TOS Review: "The Man Trap" (season 1, episode 1, original air date 9/8/66)
Note: This is the first in an ongoing series of Star Trek TOS (i.e., The Original Series) episode reviews that will be appearing in this space. I aim to post one such review each week or so and eventually plow through the entire series in more or less chronological order. Spoilers within, if you care.
The episode can be seen here:
http://www.cbs.com/classics/star_trek/video/video.php?cid=619493214&pid=UxmvXPz_Cbq6vfEzGVrWpnUz0kUAiNsd&play=true
It's amazing how strong a fashion influence the Beatles are still exerting in the 23rd century. All the guys on the Enterprise are wearing those Beatle boots with the Cuban heels (see pic below). Also, Spock's haircut is pretty much a Beatle cut, but with fashion-forward shorter bangs. He is George Harrison in space, basically, right down to the introverted yet sarcastic demeanor.
The women's minidresses, meanwhile, are fucking ridiculous. They are as long as they need to be to cover the subject, and not a millimeter longer. As anything other than a prefeminist T&A display, they are laughable. Compared to these, Zoe Saldana's uniform is the height of staid professionalism.
Speaking of sexual objectification, it's kind of disorienting to look at Shatner here, 43 years ago. Although the Shat has never moved me on a hormonal level, it must be said that dude was remarkably handsome back in the day. And so trim! The whole crew, actually, is good to look at. Nichelle Nichols and George Takei are mad cute. Bones is Bones, and if Bones is your cup of tea, the tea here is piping hot. Leonard Nimoy has a full face of makeup on - eyeshadow, blush, lip color - and looks quite fetching.
BTW, when you saw the new movie, did the hot young cast make you wonder whether the cast of TOS actually were older than the 2.0 cast or just seemed older? They did me, so in case you'd like to know, here is a handy chart comparing the ages of the major cast members at the time filming of each project began.
Star Trek TOS vs. Star Trek 2.0 Actor, TOSAgeActor, 2.0AgeKirkWilliam Shatner35Chris Pine27SpockLeonard Nimoy35Zach Quinto30BonesDeForest Kelley46 (!)Karl Urban35UhuraNichelle Nichols34Zoe Saldana29SuluGeorge Takei29John Cho35ScottyJames Doohan46Simon Pegg37ChekovWalter Koenig30Anton Yelchin18 (!)
So, yes, the new folks are younger, though usually not by all that much. What's really changed between 1966 and now is the idea of what a 35-year-old is. Then, 35 was proto-middle age. Now, it means you're a stoner escaping from Guantanamo Bay.
Oh yeah, the episode. Here is the plot in a nutshell:
Kirk, Bones and an expendable random crew member** named Darnell have beamed down on a planet imaginatively christened M-113, so that Bones can perform the yearly required Starfleet physical on two married archaeologists (the sole human inhabitants) who are there on an extended dig. The wife happens to be an ex of Bones', Nancy Crater, who looks like a cross between Anne Bancroft and Erma Bombeck.
When Bones sees her again, looking as if not a day has passed since they were an item, he gets all in a tizzy. However, when ERCM Darnell looks at Nancy, she also appears to him in the form of an old...uh, flame, I guess you could say: he was acquainted with her on something called "Wrigley's Pleasure Planet." Of which we will hear more later in the series, I sincerely hope.
Bones-Nancy, Kirk-Nancy, Pleasure Planet Nancy, Bancroft-Nancy, Bombeck-Nancy
All this clearly means that we have a devious shape-shifting creature on our hands, and also that we're in for one of those plots where the arrival of a mysterious stranger will reveal something intimate about the pasts (or, in Uhura's case, the longed-for future) of each of our fearless crew. However, Nancy's initial meeting with the Enterprise trio is confusing, because she doesn't appear to Kirk as somebody out of his past, only as an older (i.e., the same except with sprayed-on gray hair) version of the same woman Bones sees.
