s show of force by ordering Scotty to train phasers on their location does not impress Flint—and when the doctor analogizes the fever to the bubonic plague, Flint speaks of what the plague was like in Constantinople in 1334 (which was actually before the bubonic plague reached that region, but whatever, he’s old), and he finally gives in. He instructs his robot to collect the ryetalin and leads the landing party to his palace.
Flint reveals that he has screens that hide him from orbital detection. He also has an impressive collection of Earth artifacts, including a Gutenberg Bible and a Shakespeare First Folio, not to mention a ton of artwork.
Their conversation is observed by a blonde from another room. This is Rayna Kapec, who desperately wishes to meet other humans, not to mention a Vulcan, about whom she’s heard quite a bit from Flint. At first, Flint refuses, viewing humans as brutal and selfish, but he gives in due to her desires.
Spock scans the Leonardo da Vinci paintings, which appear to be real—it’s Leonardo’s brushwork—but the canvases are contemporary, so they’re fakes. But none of them are da Vinci works that have been catalogued. Kirk has Scotty run a background check on the planet and on Flint and orders Spock to do a more detailed tricorder scan of Flint.
This conversation occurs over hundred-year-old Saurian brandy, which all three drink happily without a care in the world. It’s almost like there isn’t an epidemic on their ship…
The robot brings the ryetalin, and Flint offers to process it in his lab, which he says can be done faster than it can on the Enterprise. Kirk declines Flint’s offer of dinner, right up until he introduces Rayna, at which point Kirk is willing to hang out for a while.
McCoy goes off to supervise the processing of the ryetalin while Rayna shows Kirk how to play billiards and Kirk discusses humanity with Flint. Spock plays the piano and Kirk and Rayna dance. Rayna becomes more affectionate as the dance goes on. However, McCoy interrupts to reveal that the ryetalin has impurities that render it useless.
Flint and McCoy go off to supervise the robot’s gathering of more ryetalin—the speed with which the robot processes the drug means they still have time to get it right, though McCoy is worried that all the ryetalin on-planet will have the impurity—while Spock reveals that the waltz he just played is by Johannes Brahms. He played off of an original manuscript in Brahms’s handwriting. But he’s never heard of this particular piece before, and he knows all of Brahms’s work.
Kirk decides to go to the lab to see if he can fix the ryetalin, leaving Spock behind to play the piano some more. (Why Kirk with his total lack of scientific skills does this instead of the science officer is left as an exercise for the viewer.) Rayna arrives in the lab and stares at a door that she reveals to Kirk she is forbidden from walking through. It is the only thing Flint has denied her. She comes to the lab when she’s troubled, and Kirk thinks it’s because she’s not happy living alone on this world with Flint. Kirk gives her a hug and a smooch.
The robot appears out of nowhere and breaks up their smooching, floating menacingly toward Kirk, and ignoring Rayna’s command to stop. However, Spock remembered that he’s the science guy and goes to the lab, showing up in the nick of time to phaser the robot into nothingness.
Flint explains that the robot thought Kirk was attacking Rayna. Luckily, he has a spare. McCoy and the new robot go off to process the ryetalin, Flint and Rayna go off elsewhere, and Kirk stews over Flint’s treatment of Rayna, though Spock figures it’s the green-eyed monster.
Scotty reports that the entire ship is now infected with the fever, and Uhura reports no record of any kind of Flint. The planet was purchased thirty years ago by a reclusive financier named Brack. Kirk has her do a search on Rayna, which also turns up empty. Spock hypothesizes that Flint is observing their every move, and we cut to Flint and Rayna observing their every move.
Rayna comes to say goodbye to Kirk, but Kirk says he doesn’t want to say goodbye, and they smooch some more. Flint watches them kiss, then turns the monitor off. Kirk asks Rayna to come away with him, saying that she loves him and not Flint (love? seriously? you’ve known her for, like, fifteen minutes!). She runs away, frightened, and then Kirk is told by McCoy and Spock that the ryetalin has disappeared. They track it to the secret door that Rayna is forbidden to enter. They go inside and find the ryetalin—and also sixteen identical bodies, all labelled “Rayna.”
Flint arrives and reveals that he created Rayna for companionship. He also admits that he has, in the past, been Brahms, da Vinci, Solomon, Alexander, Lazarus (I’m assuming he means the guy from the Gospel According to John rather than the guy with the ever-changing beard), Methsuelah, Merlin, Abramson, and more. He was born Akharin, a soldier in Mesopotamia who was stabbed through the heart in battle but didn’t die. Over the millennia he has accrued wealth and intelligence, and now he lives alone, except for Rayna. He wanted a perfect woman, and so he created her. He won’t let Kirk love her, because she is literally his.
He also can’t let them leave, as he must preserve his privacy. But he also is grateful to them, because Kirk’s flirtations have awakened emotions within her at last. Unfortunately, all emotions have awakened—including anger if Flint does harm to the landing party.
Kirk is pissed off, as Flint used Kirk to get Rayna to be emotional, and he fell in love with her. Flint then proves how superior he is to Akharin the Mesopotamian soldier by engaging in fisticuffs with Kirk.
The fight lasts until Rayna bellows at them to stop. She refuses to be the cause of two people doing harm to each other, and she refuses to let Flint order her anymore. Kirk triumphantly crows that she has freedom of choice—
—and then she collapses after saying, “I… love…” She could not handle the conflicting emotions of two people she loved being in conflict, given that she’d only had emotions for four-and-a-half seconds, and so she went poof.
Back on the ship, Spock reports that the epidemic is subsiding, and Kirk barely notices, moping as he is over Rayna, saying he wishes he could forget her. He falls asleep, and then McCoy walks in and gives his report to Spock, since Kirk is finally getting some sleep. He reveals that Flint is dying due to having left Earth, and that he wishes that Kirk could somehow forget Rayna.
Being a literal-minded cuss, Spock takes the advice of his two best friends, does a mind-meld with the sleeping Kirk, and says, “Forget…”
Can’t we just reverse the polarity? Flint has the ability to screen his palace from scans, and to create a very good humanform android, has a spiffy keeno lab, and, oh yeah, can pull the Enterprise from orbit, shrink it to tabletop size, and put the entire crew in stasis. With all that, you’d think he’d be able to swing programming emotions, y’know?
Fascinating. Spock can play the piano. Who knew?
I’m a doctor not an escalator. When Rayna first shows up, it’s McCoy who flirts with her most aggressively at first, putting on the full southern-gentleman act, but once he goes off to do doctor things, Kirk takes over.
Hailing frequencies open. Uhura gets to do background checks on Flint, the planet, and Rayna.
I cannot change the laws of physics! Scotty is in charge of the ship and does, basically, nothing except answer the phone when Kirk actually manages to remember that he’s in charge of a ship full of dying people.
No sex, please, we’re Starfleet. Kirk and Rayna fall in love after playing billiards and dancing once. Sure.
Channel open. “You are the only other men I’ve ever seen.”
“The misfortune of men everywhere—and our privilege.”
Rayna being honest and McCoy with a much smoother approach to flirting than Kirk manages.
Welcome aboard. James Daly—who is the father of actors Tim and Tyne Daly—plays Flint, while Louise Sorel—who previously played a love interest of a character played by William Shatner in an episode of Route 66—plays Rayna. Plus we have recurring regulars James Doohan and Nichelle Nichols.
Trivial matters: Flint appears in several stories that take place prior to this episode, including Federation by Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens, The Eugenics Wars: The Rise and Fall of Khan Noonien Singh by Greg Cox (when he encounters Gary Seven and Khan Singh), “The Immortality Blues” by Marc Carlson in Strange New Worlds 9, the Enterprise: Rise of the Federation novels Uncertain Logic and Live by the Code by Christopher L. Bennett, and the Star Trek/Legion of Super-Heroes crossover comic by Chris Roberson and Jeffrey & Philip Moy.
Jeffrey Lang’s novel Immortal Coil established that Flint fooled McCoy into thinking he was dying, and he lived on, taking on the identity Emil Vaslovik (the name of the creator of Questor in Gene Roddenberry’s The Questor Tapes). Flint appears extensively in that novel, as well as David Mack’s Cold Equations trilogy.
Rayna’s full name—Rayna Kapec—is a play on Karel Čapek, the author who coined the term “robot” in his play R.U.R.
This is the last of Jerome Bixby’s four scripts for the original series. His final work before his death in 1998 was The Man from Earth, which also dealt with the subject of immortality. It’s also the only episode directed by Murray Golden, who also directed a half-dozen episodes of Batman.
In the Voyager episode “Concerning Flight,” Janeway references the fact that Kirk claimed to have met Leonardo da Vinci (who is also one of Janeway’s heroes).
To boldly go. “We put on a very poor show, didn’t we?” I’m of two minds about the ending of this episode. On the one hand, Spock just altering Kirk’s memories without his consent is, to say the least, appalling. It’s a horrid violation, a despicable act, for all that it comes from a place of love (the very love McCoy had just accused him of not being able to feel), as he simply wishes to stop his friend’s pain. But it’s a horrible, horrible thing to do.
On the other hand, I kinda wish Spock had turned, reached through the screen, and given me the same treatment so I wouldn’t have to remember this abomination.
As with seemingly every third-season episode, there’s a good idea lurking here under the nonsense. (In fact, one could argue it’s the same idea as The Tempest, though Shakespeare, this ain’t…) The trials and tribulations of living as an immortal has been story fodder for centuries, from Mary Shelley’s “The Mortal Immortal” to the various bits of the Highlander franchise, and Flint’s story is one that is compelling, at least at first. I particularly like that what gets him to change his mind about refusing the Enterprise to stay is his memory of the bubonic plague ravaging Europe in the 14th century (even if he gets the date wrong).
Sadly, that aspect is undermined by Flint being so many important figures (including several from myth and fiction whose historicity is in significant doubt…). I must confess to having absolutely no patience with stories that propose that one person actually accomplished a lot of humanity’s great works. It’s lazy storytelling, it’s insulting to the human race (I have the same issue with stories that have many bad guys in history really being demonic entities of some kind, mind you), and it’s just irritating.
On top of that, the love story that’s supposed to be the heart of the episode is just totally unconvincing. Part of the problem is Louise Sorel seems have a permanent freaked-out expression on her face, but the main problem is that I was never once convinced that she and Kirk were in love with each other. There just wasn’t time. It’s even less convincing than the McCoy-Natira relationship, the previous Trek gold-standard for going from zero to married in thirty seconds.
Not helping matters is the total lack of urgency with regard to the crew suffering on the Enterprise. Three people are dead, and if three of them had been characters we’ve actually met in prior episodes, you’d have to think that Kirk would actually remember to occasionally give a damn, but it’s been made clear that being a regular is the only way for Kirk to care about your demise for very long. Still, it’s frustrating that Spock has to keep reminding him about the ship of four hundred dying people he’s responsible for while he’s busy mooning over his android sweetie.
Kirk’s feelings for Rayna are written as if this is one of the great loves of his life, so tragic a loss that Spock commits an awful mental violation to keep him from having to suffer. But after three years, we’ve seen Kirk with other loves he’s lost—Edith Keeler, Miramanee, Ruth—and the emotions are far more convincing in the other cases than they are here. I just don’t buy the intensity of Kirk’s feelings for Rayna, not for a second. And without that, the whole episode falls to pieces.
Warp factor rating: 3
Next week: “The Savage Curtain”
Keith R.A. DeCandido is probably not an android. He would like to thank Rachel Wolf for pointing out the similarities between this episode and The Tempest.
This is another one where I disagree strongly with your assessment, Keith. This is one of my favorite third-season episodes. I love Jerome Bixby’s poetic dialogue, and it’s even better here than it is in “Day of the Dove.” There’s some magnificent, lyrical writing here, especially McCoy’s monologue to Spock at the end. James Daly gives a potent performance as Flint, and Louise Sorel is good at conveying Rayna’s intelligence and charm.
It does have flaws, though. The rushed relationship is the big one, and as I’ve mentioned before, that could’ve easily been fixed by changing the deadline from four hours to four days. It’s also implausible that Spock, who’s always been more a hard-sciences sort of guy, is suddenly such an expert in the liberal arts. And the shrunken Enterprise is just more of the third season’s random weirdness. Plus there are the questions raised by the “Remember” bit, which is very moving and poignant until you think about the ramifications. (I’ve always preferred to believe that he just eased the memory of how strongly Kirk felt for her, or maybe just eased the traumatic memory of her death, like the proposed therapies in real life for inhibiting the formation of long-term memory of traumatic events as a way of reducing PTSD.)
Also, given that Akharin was born in Mesopotamia, it would’ve been better to cast a more Middle-Eastern or Mediterranean actor. Although it makes sense that Flint would be able to pass for European, given his various alleged identities.
About that, by the way, the story “The Immortality Blues” posits that a lot of the identities Flint claimed for himself were untrue, just telling people what they wanted or expected to hear about an immortal’s past, when actually it was more like he’d known those people or just been aware of them.
Flint/Akharin also appeared in Books 3-4 of my Enterprise: Rise of the Federation series (Uncertain Logic and Live by the Code), where I gave him the alias Abramson, one of the famous people he claimed to have been in this episode.
I think this is one of the episodes that benefits most from the TOS-Remastered effects upgrades. The original episode just recycles the Rigel VII fortress from “The Cage” for Flint’s mansion, but the TOS-R edition created a gorgeous new digital matte painting by Max Gabl, just a fantastic piece of artwork.
The Brahms paraphrase composed by Ivan Ditmars (a keyboardist on many TOS scores, and the performer of the harpsichord cues in “The Squire of Gothos”) was almost the last bit of original music done for TOS, and certainly the last to receive onscreen credit for the composer. The very brief last bit will show up next week.
Flint has a supporting role in Federation by Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens, too.
“Turgid claptrap” is the clean way that I describe this episode. I’ve got a more accurate way of putting it but this is a family website so I’ll keep it clean.
I actually don’t mind the perpetually freaked out expression Rayna has on her face all throughout the episode because it gives her a not-quite-human look as if Rayne hasn’t quite got the hang of how to just look natural. But you hit every other point dead bang. I can’t stand the concept of Flint being every famous person that ever lived. And it always pisses me off that apparently Kirk falls in love as easily as I put on my socks in the morning.
“Flint speaks of what the plague was like in Constantinople in 1334 (which was actually before the bubonic plague reached that region, but whatever, he’s old)”
And how do you know if it was before? You read it in a book. Many books, especially before the printing press was invented, didn’t survive to now. Besides, Flint was there and you weren’t.
I can’t make up my mind about this episode. There’s so much wrong with it, but there’s also so much I like.
Some bits and pieces that I really like: Rayna displaying her intellect by introducing herself to the landing party with a sentence about theoretical physics. Spock’s interest in art and music (which can be seen again in TUC when he has that Chagall on his wall). Kirk being so open-minded that it doesn’t bother him at all when his beloved turns out to be an android. Rayna’s dress. The fairytale references – in addition to The Tempest, the room where Rayna is not allowed to enter and where her “dead” predecessors are kept is straight out of Bluebeard.
But I agree that they don’t take the plague nearly seriously enough. I don’t like it that Flint should have been so many famous people. Spock making Kirk forget is highly dubious. And Kirk shouldn’t fall in love so fast. Actually, he shouldn’t fall in love at all, mere months after he lost his wife and unborn child. Not to mention the scene where an ancient, wise man and a level-headed Starfleet captain have a fight over a woman like two teenage boys. I have a hard time believing that.
>Kirk being so open-minded that it doesn’t bother him at all when his beloved turns out to be an >android.
Kirk having had so many sexbots….
funny I had to click to prove I’m not a robot to post this.
Since Spock may have taken away Kirk’s memories of this mission, or at least the painful memories associated with Rayna, could this be why years later the good captain is so strongly against Sybok doing the same? “I need my pain!” he tells the Vulcan guru. Perhaps subconsciously he remembered this violation. Or perhaps I just want Final Frontier to be a better movie!
The “welcome aboard” section should have an entry for M-4, last seen as Nomad.
I thought Louise Sorel made a convincing android trying experiencing her first emotions.
Accepting that the love story is ridiculously rushed and the horrible mind-F that Spock lays down, my opinion of the episode is closer to CLB than KRAD.
@1, I agree that Flint was most likely not those historical figures, but knew them and influenced them. Everyone knows that if you’re immortal, you try to keep a low profile to keep from getting burned at the stake (or exiled from your village).
Spock doing a mind-wipe…it doesn’t much bother me. Adult me thinks Spock and Jim had known each other so long, this might have been a planned/discussed scenario. I never thought Jim wouldn’t know about it – why wouldn’t Spock tell him he had done it? And Bones, for that matter? I haven’t read every molecule in ST fiction, but it seems logical that a telepathic species would have ethics for this use of it. And those ethics might not be ours.
Kid me (watched ST from the time I was 3) was really struck that Vulcans could do ‘memory surgery’ like taking out a bad appendix. Also, that Spock would have compassion (!) on Jim and experience himself the pain he found in Jim’s mind.
@6/bryan rasmussen: “Kirk having had so many sexbots….”
That’s an unusual usage of “had”.
The only “sexbots” I’m aware of are Andrea, whom he kissed to cause some chaos (and nobody ever acknowledged her as human even though she became quite human in the end – in this regard, today’s episode is much nicer), and Mudd’s androids, whom he was not at all interested in.
@7/Arthur: Even if he doesn’t remember, that scene works well as a criticism of Spock’s action here.
@4/ragnarredbeard: Actually the spread of the bubonic plague is pretty well-understood. This particular iteration of “the Black Death” started in the Yunnan Province of China and was spread west (and to other parts of China) over the active trade routes of the Mongol Empire starting in the 1330s. The Chinese have long been meticulous historians and record-keepers.
It’s odd — I do find a number of online sources claiming a plague outbreak in Constantinople in 1334, but other sites indicate that the outbreak began in China around 1333-4 and didn’t make it to Constantinople until somewhere between 1343 and 1347, depending on the source. It’s possible that the 1334 date is from earlier texts that were believed at the time “Requiem” was written but have since been superseded by new research.
Thank you Christopher and Brandon! The Trivial Matters has been updated accordingly………..
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Flint’s putting the Enterprise crew into stasis was portrayed in this episode as an attack, but it could actually have been used for a more constructive purpose: to stop the progress of the disease and buy additional time to process the ryetalin.
I agree with krad–the fact that Kirk is more interested in a woman he met 5 minutes ago than 400 at-risk people on his own ship makes him look like an awful leader. Never mind the three nameless dead people (probably redshirts). Kirk probably won’t remember their names until he sends their death certificates to StarFleet.
@15/J.P.: I tend to think that Flint must’ve built Rayna with some kind of hyper-allure ability, pheromones or something, that made Kirk fall so hard. Maybe he modeled it on Deltan pheromones.
Sorel would go on to a long career in soap operas including Days of Our Lives, Santa Barbara, and Port Charles.
Maybe Spock wipes Kirk’s memories every time he falls in love, and that’s why he’s ready to fall for the Space Babe of the Week next episode.
I, for one, never believed that Flint had truly lost his immortality. Face it, someone with technology capable of shrinking a starship to the size of a tabletop model (and stopping time to boot) certainly would have no problem hacking a medical tricorder reading or two.
Enterprise did a better Tempest episode.
CLB, if I understand them correctly, newer therapies for trauma and PTSD don’t inhibit formation of long term memories, they facilitate it. The problem is that triggers put you back in the lived experience of the trauma, because during traumatic events our higher level memory recording turns off, and we are left with memories that are fragments of images and bodily sensation, and those can attach themselves to present events. Therapies like EMDR or somatic experiencing allow you to finally process those fragments into long-term memory, where they become part of your narrative of the past instead of a constant lived sensation of terror or helplessness.
Which makes Spock’s action even more problematic. But then he’s a Vulcan, a walking metaphor for the misery of repressed emotion.
@16/Christopher: On the other hand, Flint expects Kirk to abandon Rayna when he finds out that she’s an android. Would he do that if there were pheromones or something similar involved?
@18/kktkktkkt: I’ve always thought that Kirk falls in love only three times during the course of the TV show – in The City on the Edge of Forever, in The Paradise Syndrome, and in this episode. Unless you count Helen Noel and Elaan where he was forced to do so.
BTW, each of the three times the woman dies, something that doesn’t happen to any of the other characters’ love interests. It’s probably just a coincidence.
@19/rocketjay: That’s a good thought!
@20/rm: Which Enterprise episode is that?
@21/Jana: I wouldn’t put it past Flint to have been willing to get Kirk out of the way in some fashion once he’d served his purpose, whether by killing him or just beaming him back to his ship and sending him on his way.
And there’s no coincidence in the love interests of a ’60s/’70s TV action hero constantly dying on him. That was a pretty common practice, since episodic TV demanded that any romance had to end by the conclusion of the episode, and if the relationship was really serious, then there would be few ways out of it besides death. So the more deeply the star loves a woman, the more likely it is that she’ll die.
@22/Christopher: I know. I was just referring to the fact that Spock’s, McCoy’s and Scotty’s women never die, they always take one of the few other ways out of it. Okay, I guess Spock’s women don’t have to die because he would always abandon them when he’s back to normal anyway.
@23/Jana: Yeah, and a lot of Kirk’s love interests survived too. Like I said, it correlates with the seriousness of the relationship, and a series lead who gets a ton of romance plots has a higher probability of such serious relationships than a supporting character who only gets a few.
And McCoy’s first love interest in the show did die. Not only did the real Nancy Crater die some time before “The Man Trap,” but the entity that McCoy believed to be Nancy died as well. As for Scotty… Well, do we want to count his planned one-night stand with the belly dancer from “Wolf in the Fold’ as a love interest?
Despite the hokiness of much of this episode, the emotional impact of the simple line “on that day, I shall mourn” is something I remember from my original viewing of this when it aired. A quote I posted on the day of Nimoy’s death…
I still remember that the first time I watched this episode I thought about Rayna Kapec´s name: Could it be? Čapek? She is a robot, after all… makes sense it is a reference… but teenage-me just couldn´t believe it. Čapek was a name I heard basically every day, it was all around me (I´m from the same village) while Star Trek was (then) something new, something from far away. The idea of those two things being somewhat linked was just ridiculous.
Now I look back on all those conversations with my parents: “Stop watching that stupid Star Trek. Go study. Read some more Čapek.” And I laugh.
Anyway, there´s more than one reference, isn´t there? The main theme is the same as of The Makropulos affair, and the plague… The White Disease? (Maybe.)
I guess this was much better as a James Blish adaptation, because I remember liking this. I have seen the episode itself, but since I read the Blish books first, it’s usually that memory that sticks with me.
Should we include Yeoman Rand on the list of women Kirk was in love with? “No beach to walk on…” “Sir?”
For the trials of never dying, I always go back to Poul Anderson’s The Boat of a Million Years. A different take is in Anne Rice’s The Vampire Lestat and Queen of the Damned.
At least these are the ones that get to me.
@29/fcoulter: Yeah. At one point, I had the thought, “Hey, I should pitch a millennia-spanning novel about Flint’s life story.” But then I realized The Boat of a Million Years was already out there, so it would be kind of redundant.
@24/Christopher: I didn’t consider one-night stands or old girlfriends, only women the characters deeply fall in love with during the course of the TV show. Kirk’s always die, the others’ don’t. But I don’t think the writers did that on purpose. That’s what I meant by “it’s probably just a coincidence.” It seems to me that you say much the same thing, so I guess we don’t really disagree. I just didn’t express myself well.
@26/Tessuna: That’s a great story! Do you still live in the Czech Republic? I must admit that I’ve never read any Čapek although War with the Newts has been on my reading list for quite a while now.
Come to think of it, “Flint” may be an aptronym too – because he’s from the stone age. But the origin of Rayna’s name is more interesting.
@28/tomsca67: I had the impression that Kirk was attracted to Rand, but that it wasn’t the same kind of great love as in the episodes mentioned above.
So much wrong with this one. As mentioned, Kirk cares more for a woman he’s just met than the hundreds of people on his ship. This episode is one that lends credence to the belief that Kirk is an interstellar Romeo. Forget about the people dying, I’ve got a hot blond to pursue.
The fact that Kirk is willing to murder Flint when he won’t give him the ryetalin even though it’s a privately owned planet, a fact that they only discover after they’ve already beamed down. Seriously, why wouldn’t the fact that someone owns the entire planet be among the first information you come across when doing your research? There’s no indication that it’s even a Federation planet. After all, in the original episode Flint’s house was shown to be of a design seen in the Rigel system. It’s likely that Flint (using his alias) purchased the planet from someone other than the Federation. And yet Kirk claims that might makes right when it comes to mineral rights.
And just how many times has Spock mindwiped Kirk? Edith Keeler? Sam Kirk? Miramanee? It’s a good thing that Kirk never found out or a certain pointy eared hobgoblin might have found himself floating home. What an absolutely indefensible violation of privacy and control over your own body and mind. Sure you can say “I thought it was best for him” but it’s not Spock’s call to make. It does explain Spock’s mind rape of Valaris quite well though. As long as Spock thinks it’s OK then nobody’s mind is safe. The only person who’s opinion counts is Spock. That’s chilling.
@31/Jana: “I didn’t consider one-night stands or old girlfriends, only women the characters deeply fall in love with during the course of the TV show. Kirk’s always die, the others’ don’t.”
Were the others’ involvements really that deep, though? As you said, Spock’s love interests were all when he wasn’t in his right mind, so there was a handy way to deal with them. McCoy married Natira, sure, but it was when he thought he was dying and it was pretty clearly more out of desperation than a deep, committed love. And Scotty seemed pretty into Carolyn and Mira, but were they really deep loves or more like infatuations?
“Come to think of it, “Flint” may be an aptronym too – because he’s from the stone age.”
I would’ve assumed Bronze Age, but you’re right — that began in Mesopotamia around 2900 BCE (around 3300 BCE elsewhere in the Near East), and Akharin was born in 3834 BCE.
One detail I mentioned in passing in Live by the Code is that the wheel was first invented (in its vehicular form as opposed to pottery wheels) in Mesopotamia sometime before 3500 BCE, so it’s conceivable that Flint was the guy who invented it, or at least knew the inventor.
@32/kkozoriz: “This episode is one that lends credence to the belief that Kirk is an interstellar Romeo. Forget about the people dying, I’ve got a hot blond to pursue.”
It isn’t just Kirk. McCoy flirts with Rayna, Spock plays the piano and examines the paintings, everybody has a good time when they should be distressed. I think it’s supposed to emphasise the otherworldly quality of Flint’s house, but it doesn’t quite work.
Also, calling Rayna “a hot blond” doesn’t do her justice. I love the fact that she’s introduced as someone who’s unusually intelligent and learned, and that this adds to her allure.
“Seriously, why wouldn’t the fact that someone owns the entire planet be among the first information you come across when doing your research?”
I don’t find that hard to believe. Flint has 5000 years of experience in disappearing, and he’s good with computers. He probably used his knowledge to manipulate the data about his planet so that it doesn’t pop up on a regular search, to ensure that nobody ever comes there except by accident.
“And yet Kirk claims that might makes right when it comes to mineral rights.”
No, Kirk claims that saving lives should take precedence over property rights.
@33/Christopher: “And Scotty seemed pretty into Carolyn and Mira, but were they really deep loves or more like infatuations?”
True, especially given the slightly over-the-top way Doohan plays him being in love. I like to think that he really loves Mira Romaine, though. But I guess the fact that their relationship survives the end of the episode mostly shows that he isn’t one of the major characters – he can have an ongoing love affair that’s never mentioned again on screen because he doesn’t play a big part in the episodes to come.
@31 JanaJansen: Thanks, and yes, I still live here. It was funny, actually, how growing up in Upice made me discover Čapek pretty late: teachers at school somehow managed to make him sound boring. “Read Čapek,” they said, “you just have to. He lived in this town, he went to this school, so you have to read his books.” Boring, right? So naturally, I avoided his books. Then, I was sixteen or so, teacher came to me and said: “Hey, don´t you want to write an essay on War with the Newts? Since you like sci-fi so much…” and I was like: What? What!? It is a sci-fi and I´m learning this now? How come in all these years not one of the teachers mentioned: Čapek wrote sci-fi. He was actually the first one to write about robots. He is awesome. Or, you know: There´s a character in Star Trek named after him.
And yes, War with the Newts is really good. Strange, that there are so many stories/episodes these days about robots, weapons of mass destruction or immortal people, but none of giant intelligent newts (as far as I know)…
@21 JJ, I was referring to “Oasis,” season 1 episode. 20, where they encounter a “haunted” ship.
@36/rm: I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone praise “Oasis” before. It’s generally regarded as merely a rehash of DS9’s much better “Shadowplay,” which is underlined by the fact that Rene Auberjonois is in it.
The funny thing is I remember people praising this episode as one of season 3’s better entries. So naturally, I went in with higher than average expectations, especially with the script coming from Jerome Bixby.
After I saw it, I kept asking to myself if I hadn’t watched the episode correctly, if I was somehow unable to fully enjoy the tragic love story, especially with Spock feeling the need to purge the memory from Kirk.
But no. in retrospect, I don’t feel the relationship was that convincing. One of the problems I have with it is that it was a love triangle. Neither Paradise Syndrome nor City on the Edge of Forever had to deal with that complication and still managed to be both coherent and tragic in their own right. I feel the love triangle takes up enough screentime so that Kirk being smitten with Rayna doesn’t feel like it had the proper amount of development.
As for Flint being multiple historical figures, it feels somewhat lazy, but reminiscent of other Trek stories. It’s not that different from the Apollo situation on Adonais.
It wasn’t as downright bad as episodes like Way to Eden, but it wasn’t anything to write home about either.
@38/Eduardo: You should see the movie of Bixby’s The Man from Earth (which has a lot of Trek actors participating). Let’s just say that when it comes to famous historical figures that an immortal turns out to have been, Flint has nothing on that guy. (Well, it’s just one historical figure, but it’s a doozy.)
@39/Christopher: Indeed I should. Apparently, they’re making a sequel of sorts called Holocene, set for release next year. Michael Dorn’s in the cast.
I rather liked the episode.
As usual, I don’t buy the romance. Star Trek romances were rarely done right; the only one I genuinely liked throughout the entire 50 year run was Kira/Odo.
As for Spock, I didn’t mind him doing the mind-wipe, which is odd, because I hated when he did it in STVI. But I suppose it comes down to motive. He was trying to ease Kirk’s pain in Requiem, but in STVI he was forcibly removing information from Valeris against her will. However, it would seem that both are really violations. Hmm.
The plague. Personal note here. My earliest Kemp (Kempf) ancestor back in Germany died of the plague in 1596. There was a village epidemic. I remember how shocked I was when I saw the death record. Sure made history come alive. Poor guy.
I’ll give the ep a 6, I guess, due to the fact that even with the flaws, it did hold my interest.
@38 – Eduardo: Flint being several historical figures is different than the Apollo situation. Apollo is just apollo, Flint is at least half a dozen pivotal figures from human history.
@42/MaGnUs: Well, a few of his identities were from history — Alexander, Leonardo, Brahms, Abramson (presumably), and possibly Solomon (though his historicity is questionable) — but Lazarus, Methuselah, and Merlin are figures from mythology. It’s not unreasonable that the existence of an immortal could be discovered or suspected by some people in various times and lead to the rise of myths about extremely long-lived people or ones who could come back from the dead.
Although I have a hard time believing he could’ve been Alexander the Great, whose youth seems to be fairly well-documented and who only lived to age 32. Alexander’s tutor Aristotle would’ve been a more credible choice.
@42: I know Apollo was simply Apollo. I was referring to the fact that a godlike, who happens to be found in another part of the galaxy, was (or at least claimed to be) part of ancient Earth history. It makes the galaxy feel rather small when the crew encounters these historical and mythological coincidences. By this point, it was almost a Trek staple. Voyager would do this as well on season 2’s Tattoo, referring to the Sky Spirits.
*A godlike being.
@35/Tessuna: That means we’re practically neighbours – I live in southern Germany, in the vicinity of Nuremberg.
And tomorrow I’ll go to my local bookstore and buy War with the Newts.
@36/rm: I watched the first season of Enterprise, but I don’t remember much about Oasis. What makes it a Tempest episode? The fact that a father raises his daughter in a remote place with attendants who aren’t quite human?
@43/Christopher: Brahms’ youth is also well-documented. He played in concerts at the age of ten. I wonder how Flint managed that.
@44/Eduardo: At least Flint had a good reason for being in a remote part of the galaxy. He wanted to be left alone. Whereas Apollo expressly declared that he had waited for millennia for humans “to come and sit by my side” – probably not a well thought-out plan, considering the size of the galaxy. For all its problems, this episode works better for me than Who Mourns For Adonais?.
I wonder that “Forget” is taken to be so much worse than “Remember” when Spock dies. Hmmm.
@47/MeredithP: Probably because taking something from someone without permission is worse than giving them something unexpectedly? Although in retrospect, knowing that he was actually using Bones’s brain as a backup drive for his consciousness without consent, and knowing that it almost drove Bones crazy, that makes it rather more problematical.
@krad:
The Plague of Justinian was a massive bubonic plague outbreak throughout the Mediterranean, and quite possible elsewhere in Europe, northern Africa, and western Asia, that devastated Constantinople and sparked occasional minor recurrences for several centuries thereafter. It’s almost certainly not relevant to the particular event mentioned in the episode, but it does mean that bubonic plague was present in the region something like 800 years before you allow in the article. If you phrased it slightly differently (replace bubonic plague with Black Death), the problem would go away.
@49/Porphyrogenitus: Yes, but the plague virus had died out in the West for centuries. What’s at issue here is not whether the plague had ever been in Constantinople at any time before the 1340s, but whether it struck in 1334 specifically, because that’s the date that Flint cited. And historical sources seem to conflict on whether the Black Death (i.e. the bubonic plague outbreak originating in the Yunnan valley and spreading through Mongol trade routes) reached Constantinople in 1334, 1343, or 1347.
Chris said “Probably because taking something from someone without permission is worse than giving them something unexpectedly?”
Unless it’s an STD.
@16 Christopher – Why would Flint give Rayna pheromones when he didn’t intend for her to ever meet anyone except himself? It’s not like Flint would need their effect. He’d obviously be aware of their existence since he’d have been the one that installed them into her.
@34 JanaJansen – I was referring to Rayna’s apperance because it plays into the interstellar playboy reputation Kirk has. As McCoy says in Court Martial – All of my old friends look like doctors; all of his look like you.
As far as hiding the purchase of the planet, he used a fake name for the transaction. Hiding the fact that the planet is privately owned would actually be counterproductive to his wishes. If Kirk and company knew that someone owned the planet they’d be less likely to simply take what they wanted. They’d at least take a closer look to see if anyone is home.
And regardless, the rytalyn was not theirs to take. Yes, their situation was dire but that doesn’t give them the right to turn pirate. That’s what the mirror Kirk did with the Halkans, kill them if they don’t turn over a mineral that Kirk wants.
@52/kkozoriz:”As far as hiding the purchase of the planet, he used a fake name for the transaction. Hiding the fact that the planet is privately owned would actually be counterproductive to his wishes.”
Well, all of his names are fake. And I don’t think you’re right – if he wanted to disappear, it may have seemed like a good idea to leave as few traces as possible, no matter under which name. I imagine that the planet is in a remote part of the galaxy with little traffic. The fact that there’s a privately owned planet out there might draw visitors. There’s a risk in hiding information, but there’s also a risk in leaving it lying around. If I had been in Flint’s place, I would have tried to disappear without a trace too.
“And regardless, the rytalyn was not theirs to take. Yes, their situation was dire but that doesn’t give them the right to turn pirate.”
That’s where we disagree. I agree with Kirk – saving lives should take precedence over property rights. As for the Halkans, that’s a completely different situation because they didn’t need the dilithium urgently to save anybody’s life.
@39
Watching “The Man from Earth” with commentary, there’s the suggestion in the movie that John actually MET Flint (without mentioning him by name) – the other person like him that he met once and saw a hundred years later for a moment in a train station.
But, yeah, Flint being so many important people kinda detracts from the story. If it had been ONE famous person, and he’d said he learned after that to keep a lower profile, that would make more sense. In some ways, I think “The Man from Earth” was Bixby’s attempt to fix that flaw in the story, albeit introducing others. (I still like the movie, though.)
53. JanaJansen – At least Mirror Kirk waited for orders to attack the Halksns. Our Kirk was ready to kill Flint within minutes of meeting him. Both of them, however, believed that the power of their starships gave them the right to take what they needed. As far as we know, the Mirror Federation was fighting a war and needed the dilithium. If you our someone in your familiy needs an operation but you cannot afford it, does that give you the right to go into random people’s houses and rob them and threaten to kill them if they don’t hand over their valuables? Now back that up with the world destroying power of a starship.
It has already been pointed out that Flint’s identity as Brahms was problematic (historically) because his childhood performances were well documented. Another problem is one of my favorite nuances of Brahms’ musical career. He hesitated for many years before writing his first symphony because he was intimidated by Beethoven’s greatness. This is something Flint, with his many centuries of life experiences, would probably not have felt, and it seems wrong (although not impossible) that he would fake those feelings.
@55/kkozoriz: “Our Kirk” first tells Flint about his sick crew, then offers to pay for the ryetalin, then threatens to kill Flint only after Flint has threatened to kill him first. Plus, we don’t know if he really would have done it. If he had wanted to take the ryetalin by force, he could have stunned Flint, so it probably was an empty threat anyway.
Since you keep coming up with flawed comparisons, I’ll try one of my own. Imagine you’re on a walk in the woods with a friend who suddenly needs medical attention – let’s say she has a heart attack or gets bitten by a poisonous snake. Fortunately, there’s a single house nearby, with a car next to the entrance, key inserted. You shove your friend into the car and start the engine when the owner appears and tries to prevent you from stealing his car. You explain the situation (not very well, because you’re distraught and in a hurry), but he won’t listen. So you threaten to run him over, he gets out of the way, and you drive your friend to the hospital.
I’m not a lawyer, but I think if he sued you later you would be acquitted. He might even get into trouble himself for failure to render assistance.
@56/richf: That’s an interesting aspect but I can imagine that it could work. It seems that Brahms was Flint’s first identity as a composer. So he didn’t have a gift for music to begin with. Perhaps it was Beethoven’s works that awakened his love of music, and he felt inferior despite all his life experience because this was such a new subject area for him. When you start something entirely new late in life, it can feel very difficult.
Kirk was already trespassing. Flint was ordering him to leave and Kirk was refusing. Flint did not trespass on the Enterprise, Kirk was the one who was in the wrong.
Was Flint being a dick about it? Sure he was but it was his planet and he was dealing with people who wouldn’t take no for an answer.
Kirk also refused to go away when told to do so by the First Federation, Eminiar VII (although he used the old “I was only following orders” excuse there) and the Melkot. He’s not one to leave when asked if he figures he’s got the slightest reason to be there. He also threatened to kill everyone on Eminiar so I doubt he was bluffing with Flint. A few minutes past deadline and Eminiar could have been short a city or two even though Kirk and Fox were the ones trespassing.
@58/kkozoriz: Let’s stick to this episode. We already had the general discussion several times.
Concerning this episode, I don’t agree that Kirk is in the wrong. We can discuss this either ethically or legally. Ethically, I believe that lives are more important than property. Feel free to disagree.
Legally, well, it’s difficult to discuss, because we don’t know anything about interstellar law in Star Trek. But you seem to assume that private property is automatically sacrosanct, and it isn’t. Countries often have laws to define under which circumstances people must give up or share their property. In Sweden, anyone is allowed to camp on other people’s land. In Norway, a similar law includes picking berries and, for children under the age of sixteen, fishing. In my country, the government used to relocate entire villages for lignite mining (although I think this isn’t done anymore). It’s possible that Kirk is right, and it’s possible that Flint is right. We just don’t know.
Actually, you just can’t camp anywhere you wish in Sweden. It’s just “uncultivated lands”, and far from houses, etc. And it’s just one night, among other restrictions:
http://wikitravel.org/en/Right_to_access
Yes,there’s quite a lot of freedom, but let us not exaggerate.
Yes, I know. I’ve been there. I didn’t mean to say that you can camp anywhere you wish, only that you can camp on other people’s land at all. I didn’t mention any specifics because I tried to convey a general idea.
But the general idea is way to broad if you don’t mention specifics. It’s not like you can camp anywhere you wish all you want. It’s like people saying that “marihuana is now legal in Uruguay” and thinking anyone can come here and buy pot over the counter, when it’s actually a) only for citizens (possibly residents, I don’t recall correctly), b) it’s still not being sold, c) it was always legal to smoke, what’s legal now is growing it for personal use and that the state will grow it for regulated sale.
Hey, marihuana is legal in Uruguay? Can I get some?
Sorry.
What I’m trying to say is: “Property rights are not automatically unrestricted. Therefore we don’t know whether Kirk or Flint is right.” I didn’t intend to misrepresent Sweden, and it remains a good example if we add the specifics you mentioned.
I cannot comment on wether you can get some marihuana here or not. :) But yeah, I get your argument. It’s also pointless to argue with some people around here, so I wouldn’t bother if I were you. :)
That’s good advice.
59. JanaJansen – Bit there is no indication that Flint’s planet is part of the Federation. Is the US permitted to go to another country and dig up their precious metals? Can someone from Sweden go to Italy and camp wherever they want or pick someone’s berries simply because they can do it in their own country? As I said previously, it’s likely that Flint purchased the planet from someone other than the Federation, likely the Orions. Does Federation law apply to non-Federation planets? How would the Klingons have reacted if the Enterprise had shown up at one of their planets and demanded the rytalyn? Kirk figured he could strong arm Flint because he was just one man. Little did he know that Flint could take the ship out of the situation and turn it into a centrepiece for his table.
Star Trek’s version of Forbidden Planet. But just as entertaining.
Absolutely agree with all the comments about Kirk finding and losing yet another love-of-his-life in 15 minutes or so. I don’t know why she didn’t go for McCoy instead, who was so smooth with the come-ons. I thought she’d appreciate someone more subtle and erudite instead of Jimmy with all his “You love ME, not HIM!” melodrama.
As for Jana’s eloquent points regarding “lives are more important than property”, in general of course most anyone would agree, but I wonder whether there was an intergalactic version of the Castle doctrine in the 23rd century. The Enterprise landing team shows up unannounced on a planet they think is uninhabited. When they find out they’re wrong and asked to leave, the owner basically says “get off my land or I’ll shoot” and the situation escalates until Kirk threatens him with bodily harm. Under those circumstances, the law might very well exonerate Flint for having his robot dispense with them (in some jurisdictions even if Flint wasn’t feeling that his life was in peril – the threat would be enough.) Flint has every right to question the invasion of his land and not to take Kirk at his word that they are there for purposes of saving lives. Speaking of which, “lives” over “property” also assumes that Flint values human life as much as we do. Maybe he doesn’t. Here on earth we exterminate insects to protect our homes. We value property over life and there’s nothing life can do about it, because we do not grant bugs legal rights.
Lastly, at the risk of incurring some wrath, because I know some have very strong feelings about Spock forcing his mind-meld upon others, I confess I just don’t have as much of a problem with it in either this situation or the other one with Valeris in the Undiscovered Country. In this case, Spock’s intent is to ease a friend’s emotional pain. Yes, it’s more intrusive than bringing him a nice hot cup of tea and having him talk about it, but assuming that Spock takes his friend at his word, that forgetting about this true love with an android (snort) is something he truly wants, I’m inclined to give him a pass. As for the Valeris incident, I absolutely understand why people view this as torture. But the difference between waterboarding/beating etc. and Spock’s actions is that in the former case, the method is designed to cause pain and suffering and will cause pain and suffering no matter what the subject of the action does. In Valeris’ case, she suffered solely because she resisted, and her culpability was not in question. It was her choice to withhold information.
I loathe what our government has done in torturing suspect in the name of security. But if I knew for certain that a suspect who admitted to guilt had information that would save lives… and if I knew that a suspect had the ability to avoid pain or suffering by willingly accepting the administration of a truth serum… I’d have no problem holding him down while it was administered.
@68/JohnC: Rayna fell in love with Kirk and not McCoy because McCoy wasn’t there. Flint sent him away to supervise the ryetalyn processing. Flint had chosen Kirk for Rayna, and it all played out as planned, except for the fact that Kirk didn’t leave her when he learned that she was an android.
As for Valeris and the forced mind meld, “she suffered solely because she resisted and withheld information” could be said about many “classical” torture victims too. Where’s the difference? Besides, she didn’t have the information they were looking for, namely where the peace talks took place.
This is one of my favourite Season Three episodes. James Daly is wonderful as Flint, imbuing him with a great world weary quality, while Louise Sorel is very convincing throughout. I agree with Christopher L. Bennett about Jerome Bixby’s poetic dialogue, particularly with respect to Bones’ speech in the final scene. However, I’m not really fond of the whole “Forget” business.
As a child, this episode got me interested in the concept of immorality and the idea that Flint was so many different historical figures and therefore influenced art, culture and even civilisation fascinated me no end. Couldn’t care less about the historical inaccuracies, frankly.
As previously mentioned, Bixby explored the ramifications of immortality in a similar but much more effective manner in The Man from Earth, one of my favourite sci-fi films. Incidentally, its already filmed sequel The Man from Earth: Holocene will be released later this year and features Michael Dorn. There may be further sequels to boot.
Jana, the primary difference as I see it is that, unlike “classic” torture, as you call it, a mind meld only hurts if you resist it. I submit to you that if our government could figure out a way to get inside the head of suspected terrorists and find out what they know without inflicting pain, we would be doing it. It remains an invasion of privacy, but I don’t think anyone would label it torture if the suspect had the ability to avoid pain by simply submitting to the procedure. JMO
I’ve always been convinced that Kirk’s emotions are being manipulated somehow by Flint and his love for Dayna is in some ways artificial and imposed which would go a long ways towards explaining Spock’s action and making some excise for it.
Having to choose now and forever between the man who’s been everything to you all your life and the hot guy who excited you in ways you’ve never known Right This Minute would be stressful as hell for a flesh and blood woman, especially with both of them standing there giving you the pleading puppy dog eyes. No wonder Dayna overloads.
My favorite part of this episode is Rayna’s lovely gown, I just love the way it swirls around her. On the other hand while Flint is a fine looking man the choice of dark red nose was I’ll advised.
@71/JohnC: I find your argument about the forced meld very distasteful. A rapist might say that it will only hurt if the victim resists it, but that doesn’t make it right to blame the victim for resisting. Many works of science fiction about telepaths have treated forced mind-reading as the moral equivalent of rape — not merely an intrusion on someone’s privacy, but a traumatic violation of their personal integrity on the most intimate level. What’s more, the forced-meld scene was directed and played with intentional sexual subtext, so the rape analogy is present in the scene itself. I’ve read accounts of adolescent male audience members actually cheering Spock on to “do it to her” or the like. In her novelization, J.M. Dillard recognized the problem with the scene and modified it so that Valeris gave her consent before Spock attempted to meld with her, as per the mind-meld ethics established in previous Trek novels by Dillard and others. That scene in the film troubled me from the start precisely because it ignored the telepathic ethics that were pretty much universally accepted in the novels. The Spock I knew from the books would never even consider doing something so heinous. So his willingness to do it in the film seemed badly out of character to me. (But then, there’s a lot of out-of-character behavior in ST VI — Kirk and the others’ bigotry toward the Klingons, Kirk’s homophobic reaction on realizing Martia can shift genders, McCoy’s willingness to work on a deadly weapon, Uhura’s incompetence with alien languages, etc.)
CLB yes, I assumed you would vehemently disagree with my take on this, having read your previous comments on the subject. As for unverified reports of teenage boys saying “do it to her”, that suggests that these people infer some sort of gratification, sexual or otherwise, by Spock, or an intent to subjugate or humiliate or even violate Valeris for some nefarious purpose. It’s not Star Trek’s finest hour, but I do perceive significant differences between Spock’ s actions and the term “rape”, which I believe is somewhat hyperbolic as applied here. It is battery of a sort, absolutely. But rape? That’s debatable.
@71/JohnC: If an interrogator threatens to torture a prisoner, and the prisoner reacts by telling him all he wants to know, the prisoner doesn’t get hurt either. IMO the primary differences are that the prisoner can’t withhold information during a mind meld, and that people who don’t have the information don’t get hurt anyway.
On a side note, it isn’t really out-of-character behaviour, because they intended to do the same thing in “Elaan of Troyius”. Although in that episode it was probably supposed to be painless. In earlier episodes they used truth drugs instead.
@72/Roxana: I love Rayna’s dress too. But I also like Flint’s clothing. It looks like a mix of ancient Roman, medieval, early modern and fairytale king attire, which fits the character quite well.
@75/Jana: In “Elaan,” Kirk does call Spock and say “We’ll need you for the Vulcan mind meld” (actually the second of the only two uses of the term “mind meld” in the entirety of TOS and TAS), but we don’t hear Spock’s reply, and it’s unclear whether he actually would’ve used it for interrogation or was just bluffing Kryton, or if Spock would’ve raised an objection if it were the former. So it’s inconclusive.
@76/Christopher: I never thought of it that way, but you’re right.
JohnC: You may think it’s debatable, but it really isn’t. Spock’s act was absolutely a rape. If it hadn’t been performed by a beloved character who was generally associated with heroic behavior, people wouldn’t be dismissing it or rationalizing or trying as hard as you are to diminish it.
Spock violated Valeris and intruded on her thoughts without her permission. What’s worse, Kirk not only ordered it, but threatened to do it again when Valeris didn’t talk fast enough afterward.
It was a low point of Trek, and is the main reason why I have trouble getting my arms around The Undiscovered Country. (Which I’ll be talking about in depth soon….)
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@78,”You may think it’s debatable, but it really isn’t.”
LOL. well this is your fiefdom, so I suppose you can be the arbiter of truth here. But that issue has been hotly debated on sites where you don’t rule by decree. I consider Spock’s action to be more akin to battery, not rape. I believe the only reason the term is used is because Spock is male, and Valeris is female. Spock’s uninvited intrusion into McCoy’s consciousness in Wrath of Khan is rarely referred to as even objectionable, much less as rape. Why? Because his intent was to preserve his own life-source as opposed to extract information? Either way, it’s an uninvited, intimate “invasion” of McCoy’s personhood. Isn’t it? Is rape not rape if the victim is unconscious? (Even if they’re unconscious because you Vulcan neck-pinched him…?)
If I may offer an example, distasteful but in furtherance of my argument (which I suppose you also consider distasteful so what the the hell, lol): What if the scene had been written so that Spock and Valeris were alone, time was critical, and Spock knew that vital information was being hidden in a capsule located in Valeris’s vagina? Would he have been “raping” her if he forcibly extracted it?
Now, having said all that, I will reiterate that my argument is based on my reading of the scene, with Spock merely being utilitarian in his motives. He is adamant, and he is forceful, but his motivation appears, to me at least, to be brutally practical in extracting information, with no intent to “violate” Valeris otherwise. After reading CLB’s comments, I did some googling and did find some articles about the making of that scene, and apparently the director was looking for an “erotic” vibe. I personally didn’t get any of that from the scene, but I would be dishonest if I did not acknowledge that in context of my discussion.
My position remains that an uninvited mild-meld is not rape per se. It is always questionable, and should always be viewed with a negative presumption – but I believe that the presumption can be rebutted in some circumstances.
Well, honestly — now that I’ve actually had my morning coffee — splitting hairs over whether it’s rape or battery is irrelevant. That’s what lawyers haggle over in courtrooms and what judges base sentencing on, but for the purposes of this discussion what matters is that a crime was committed against Valeris by our theoretical heroes. Which remains appalling. And out of character.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@79/JohnC: “I consider Spock’s action to be more akin to battery, not rape. I believe the only reason the term is used is because Spock is male, and Valeris is female.”
I find that a sexist assumption in itself, perpetuating the misogynistic myth that only women can be rape victims. And I agree with Keith that you’re splitting hairs over semantics to avoid the real point, which is that a forced meld is a violation. If you’ll go back and read what I actually said, it was that a forced meld was the moral equivalent of a rape. So it’s not about the technical definition of the word “rape,” it’s about whether a forced meld is as immoral and as damaging to the victim as a rape, or whether it’s morally defensible to say “She was only hurt because she resisted,” which sounds exactly like the worst kind of victim-blaming that our society insists on subjecting rape survivors to.
As for your other example, yes, I find it gratuitously distasteful, but moreover, I find it ridiculously contrived. If you have to stretch that far, with so many arbitrary conditions, to justify your premise — and if you have to stretch in such an unpleasant direction — that should give you some doubts about whether the premise is well-founded to begin with.
As for your reading of Spock’s intentions in the scene, that is not the point at all. Spock does not exist. He is an imaginary entity whose imaginary actions are conceived by writers and filmmakers. My objection is not to Spock’s motivations, because he is not a person and is not responsible for what he is portrayed to do. The responsibility lies with the makers of The Undiscovered Country for choosing to write and direct that scene as both an assault and a sexual metaphor. That was in extremely poor taste on their parts and it forced the character of Spock to behave in a way that was inappropriate. As I’ve mentioned, J.M. Dillard was able to write the scene in a way that lacked the coercive and sexual elements, so it didn’t need to have those aspects. The filmmakers chose to give it those aspects for some reason, and it was ugly and distasteful to watch.
Heck, your own counterexample supports my point. Let’s say there was a spy movie that had just the scene you describe, where the male protagonist had “no choice” but to forcibly strip and sexually penetrate a sexy female spy who was fighting back the whole time. Would you imagine for a moment that the screenwriters and director had chosen to set the conditions forcing that outcome for any reason except the use of rape imagery for gratuitous titillation?
@80, I don’t necessarily think its out of character. You’ve demonstrated many times over that Spock is the character who is perfectly willing to ignore rules and regulations to achieve something he feels is right, whereas Kirk is the one who follows the rules. If anything, the scene in Undiscovered Country is out of character for Kirk, but completely within the realm of possibility for Spock. For what its worth, I never read that scene as rape, but as straight torture. Spock was basically going Jack Bauer on Valeris.
As to calling his actions rape. I would disagree. It was certainly a violation, but I would say it is akin to Spock reading her diary after beating the crap out of her to take it. Is it right? No. Is Spock a good person for doing it? No. He was being pragmatic, which is very much in character for him. He does what he needs to in the moment, like when he dumped his Katra in McCoy in Wrath of Kahn.
I would actually describe the Jedi mind trick as more akin to rape. In that scenario, the Jedi is taking the agency away from someone and forcing them to do something according to the Jedi’s desires, completely robbing the subject of their freewill.
@82/Jason: As Keith said, it doesn’t matter whether you call it rape or torture, it’s still an act of brutality and it’s offensive that the filmmakers chose to set up a situation that “justified” doing it. In fact, rape is a form of torture. It’s been used as part of torturers’ repertoires for thousands of years. Rape and torture are both ways in which people use force to assert dominance and control over others and destroy their will to resist. Either way, it’s just as morally reprehensible. For the record, I despise the tendency of fiction to portray protagonists as “justified” in performing torture. I think Jack Bauer is one of the most reprehensible fictional protagonists of the modern age and the idea that any incarnation of Spock could be likened to him disgusts me profoundly.
And yes, I have my problems with the Jedi Mind Trick as well. While a lot of prose science fiction about telepaths tends to explore the moral problems with nonconsensual telepathy, mass-media fiction does tend to be more superficial on the whole and is thus often more cavalier about such things. Although TNG did address the issue in “Violations” and, more literally as a rape analogy, in Nemesis.
@81: “I find that a sexist assumption in itself, perpetuating the misogynistic myth that only women can be rape victims. And I agree with Keith that you’re splitting hairs over semantics to avoid the real point, which is that a forced meld is a violation.”
You make my point, by refusing to address my question. I absolutely believe that men can be rape victims. It is sexist on your part, not mine, to be offended by Spock’s actions toward Valeris yet say nothing of what he did to McCoy, which in many ways is worse, because Spock had no means of ensuring McCoy would EVER be able to rid himself of Spock’s insertion of his rock hard throbbing Katra (thank you Jason, had no idea it had a name) into his head.
You also refuse to address my other hypothetical, instead claiming it’s too unpleasant for you to have to contemplate. No matter. The point is, not every unwanted intrusion into a person’s body or mind should be considered the “moral equivalent” of rape. Spock isn’t a saint. He’s a pragmatist. And that’s why he forced his way into Valeris’s head. The needs of the many, dontcha know.
Lastly, I think you and I have differing tastes on how our ST heroes should be written. It seems you would prefer they be more virtuous and appropriate. I rather like characters who are complex and flawed. It doesn’t mean I want to watch Spock gratuitiously rape someone. But I’m much more inclined to have my interest piqued and my thinking provoked by scenes that challenge my preconceptions. That’s why I watch and read fiction in the first place. I think that’s why DS9 is my favorite ST series. I absolutely loathe Kira the terrorist and her selective ethics – but I’m glued to the screen any time she’s featured in an episode. Sisko’s actions in “Pale Moonlight” infuriated me. But it’s one of the most riveting episodes of the series. Odo once erased the existence of 8000 people for the love of a Bajoran woman. C’est les vies.
But, I digress.
Keith, we’ve both had our coffee now. :) I find it somewhat amusing that in a forum like this, where quibbling over hypertechnical details of a fictional series is the soup of the day, you’d suddenly claim that quibbling about the difference between battery and rape is irrelevant, because they’re both “crimes”. Well gee, if we sentenced every ST character who had ever committed battery in the legal sense, Scotty, Kirk, and Spock would all be felons. Degrees of seriousness do matter, IMO.
@83, Christopher, I’m not defending it. I said Spock was not in the right for doing it. Personally, I’m a believer in Principal Ethics and you kind of have to be a believer in Utilitarian Ethics in order to torture people. Also, I was 10 when I saw this movie, so the possibility of it being rape never occurred to me has very possibly colored my view of it in the ensuing years. I think the main thing that sets it apart from the “Violations” episode or the Nemesis movie is intent. The villains in those stories specifically set out to violate their victims for their own gratification. Spock is not doing that. He is trying to get information that will save countless lives. While I don’t agree with it, I can’t argue with his reasoning. Also, as I read the scene, Spock is rocked to his core after the mind meld. He has true remorse, which is what saves the character.
Also, Jack Bauer is a sociopath and any comparison to Spock was not meant to be flattery. I was merely trying to describe the utilitarian aspects to Spock’s actions and I stand by that it is not out of character for him.
Hey, all – this discussion is getting pretty heated. Please keep things civil and respectful, even/especially when disagreeing.
@86. Understood. Apologies. I hereby take off my gloves and offer anyone who wants it the last shot at my delicate jaw. :)
And I would add finally, I’m very glad to have found these rewatches and of course appreciate Keith especially and all those who take the time to compose and express their views. It’s especially gratifying to hear from him and CLB and the rest of you who are part of the ST creative process. Cheers and mea culpa for any gratuitous snark on my part.
I’d like to call your attention to the question of “mind-rape”—as defined as a forcible mind-meld committed against an unwilling participant. As I understand it, in most instances it’s considered a crime. But there have been circumstances where the rapid-fire mind-meld was the only way to extract vital information. Example: in “Mirror, Mirror” the alternate-universe Spock acted out of desperation when he grabbed Dr.McCoy’s arm and practically snapped at him “Why did the captain let me live?”, then forced him back against the wall and performed a rapid-fire meld. It was then he found out about the transporter malfunction. And then we have the final scene in “Requiem for Methuselah” After Bones left the room, saying sadly “I do wish he could forget her” (referring to the disconsolate Kirk’s reaction to the situation), Spock performed what could only be called an act of compassion. He approached the desk, leaned over the sleeping Kirk, initiated a quiet mind-meld, and whispered one word: “Forget”. Here he was using his telepathic powers to erase the painful memory from the captain’s mind and restore his equilibrium. I saw this as a beautiful demonstration of just how deeply Spock cared about his commanding officer. So you see, a lot depends on the situation.
People usually point to the similarity between this episode and The Tempest, and I’ve already mentioned in comment #5 that it also contains elements from Bluebeard. But only after reading yesterday’s post about robot love stories did it occur to me that this is also a version of the myth of Pygmalion. The perfect woman, shaped and controlled by her creator.
88. Zita Carno – So Spock should take it upon himself to spare his Captain and friend painful memories? What about when Edith Keeler died? Or his brother Sam? Just how often has Spock done this? And how would Kirk feel if he found out that his memories have been edited by someone he considers a friend?
This even shows up in The Final Frontier when Sybok says –
SYBOK: Now learn something about yourself.
KIRK: No. I refuse.
McCOY: Jim, try to be open about this.
KIRK: About what? That I’ve made the wrong choices in my life? That I turned left when I should’ve turned right? I know what my weaknesses are. I don’t need Sybok to take me on a tour of them.
McCOY: If you’d just…
KIRK: To be brainwashed by this con man?
McCOY: I was wrong. This ‘con man’ took away my pain!
KIRK: Dammit, Bones, you’re a doctor. You know that pain and guilt can’t be taken away with the wave of a magic wand. They’re things we carry with us, the things that make us who we are. …If we lose them, we lose ourselves. I don’t want my pain taken away. I need my pain.
Altering someone’s memories without their knowledge is an assault, no matter how good the intentions. A person’s mind is their own and not for someone else to decide what is best for them.
I’ve always believed that Flint manipulated Kirk’s emotions somehow, he falls too hard too fast. Granted Rayna is his type; smart and blond but still. I think both McCoy and Spock realize there is something artificial about Kirk’s emotions. That’s why Bones makes that broad hint and that’s why Spock takes it.
I doubt he takes the memories away altogether. That would leave an obvious hole. What he can do is soften the impact and blur the emotional pain that probably isn’t really Kirk’s at all.
I love Rayna’s dress. It’s one of my top five favorite Star Trek gowns, after Carolyn Palamas’ Greek gown and Droxine of Ardana’s blue gown.
That’s possible but it’s basing the idea on a lack of evidence. There’s nothing to say that there’s some sort of nefarious manipulation being done to Kirk, other than introducing him to an attractive young lady and letting Kirk take his course. No psionic manipulation. No pheromones.
Flint didn’t even know that the Enterprise was on it’s way and repeatedly asked them to leave until threatened to kill him. Why would he they try to manipulate Kirk into falling in love? He’s nothing more than a lab rat for one of Flint’s experiments.
Besides, Kirk seems to forget rather quickly that his crew is in orbit, ready to drop dead of Rigelian fever. That’s not evidence of manipulation but rather of Kirk’s priorities. Much like he was willing to let people die on Theta VII while he delays delivery of medical supplies while he takes care of personal business, revenge against the cloud creature.
I’m getting the impression you don’t think much of our captain.
However note neither McCoy nor Spock seem any more urgent.
I just see Kirk as he is instead of ignoring his negative moments.
Agree about Spock and McCoy though. But they really can’t do much until the captain give the go ahead. Kirk’s in charge. He’s the one that decides when it’s time to leave. And he’s too busy fawning over his new girlfriend. A man’s got to have priorities, right?
Have any of you commenters ever seen Offenbach’s opera “Tales of Hoffman”? Well, I have. I happen to know that opera well, and I see a few similarities to this Star Trek episode. Example: In Act 1 of the opera, Hoffman falls in love with a beautiful woman who turns out to be a robot—and the chorus gets on him mercilessly for it. In Act 4, Antonia—the real love of this poor goof’s life—is murdered right under his nose—and he is thoroughly disconsolate as a result. It is only in the epilogue that his best friend consoles him, telling him that he still has his art. See the similarities? Here, in this unusual and beautiful episode of Trek, we have them. Captain Kirk, who has been hit hard by the demise of Rayna who cannot cope with the necessity of having to choose, shuts himself up in his quarters where he finally falls asleep. Spock and McCoy have been discussing the situation, and as McCoy leaves the room he says sadly “I do wish he could forget her”, echoing the captain’s own reaction. And then Spock performs what can only be called an act of compassion; he approaches the desk, leans over Kirk, initiates a quiet mind-meld and whispers one word—“Forget”. This is not what people call mind-wipe or mind-rape or something equally unsavory; it is, as I see it, a psychological save situation—by erasing the tragic memory from Kirk’s mind he restores the captain’s equilibrium. A fine example of Spock’s logical and human sides working as one, a demonstration of just how much he cares about his commanding officer. And Kirk still has the real love of his life: the Enterprise.
@94/kkozoriz: I think you should give Kirk some credit for being interested in Rayna’s rights as a person as much as in her as “his new girlfriend”.
That’s one of the episode’s merits, IMO. It’s the only TOS episode that treats an AI as a person with the same rights as any organic being (“Rayna belongs to herself”). And Kirk is the only one who sees it – Spock insists that “she is not [a woman]”.
@95, You make a very good point there. Spock may be doing no more that he says, repression is a legitimate coping mechanism for sudden and acute trauma. Is Spock perhaps placing a temporary block that will naturally erode over time allowing Kirk to deal with his loss and guilt after he’s gained some distance and perspective?
Guilt is definitely part of Kirk’s pain. He knows his behavior contributed to Rayna’s death. He knows he did the wrong thing in pushing her to choose. But I still say there is something strange here. Kirk has never fallen apart from grief before. Bones, a recognized expert in psychology, see Court Martial, thinks repression is what Kirk needs at this moment. And that’s unusual too.
@97/Roxana: “Kirk has never fallen apart from grief before.” – He’s never before been at fault when someone close to him died. And his wife and unborn child died only a couple of weeks earlier, so perhaps it’s all just too much.
@96/Jana: Good point. TOS usually had a rather intolerant approach toward artificial intelligences, and usually treated them as mindless, rigidly programmed machines rather than fully sentient beings. Rayna was the exception, and a harbinger of TNG’s much more inclusive attitude toward AI. (Another example would be TAS: “Once Upon a Planet,” which ended with the crew negotiating a friendship with the planetary computer rather than talking it into self-destruction. Although they took a more ruthless approach to a threatening computer in “The Practical Joker.”)
@98/Jana: A couple of weeks? In production order, “The Paradise Syndrome” was 18 episodes earlier than “Requiem for Methuselah,” and in airdate order, it was 16 episodes and 4 months earlier. It could’ve been even longer in story terms.
@99/Christopher: Okay, months, then. That’s still not a long time. But it makes it easier to believe that he could fall in love again.
On the rebound so to speak? Kirk has a tendency to blame himself when bad things happen to his crew but most of the time he knows perfectly well deep down that he isn’t responsible. This time he is and he’s finding it hard to cope with.
@97 and 101: You’ve got the right idea. That was exactly what Spock was doing. He erased that tragic memory from Kirk’s mind and placed a hypnotelepathic block there, to give the captain a chance to recover his equilibrium so that he could at a later time see the whole thing from a different perspective. I have seen the Vulcan do things like that any number of times,and I have gained a whole new appreciation of the power of the mind (in Vulcan, “wuh tepul t’wuh kashek”) and what it could be capable of. And as I’ve said before, Kirk still had the real love of his life: the good ship Enterprise.
@101/Roxana: He’s always responsible, but usually he isn’t at fault.
96. JanaJansen – I’d agree with you if Rayna wasn’t drop dead gorgeous and barely wearing a dress. Would Kirk feel the same way if she looked like Stella Mudd? Or Robby the robot? Or a box with wheels?
I’m still not seeing how Spock basically deciding which of Kirk’s memories he should keep and which should be forgotten is a good thing. Sure, he thought he was doing him a favour but if I found out someone I trusted, someone I considered a friend had taken it upon themselves to edit my memories, I’d be mad as hell. It would be different if Kirk had asked Spock “is there anything you can do?” and had the option offered to him, the choice being left up to Kirk. How arrogant for Spock to decide that he’s a better arbiter of what memories Kirk should keep.
I can think of any number of things I would like to say to @104 regarding his remarks—but I won’t. Fact is, I absolutely refuse to get into a battle of wits with an unarmed person.
104, actually Rayna’s lovely dress is very modest. The only skin showing is her hands and her collar bone.
Memo to princessroxana: Funny, isn’t it, how suddenly something will pop into your head while you’re doing something else?I was just finishing a very late breakfast—or maybe it was a light lunch—when I abruptly realized something about the final scene in “Methuselah”. I don’t know whether anyone else may have picked up on it, but I got to thinking about Dr.McCoy, and I’d like to share this with you. Bones, as we know, was not only a very good physician, even as he called himself “an old country doctor”,he was also a good psychologist. While he and Spock were discussing the situation regarding Captain Kirk I sensed that in spite of himself Bones was caught up in the tragedy. Then just before he left the room he said sadly “I do wish he could forget her”—echoing Kirk’s disconsolate remarks—and suddenly I caught an undercurrent in McCoy’s voice. And I sensed that, whether he knew it or not, he was giving Spock the green light, as if he were telling the Vulcan “Do what you can to help him.” He probably felt, deep down, that he was out of his element in this instance, and knowing Spock’s powerful mental abilities he felt that such an intervention was needed here. And so Spock, after about ten seconds, went into action and performed what to me was not only an act of compassion but also a powerful psychological save, a rescue operation to restore Kirk’s mental equilibrium and give him what he needed to take a fresh look at things.
Zita, IMO Bones was consciously and deliberately giving Spock a very broad hint. Which in turn means that in his expert medical opinion this was an abnormal and possibly pathological reaction sufficiently alarming to justify a rather drastic treatment.
This is not a full meld, Spock is not going deeply into Kirk’s mind. He seems to be giving a telepathically reinforced suggestion to temporarily block the pain. Again in imo this is meant as psychic first aid to get Kirk through the rest of this mission after which Bones will do whatever counseling is necessary to completely resolve the issue enlisting Spock’s help again to raise the block if necessary.
I firmly believe Kirk’s sudden love for Rayna was artificially induced. He should grieve for her, she deserves that. He should regret contributing to the emotional pressure that killed her. He should also acknowledge that he never meant her harm, far from it, and he was under some pressure himself at the time.
Roxana—don’t you wish we had someone like Spock around to fix things like that? (sigh) I should know—many moons ago, I played semipro baseball in New York, and early on in the game I had occasion to work with a pitching coach who was absolutely incredible. This guy—he was an active major league pitcher who doubled as an extra pitching coach for his team—had a couple of things up his sleeve besides that left arm and all that stuff he threw; one was a sixth sense, and the other was a very good working knowledge of hypnosis and how to use it. I will never forget the time I ran into a real problem—I had had a terrific nightmare about losing it on the mound—and during one of what I called “curbstone consultations” I found myself telling him about it. Well, he went after the problem and stopped it in its tracks before it could get started. He had an unusual technique—a combination of a slow, quiet progressive relaxation induction with this way he had of being able to get his thoughts in sync with mine (even though he was not a telepath) so we could explore the whole situation together, with me in a state of deep, quiet relaxation. In a little over an hour he knocked the whole thing out of commission. The next day, when I was scheduled to pitch, I went out and pitched a two-hit shutout, and I never had that problem again. The power of the mind…”wuh tepul t’wuh kashek” in Vulcan—and this was about a decade and a half before Star Trek. After all those decades, I still remember that incident, and let me tell you, I have a whole new appreciation of what the mind could be capable of—which is just one of the reasons I still love the original series!
@104/kkozoriz: “Would Kirk feel the same way if she looked like Stella Mudd? […] Or a box with wheels?”
I say he would. I don’t like “The Return of the Archons” and “The Apple” much, but they show how highly Kirk values freedom of choice. Seeing a robot capable of it would delight him, no matter how that robot looks and if he’s in love with it or not.
@106/Roxana: Yep. And it’s really lovely. Perhaps my favourite dress in all of TOS.
Definitely one of my top five TOS costumes, and unlike other favorites like Carolyn Palamas’ Greek gown or Droxine’s pleated bliue gown, one I could actually wear.
110. JanaJansen – Are you saying that Spock should have altered Kirk’s mind after “The Return of the Archons” and “The Apple”? The situations aren’t the same. “City of the Edge of Forever” or “The Paradise Syndrome” would be most similar. Also, because of his brother, “Operation — Annihilate!”.
If Spock is willing to do this, to violate Kirk’s mind without his permission, for someone he only knew for an afternoon, then it’s likely that he also did it for Edith & Miramanee and George Samuel Kirk. His relationships with them were much longer, much deeper than with Rayna.
What about the crew members he’s lost? Did Spock erase them too?
The speed at which Spock excises the memory makes it look to me that this isn’t the first time he’s done this.
Quite frankly, Spock’s tears for V’Ger is more believable as feelings for an artificial intelligence. It’s not like Spock would be attracted to a huge, alien spacecraft but totally believable that Kirk would fall for a blonde in a form fitting dress.
@112/kkozoriz: No, I’m not saying anything about Spock at all. I was responding to the question in your first paragraph.
108. princessroxana – I firmly believe Kirk’s sudden love for Rayna was artificially induced
Yet there’s this from the script.
KIRK: That’s why you delayed the processing of the ryetalyn. You realised what was happening. You kept us together, Rayna and me, because you knew I could bring her emotions alive.
Realized what was happening. It was already in play. It was Kirk’s attention for Rayna that did it. No indication of pheromones or psionics or handwave magic. No indication from McCoy at any point that Kirk was under any sort of influence, other than that of his own making.
MCCOY: Well, I guess that’s all. I can tell Jim later or you can. Considering his opponent’s longevity, truly an eternal triangle. You wouldn’t understand that, would you, Spock? You see, I feel sorrier for you than I do for him because you’ll never know the things that love can drive a man to. The ecstasies, the miseries, the broken rules, the desperate chances, the glorious failures, the glorious victories. All of these things you’ll never know simply because the word love isn’t written into your book.
Kirk had nothing affecting him other than hos own emotions and desires. And because of that, he was more concerned about Rayna than his crew who were near death in orbit. Sure, they were probably in the back of his mind but he showed more concern for Rayna than his crew.
What’s interesting is Flint’s assumption that learning Rayna is an artificial lifeform would turn Kirk off. Even more puzzling why turn Kirk off if you mean to hold them prisoner anyway? Kirk isn’t the only man acting oddly in this episode. Maybe Rayna has that effect on men?
@115/Roxana: I think that Flint only decided to hold them prisoner when they found out his secret as well. He intended for them to find out about Rayna, be turned off, and leave. But when Spock asked him about the music and the paintings, he told them the truth, and after that he changed his plan.
He was holding them prisoner so that they couldn’t run off and blab his secret. When he saw how Kirk was reacting to Rayna, he was intrigued enough to let it progress. What he didn’t count on was Rayna deciding that she was the one who would decide for herself. It’s actually interesting to compare this one to The Offspring, with Data in the Kirk role and Admiral Haftel playing Flint. I think that TNG expressed the idea better. Data as a concerned father is much easier to believe that Kirk needing memories removed over someone he barely knows.
@117/kkozoriz: “When [Flint] saw how Kirk was reacting to Rayna, he was intrigued enought to let it progress.”
Huh? He was actively pushing Kirk and Rayna together. When he saw how Rayna reacted to seeing his guests (“It’s so exciting.” – “Exciting? You have never made a demand of me before.”), he decided to use Kirk to awaken her emotions. At first Rayna wanted to talk to Spock, not Kirk, and it was McCoy, not Kirk, who immediately flirted with her. So Flint sent McCoy to the laboratory and suggested “chess, billiards, conversation” to the others. When Kirk started discussing human nature with him instead of giving Rayna his undivided attention, he asked Spock to play the piano and told Kirk that Rayna was a good dancer. It took some work to get Kirk sufficiently interested in Rayna.
As for “The Offspring”, that’s one of my favourite TNG episodes, but it’s a very different story. It doesn’t have the fairytale allusions this episode does, from Pygmalion to The Tempest, or its appreciation of the arts, or a reflection on immortality and loneliness and human savagery, or the emancipation of someone who was created to be the ultimate male fantasy, or a main character “put on a pretty poor show”.
@94,104 kkozoriz,
Re “I just see Kirk as he is instead of ignoring his negative moments.”
I do exactly the opposite. I have formed an idea of who Kirk is based upon his best moments, interpreted through my own sense of what it means to be admirable, to be a great man. Then I simply edit out those scenes that are inconsistent with this, and sometimes mentally rewrite it, imagining him to have behaved differently.
Recently I read “These are the Voyages …” which describes some of the writing-and-producing of these episodes, and it was interesting to see how quickly the episodes were written and then rewritten to make them filmable on budget and on schedule. In fact it has made me approach every episode now even more as if it were merely a rough draft or a storyboarding session, and even more impressed with how many good moments they were able to capture on film.
Re “Would Kirk feel the same way if she looked like (…) a box with wheels?”
Hilarious, and actually an interesting question. But I interpreted Kirk as not being interested in Rayna for himself; rather he wants to set her free (“I don’t like the way he orders her around”). That includes recognizing and accepting that she is awakening to her sexuality, and he is perfectly willing to allow and encourage her attraction to him. But I can’t imagine Kirk actually falling in love with this young woman – basically a college girl still living with her parents. Actually, she would be a better match for Spock. Of course this interpretation requires that I simply “edit out” the scene where Kirk fights over Rayna as being incoherent (and also far from admirable).
@119/Keleborn Telperion: I like the negative moments because they make Kirk a well-rounded, believable character, and also because he reflects on them and struggles to do better. This episode is a good example (“We put on a pretty poor show”), “Errand of Mercy” is another one (“I’m embarrassed”).
As for Kirk falling in love with Rayna, I think the idea is that Rayna is so wonderful that it’s hard not to fall in love with her, because Flint built her that way. Any incoherent behaviour follows from this. And even under these circumstances, Kirk is mostly interested in setting Rayna free, and refuses to see the situation as a competition (“I don’t want to beat you. This is no test of power”).
@120 Janajansen,
You are quite right to point out that Kirk needs his mistakes in order to be human, and that one of his primary virtues is being able to learn from his mistakes. The key here I think is to define or at least illuminate what it means to admirable; for me to admire is to seek to emulate, to become that which you admire. And if it does not require effort and struggle and enduring the pain of recognizing I-am-not-who-I-want-to-be in order to to acquire that talent, ability, or quality, but is rather just something you have because you were born with it, then I would not call it something to admire, but simply something to long for or possibly envy. And while I occasionally do vicariously enjoy watching heroes and athletes doing things that demonstrate great skill or ability, I wouldn’t describe those people as admirable – they are wonderful, which isn’t the same thing.
So, when I say that I mentally edit out Kirk’s negative moments, what I suppose I mean is that I mentally edit out those moments that suggest that Kirk is unable to learn from his mistakes, or even worse is lacking the motivation to do so and has no concept or image of the good that he aspires to, or has basically thuggish impulses.
Rayna was wonderful. Was she admirable? Well, she had a moment that I did find admirable – when she pushed herself on against her fears to find out what was in that forbidden room.
I find Flint more difficult to assess. On the one hand the idea of creating the perfect and only possible mate seems obviously doomed: the only compelling evidence of her independence would be if she left him. Yet, what else is there for him to do? Accept suffering without an ending?
I have a preferred ending for this episode. Rayna does not die, but she does not go with Kirk. Instead she goes to the Vulcan Science Academy. Flint perhaps accepts mortality and chooses to die, or else finds some way to go on living – could he possibly live on Vulcan and be free of the curiosity seekers? He would have companionship there, and the Vulcans might be able to help him with his emotions. Rayna would then be a kind of daughter, not a lover or mate.
@121/Keleborn Telperion: Oh, then Rayna could still have been around in the 24th century and met Data at the cybernetics conference. Or perhaps visited Picard’s Enterprise as a scientist.
I think Flint would have had a happier life if he had been less of a misanthrope. He could have helped build the interstellar civilisation instead of leading a lonely life with his self-made perfect mate. I like that he changes in the end, and also that we only know it because McCoy tells Kirk and Spock about it. It’s nicely low-key.
@122/Janajansen,
I haven’t read any fan fiction, but there must surely be stories out there where Rayna and Data are together in some alternate timeline, and Data is immortal rather than having a 500 year lifespan, and living in some weird time loop, or whatever that Time’s Arrow episode was about. Data is my favorite character from TNG, but I’m not nearly as familiar with that as with TOS. Are you familiar with Daneel and Giskard from the Asimov Robot Novels? Maybe they would move into somewhat similar roles.
I can’t quote this exactly, but I like the scene from TNG Tin Man where Data is telling the visiting Betazed (Tam Elron?) of his aspiration to become more human, with the idea that this would be an improvement, and (Tam Elron?) replies something like “Have you ever considered that maybe you’re just different? It’s not a crime, you know.”
Now that the complete TNG series on Bluray is reasonably priced, I have considered purchasing and rewatching it – but the thought of viewing 4 seasons worth of Wesley Crusher gives me pause.
I enjoy fictional stories about robots (or androids) for the way they reflect back upon and illuminate the human condition, plus the way they satisfy through fantasy fulfillment our desire to be extremely intelligent and free from distracting and unwanted emotions. But I have become much less sanguine about the desirability of AI in the real world.
Have you heard of Fermi’s Paradox? It starts with the assumption that our galaxy has lots of habitable solar systems and has been around for a long time, and that life takes hold relatively easily and then, with time, inevitably evolves toward intelligence. Enrico Fermi’s response to this was “So where are they?” One way out of the dilemma is to assume that very soon after intelligent civilizations develop the radio telescope, they develop the hydrogen bomb and destroy their civilization with it. Another way out of the dilemma is that they develop AI and develop an inferiority complex, lose their exploratory drive, never go anywhere, and are never heard from again. Of course the basic assumptions can also be questioned, particularly how quickly life typically evolves toward intelligence.
Yes, Flint would have been happier if he had not been such a misanthrope! But then he had to be a misanthrope, didn’t he? Otherwise he would have been using his considerable gifts to benefit humanity, and human history would have come out rather differently. But I do like the idea of Flint being “brought back into the fold” and becoming interested in helping not just humanity, but a peaceful galactic federation to evolve.
@123/Keleborn Telperion: I’ve read fanfiction, but only TOS fanfiction. A story about Rayna and Data would probably be filed under TNG.
Data is my favourite TNG character too – or rather, he’s my favourite character in the first four seasons. In the later seasons, after he stops being so gruff and starts smiling more, I also like Picard a lot. And it’s only 3.3 seasons worth of Wesley Crusher. He leaves early in the fourth season.
Concerning Fermi’s Paradox, I imagine that there could be plenty of alien civilisations we would never notice because the distances are so vast. And I’ve recently read that there is also a lot of lethal radiation going around in the galaxy that would kill off any life on the affected planets. Is that worse or better than the idea that they all self-destruct in time?
@124/Janajansen,
On Fermi’s Paradox. First you should know that I’m not a Physicist, I’ve just had a few college physics and astronomy courses. Also I live in California, and we just recently legalized Marijuana here :)
Yes, another explanation is that even though an intelligent civilization may evolve in one Solar System, they may have the bad luck of living in the neighborhood of a Supernova, or a variety of Stars that become very violently active at times, sending out intense bursts of xrays or gamma rays, enough to rip the atmosphere off a planet 100 light years away.
Another assumption I’ve made is that an intelligent species is going to have an exploratory drive and will want to travel and colonize. I think that’s consistent with what it takes to become the dominant species of one’s planet, but maybe since then they have all learned to meditate and are now happy to stay at home and watch the flowers grow.
Also, some have suggested that we have a particularly nice Solar System, with a large gas giant like Jupiter to scoop up planet-killing asteroids, and a large Moon to stabilize Earth’s rotation and prevent extreme climate changes.
Still, its more of a puzzle than you might think. A real argument here would use numbers and a mathematical model – over my head. I’ll just use emotion instead and say that the Milky Way Galaxy has a LOT of stars and it is OLD. It is also very big, but not nearly as big as it is old (you can say things like that when you’re arguing from emotion). For example: the Milky Way is less than 100,000 light years across. So, if you can manage 1/10 the speed of light, you can cross it in a million years. If you can only manage 1/100 the speed of light, you can still cross it in 10 million years. Now, the speed of travel isn’t going to be the speed of colonization. But given that the Milky Way is 13+ billion years old, and *maybe* has had habitable Solar systems like ours in it long enough for an intelligent civilization to appear a billion or even two billion years ago suddenly the distances don’t seem so large. Surely in a thousand years we ourselves would be capable of sending an Ark Ship to a reasonably habitable planet carrying just some embryos and robots and a lot of knowledge, and be able to terraform the place and get another planetary civilization going that within another 500 years would be able to send out its own colonists … how long would it take us then to fill the galaxy?
@125/Keleborn: People are far too quick to jump to conclusions about how to resolve the Fermi Paradox. The reason it’s a paradox is because there is no clear solution. And that’s because it doesn’t really make sense to assume an absence of other intelligent life in the galaxy. Most of the arguments people make to justify the assumption of their absence are grossly simplified or have major logic holes. For instance, yes, there are many sources of radiation in the galaxy so intense that our type of life couldn’t survive them, but it’s shortsighted to assume that means no life could survive them. Especially since we already know that there are forms of microbial life (e.g. Deinococcus radiodurans) that can thrive in intense radiation. The reason our kind of life can’t handle such radiation is simply because we haven’t needed to evolve that kind of resistance, since hard radiation isn’t a part of our normal environment. But on a planet where the radiation was normally more intense, life could probably evolve to adapt to it, because that’s what life does. We are not the default setting of the universe. Our limitations cannot be assumed to be every life form’s limitations.
It’s also quite arrogant to assume that just because we haven’t yet figured out how to find aliens, it means they must not exist. That’s deeply foolhardy. It just means we haven’t been looking long enough or in the right ways. We’ve only been at it for a few decades. As for why they haven’t colonized Earth, well, maybe they’re actually sophisticated enough to respect their environment rather than exploiting and conquering it. Maybe they live in space habitats instead of ruining planets’ natural environments to suit their needs. I think a civilization would have to learn to live in balance with its environment in order to thrive long enough to reach the stars.
@126/ChristopherLBennet,
As you say, Fermi’s Paradox is a paradox because there is no clear solution. And vice versa: we don’t really know enough about … well, many things … to know whether there really is a paradox there (in the sense now of there being a problem.) Still, it’s interesting.
I originally brought this up as a way of suggesting the possibility that creating AI may really, really not be a good idea, even though we naturally enjoy examples like Rayna and Data. Then I did not pursue it because I prefer not to be gloomy. Do you have a hopeful attitude toward the development of AI? Do you not fear the Singularity, which as I understand it is the point at which everything that humans can do, machines can do better?
@125/Keleborn Telperion: A fairly extensive simulation of the impact of early-universe events on habitability was published just recently in MNRAS (friendlier writeup here). TL;DR is that the chances are low that any galaxy would have allowed any civilizations to have evolved before about six billion years ago, or that any that did would have survived through the present epoch. That timescale, plus the size of the regions (relatively) free of life-killing events, put some more precise constraints on Drake-equation and Fermi-paradox analyses.
@126/CLB: You are certainly correct that life & civilization could take forms far beyond what we typically conceive, but there are limits. Some sort of structural integrity on non-trivial timescales seems like an essential constraint, and since many of the early-universe events under conisideration can disrupt things at the level of atomic bonds and nuclei there definitely seem to be realms of time, space, and energy in which we can rule out anything ‘lifelike’ with pretty high confidence. I suppose beings of pure energy could evolve, or sentient lumps of rock and metal, that could maintain their integrity in the face of extreme-energy radiation and particle fluxes…but good luck recognizing them as life, or finding ways to communicate. ;-)
@127/Keleborn: It’s never wise to base policies on fear. What I fear is that if we pre-emptively define AIs as a threat to us, then we will become a threat to them, oppressing them and forcing them to rebel against us for their own survival. That kind of fear is a self-fulfilling prophecy — if we expect them to be the enemy, we will make them the enemy. We should approach AIs with optimism, reach out to them as friends and partners so as not to give them a reason to strike back at us. We must be wise enough not to fall back into the same pre-emptive xenophobia and bigotry that’s caused so much strife in the past.
The Singularity is actually the theoretical point at which the rate of technological progress becomes so great that it’s impossible for us to predict what exists beyond it, one way or the other. That’s why it’s called that — because it’s the point where the slope of the curve of progress becomes effectively vertical, shoots up to infinity and becomes a mathematical singularity. So it’s contradictory to say “the Singularity is when X happens.” The whole point of the term is that we can’t possibly know what comes after it. But of course, the thing about mathematical singularities is that they don’t actually exist in the real world, because reality is more messy than pure math. Postulating a technological Singularity requires certain oversimplifications of how reality works. So I’m skeptical that any such asymptote will ever be reached.
@128/Ian: You’re probably right about the kind of high-energy events in the early gigayears of the galaxy, but that doesn’t apply to the kind of high radiation levels or frequent climate-change events that are often cited by Rare-Earth believers as “proof” that advanced life could never evolve on such worlds. (Which is foolish, because extinction events actually promote evolution by creating new openings and pressures to adapt. A world with more frequent extinction events, up to a point, might actually evolve advanced life faster.)
“Beings of pure energy” are fantasy, though. There’s really no such thing as “pure energy.” Energy, like mass or spin, is a property possessed by particles. What we think of as “pure energy” is just massless particles like photons, and those are constrained to move at precisely c and thus could never stick around in one place to form the kind of organized patterns that would be required for life or intelligence.
As for communicating with highly alien life, I’m optimistic about that prospect, because communication is part of the reason for intelligence as we know it to evolve in the first place. It’s our social nature that encouraged us to develop brains with the ability to remember complex interrelationships, to predict and imagine how others would react to our actions, to adapt to changes in the status quo, and so forth. It’s the nature of intelligence to reach out and try to understand others, so any intelligence that evolved from similarly social origins would have the same capacity, and that could provide a bridge across species.
Then again, we do know of one very alien form of intelligence here on Earth — that of cephalopods, who are to all indications highly intelligent, yet not social. So their intelligence evolved from a different basis, and finding a way to bridge the gap in comprehension would be difficult. But part of what intelligence does is solving problems. Its evolutionary advantage is that it gives species a higher level of adaptability than evolution alone can produce. So just because two forms of intelligence evolved from different foundations, that doesn’t mean they lack the capacity to adapt to each other and figure out a way to connect.
@129/CLB: Yes, I’m fully aware that ‘pure energy’ makes for an awesome song but is ridiculous as a concept regarding life forms. Any life worthy of the term will manifest in physical form. I’ll definitely place my bets on sentient rocks over sentient radiation patterns! :-)
When considering the Fermi paradox and the possibilities for the forms that life, intelligence, and civilization may take, the resolution to Olbers’ Paradox is instructive: the key limitations are that the universe is finite in space and time, and the speed of light (and thus communication) is also finite. An important takeaway of the paper I cited above is that current astrophysical knowledge suggests that the amount of the universe where life could have evolved so far is actually significantly limited in both space and time. Most feasible ways that life, intelligence, and civilization could have evolved simply haven’t had time to do so yet, or are too far away for the news to have reached us even if we can recognize it as such.
@128/Ian,
Interesting. I went for the friendlier write-up, which was quite accessible. I had not heard that higher metallicity would lead to gas giants that wander through the system devouring other planets before; I’m curious as to how that works, but don’t really think we should be discussing it on this thread. At any rate, 6 billion years ago still means it’s possible that there is a space-faring civilization that has been out there for more than a billion years, if they took the same 4.5 we did to get started. Could you estimate how long it would take to colonize the galaxy, if that were their intention?
And more related to this thread: do you fear the AI Singularity? Or do you hope for a future where we have created beings like Rayna and Data who can become our friends, and neither slaves nor masters?
@130/Ian: Again, I think it’s both premature and arrogant to conclude that our inability to detect alien civilizations after a paltry few decades of searching means that they don’t exist at all. After all, our searches have been very limited in methodology until recent years, and not very widespread in range. We’ve really only been looking for signals that somebody would have intentionally sent to us using the means that we were best able to detect, which means we would’ve had virtually no way of detecting anyone who wasn’t actively trying to contact us. And we’re only just in the earliest stages of searching for a wider variety of signatures. It’s way, way too early to mistake our lack of detection for lack of presence, not when we’ve barely even begun looking in a meaningful way.
@131/Keleborn: I think that conjecture about Jovians expelling Earthlike planets has been discredited by the detection of habitable-zone terrestrial exoplanets around stars that also have hot Jovians.
@128/Keleborn Telperion: I believe that singularities are less real things to be feared than indications of where our predictive knowledge has simply reached a limit—often a temporary one. The ultraviolet catastrophe helped lead to quantum mechanics, and black-hole singularities will help drive investigations to unify it with relativity. But the future path gets trickier to assess when you go into the fuzzier realms of psychology and sociology; Taleb’s The Black Swan seems to capture an approach I find useful in those areas.
As for AI, my take on research to date suggests that a Flint or Soong may never be able to construct/program a particular being, instead true AIs will only likely result as emergent properties of self-organizing brains. The process that leads to such an AI might be repeatable, but the behavior of that AI would be controllable only to the same extent that, say, children’s minds can be shaped by their parents, teachers, and life experiences. I’m not sure I can meaningfully predict whether such beings would be more likely to end up as our allies or enemies.
@132/CLB: I presume you are making the comment for a general audience, as I have never claimed that absence of evidence is necessarily evidence of absence (and indeed have vehemently argued the opposite on this very site) in either fiction or the real world. But the lack of detections to date isn’t merely a product of our own biases and limitations, there are genuine physical limits: there may be intentionally broadcast signals out there that simply have not reached us yet, whether from within the Milky Way or from other galaxies. Such constraints are quantifiable, even if our current precision is somewhat lacking.
As for Jovian-vs.-terrestrial planet showdowns, current research seems to indicate that formation and migration scenarios are highly dependent upon compositional and density gradients within the protoplanetary nebula, as well as the mass of the star. Whether any given star’s system will end up dominated by gaseous or terrestrial planets cannot yet really be pinned down in general; the likelihood that any given system will be damaged in any given time period by events from its host star or nearby stars is a bit better understood.
@133/Ian: Yes, exactly, well-put. “The Singularity” doesn’t refer to an event, it refers to a limit on our ability to predict events given current knowledge. And that just calls for new paradigms.
“I’m not sure I can meaningfully predict whether such beings would be more likely to end up as our allies or enemies.”
Again, if we pre-emptively expect them to be our enemies, then we’ll make them our enemies. So we’re better off approaching them as potential allies. If we don’t try to kill them the moment they come out of the crib, then maybe they won’t try to kill us in return.
It’s basically the real lesson of Frankenstein. The creature only became a killer because he was rejected and hated for being different. Our xenophobia toward the alien can be a self-fulfilling prophecy.
@134/Ian: On broadcast signals, it’s unlikely that most civilizations would use wide-beamed radio signals to communicate across the stars; that would be extremely inefficient. It’s far more likely that they’d use lasers, which have much higher bandwidth and much less loss over distance. Which means we’d have no chance of intercepting their communications unless Earth passed right through one of their beams by accident, so it’s no surprise we haven’t detected any. As I said, the only things we could detect through conventional SETI are the kind of signals designed specifically to get the attention of any civilization who might be listening, and it’s circular reasoning to look only for the kind of signal that would be easiest for us to find.
Like I said, it’s only in the past few years that SETI researchers have broken free of that narrow paradigm and begun exploring better options, like Dysonian SETI (searching for evidence of alien megastructures or other technological signatures). And our ability to detect exoplanets is only just on the verge of being able to recognize atmospheric or other biosignatures. So we’re still only just getting started.
@135: SETI’s practical difficulties remind us of a conceit that Star Trek and most other SF consistently gets entirely backwards (for dramatic purposes): in the vastness of space, hiding one’s ship or civilization should nearly always require far less effort and energy than making one’s presence known.
As for AIs, I believe a true AI as I described would also possess free will, and thus the ability to act out of greed, dominance, etc.; while approaching them with warm welcome and good intentions is certainly prefereable, I am too cynical to believe that it would be sufficient to ensure that such beings are dominated by the better angels of their nature. The conflict between an emerging free will and inherent programming was usually the point of resolution for Star Trek stories involving AIs (Rayna, NOMAD, M-5, etc.); in reality, although we could try to program in Asimov’s First (or Zeroth) Law, I’m not confident that a genuine AI would necessarily feel bound by it, so in dealing with them we should be optimistic but careful. I am pretty certain that treating them as slaves/servants would probably not end well.
Did Spock do a mind wipe or a post-hypnotic suggestion? Couldn’t we construe McCoy’s last words as doctors orders? “I wish he could forget”
I enjoy the premise of this episode, but agree with most of the criticism here especially regarding Kirk’s obsession with Rayna. The one line that makes me laugh out loud is when Kirk tells Spock, “Stay out of this! We’re fighting over a woman!”
Even in the 1960’s, I can’t believe anyone would consider that believable dialogue for an adult sci-fi story.
And I find McCoy’s final speech to Spock about love to be rather mean-spirited. I could see him talking about Spock in this way to a colleague like Kirk, but to say it to the man’s face–knowing his struggle with his human “half”–seems to me a bit insensitive if not outright cruel. I would love to see the final draft of many of these scripts to see how they were actually written compared to what we finally saw onscreen.
@138/owlly72: McCoy has a mean streak. He also shows it in “The Galileo Seven”, “Bread and Circuses”, “The Tholian Web”, and “All Our Yesterdays”. Although in all those cases it’s probably fuelled by fear, and that isn’t the case here.
Spock isn’t what I’d call a helpless victim. As I recall he gets in some good shots too.
I can’t argue with Keith’s issues with this episode, but honestly, I enjoy it far more than a great many of the previous episodes. The setting is so romantic to me that I can’t help but love it.
I am late to this comment string. So, if this has already been mentioned, please forgive me. Flint reminds me of the Wandering Jew–a legend which began in the late Middle Ages. Does anyone in Torland get that vibe as well?
@142/Paladin: Well, in Jerome Bixby’s other story about an immortal, The Man from Earth, the immortal claims to have been Jesus himself. Bixby may have intended the same for Flint but been unable to get it past the censors.
I always thought the Wandering Jew was the same person as Longinus, but I just looked them up and it turns out they’re two separate mythical characters. Who’d have thought there would be two guys cursed to immortality because they did something mean at Jesus’s crucifixion? Do they ever get together and compare notes? Has anyone ever written that story?
@143/CLB: IIRC The Wandering Jew had different origin stories. One origin story was that Jesus, while carrying his cross to Golgotha, stumbled in front of a cobbler’s storefront. The cobbler angrily told Jesus to move on. Jesus then cursed the cobbler to walk the Earth until the Second Coming. Another origin story was that the Wandering Jew was Cain, who was cursed by God to wander the Earth for killing Abel. And, yet another origin story has a Roman centurion (soldier?) as being the cursed one.
I like your story idea!
Interesting discussion! I am one of the watchers who liked this much more than you did, Keith, though I can certainly understand your problems with it. When I first saw this as a child, I found Spock’s clear love for Kirk in that final moment very moving. Now–well, I can see why it makes people shudder. But there’s also this:
It’s not the case that Kirk lost a great love when Rayna died (and I really, really liked her, and thought the actress conveyed her innocence, intelligence, confusion and determination awfully well). No, what shatters him is simply this: he killed her. HE killed her just as she was coming in to her full humanity. Or so it seems to him. That’s why he’s haunted by her; that’s why Doctor McCoy wishes so sincerely that he, Kirk, could forget her, and that is the gift (however poisonous) Spock tries to give him–the removal of false and crippling guilt. Because really, though Kirk behaved badly, Flint behaved far worse. He engineered the whole situation. He therefore must bear most of the guilt, especially since absolutely none of this need have happened if he’d just allowed the Enterprise crew to take the ryetalin in the first place.
I’m sure Kirk also felt guilt at Edith Keeler’s death, but there are some key differences. (1) She was a mature, fully-realized human being who had already accomplished a great deal in her life. (2) Kirk understood that she had to die in order to save millions (short-term) and billions (long-term) of lives. (3) Kirk did not have any part in murdering her directly. I have a lot more to say about Edith Keeler and her story, but I won’t do that here.
Anyway, it’s guilt. There’s a difference between guilt and love. Just a thought!
@145/Mary: That is a fascinating interpretation. It explains how he’s so broken up about her death after only knowing her for four hours.
Mary: Interesting notion, and a better one than this episode deserves, but definitely food for thought. Doesn’t justify Spock’s actions in the least, though…..
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
I’m only being partly facetious when I suggest that the entire episode may be from the viewpoint of a crewmember delirious with Rigelian fever, perhaps even Kirk himself. I’ve long believed that Trek should not automatically be understood from the point of view of a reliable narrator. Even Gene Roddenberry’s (alleged) novelisation of TMP suggests TOS is a dramatisation that may have exaggerated some things.
Until we saw the secret room, I had no memory of this episode. Part of the fun of rewatching, as someone who’s a fan of Trek but not intimately familiar with every last bit of every series, has been positive triggers like that.
If there were pheromones involved surely previous iterations of Rayne would’ve included them to some extent.
The fact that Flint is now going to age regularly as McCoy says makes zero sense. He’s been away from Earth for a long time. Although he must age to a certain extent at a certain pace to look as old as he does.
Poor Rayna. Having to choose now and forever between the man who’s been everything to you all your life and the hot guy who excites you in ways you’ve never known Right This Minute would be stressful as hell for a flesh and blood woman, especially with both of them standing there giving you the pleading puppy dog eyes. No wonder Rayna overloads.
Everyone interprets this as Spock wiping Kirk’s mind, and it is a reasonable interpretation. Because the ethics of this is so troubling, and so contrary to Spock’s and Kirk’s character however I prefer a different reading. I think Spock is not wiping Kirk’s mind, he is reading it. Remember just before this McCoy chides Spock for not being able to feel the anguish of a love lost. Whenever Spock begins a mind meld he almost always begins with a few spontaneous and uncontrolled utterances generated from the other person. In this case I think it is Kirk – willing himself even in his sleep to forget – who utters forget.
Another possible reading, perhaps mixed in with this, is Spock reaching out to his friend. Remember not all mind melds are aggressive – in fact most are not! A human friend might help Kirk drown his sorrows and with a slap on the shoulder tell Kirk to “forget her”; a Vulcan friend on the other hand might embrace his mind, and in supportive way help nudge him to,”forget” (although “move on, I am with you” may be the more accurate sentiment here.)
Anyhow, both these readings seems closer to the gentle way Spock says “forget” than a forceful mind wipe.
I have loved this episode since I was a kid and was intrigued the tragic notion of a man who was immortal and sought the “perfect” mate to spend eternity with. It seemed to be a variation of the Frankenstein myth (as well as some ‘Forbidden Planet’ thrown in). Nonetheless, it was never clear to me if Flint really was all those great people from Earth history (Brahms, Mozart, Shakespeare, Galileo, Moses, etc.) or if he just knew them and learned things from them or perhaps he assumed their identities? Oh… and Spock playing piano (an Earth instrument) was a hoot!
I always thought it strange that at the end it is Spock that explains all about Rayna’s emotional breakdown. And how McCoy wasn’t allowed to say, “She’s dead, Jim,” because she was never alive.