Is this because Kirk is such an emotionally disconnected womanizer that there IS no one significant in his past whose form Nancy can take? But how are we supposed to already understand this about him in the first episode? OR is this a winking acknowledgment that Kirk also screwed Nancy after she split with Bones - I mean, why not, he is the Warren Beatty of space - and is wisely not letting on about it?
Anyway, the Nancy-creature soon kills Darnell offstage, but pretends that he died from eating a poisonous plant. However, the combined biochemical knowledge of Spock and Bones soon exposes this claim as bullshit. Much back-and-forth between M-113 and the Enterprise ensues as Kirk tries to figure out what really killed Darnell*** and the several other ERCMs that the Nancy-creature later offs after it borrows the form of one of its victims and sneaks aboard the Enterprise.
Although this episode is called "The Man Trap" in reference to the Nancy-creature's ability to get close to victims by assuming the form of women they once had the hots for, the creature is not gender-discriminatory in this regard. It nearly kills Uhura by assuming the form of an educated, middle-class, Swahili-speaking black man who, we are told, represents her romantic fantasies rather than an actual man from her past. This implication that Uhura has no significant romantic history is quite interesting, no? I have a feeling it was done in conscious defiance of the stereotype of black female promiscuity, but look how far overboard they had to go to compensate.
From there on out, the Nancy-creature assumes the form of Bones to everyone who looks at it except Bones, for whom it still looks like Nancy. This may just mean that everyone on board the Enterprise either has already gotten with, or wants to get with, Bones, which in such a slash-friendly universe seems entirely plausible. Eventually the Nancy-creature is revealed to be the last of an endangered species of shape-shifters who are forced to kill humans out of a biological need for salt and an emotional need for, get this, love. The Nancy-creature, predictably, had killed the original Nancy, but was so good at assuming her physical form and emotionally ingratiating itself with her widowed husband that the said Professor Crater totally dug the situation, and instead of avenging Nancy's death, just kept the Nancy-creature around as an agreeable substitute.
Because this is an immoral response that would send a bad message to America's children if allowed to stand, the creature kills Professor Crater too before being reluctantly phasered by Bones and assuming, in death, its true physical form: a shriveled-up woman with army-green skin, a shiny gray Lil' Kim wig and a mouth that looks like a round USB port. Having seen Before the Devil Knows You're Dead the same weekend I watched this episode, I'm pretty sure Marisa Tomei has a painting in her attic that looks more or less like this.
"The Picture of Marisa Tomei"?****
I just read back over that plot synopsis, and Jesus Christ, I hope you watched the episode before reading it, because if not you'll probably be so put off your lunch that you never will. I mean, convoluted much? And for all that complexity, there were plenty of narratively slack moments when my attention wandered. All this provided a vivid reminder of why I was never a passionate fan of TOS as a kid.
Nevertheless, something else about it held my interest: the fun of comparing the TOS version of each character with the 2.0 one. The contrast between the two Kirks is especially instructive. The defining characteristic of Kirk is self-confidence unto cockiness, which partly derives, for both old and new Kirk, from their track records of sexual success with women. But after that the two Kirks part ways. Shatner's cockiness expresses itself as middle-class smugness: he's educated, well-spoken, comfortable with authority and rule enforcement while managing to evade the latter in his own sexual conduct, thus having his cake and eating it too. He's Don Draper without angst, kind of.
You can even see their differences in the way they sit on the bridge: attentive leaning-in versus aggressive slouch.
Chris Pine's Kirk, on the other hand, has plenty of angst, starting with his father issues. He's also positioned by Ortzman as, if not literally a class rebel (as a kid living in the Iowa boonies, with a mom in Starfleet and a stepdad doing we know not what, his status isn't entirely clear), then at least an outsider. His rebelliousness doesn't get much past James Dean cliches, yet it's enough to make you doubt his fitness for the role we know he will eventually assume. I mean, didn't you have a moment while watching the new movie when you wondered: Is he up to this? Is he smart enough? Did they cast the wrong actor?
I did. I didn't like the boring, overly Scandinavian kid they got to play the young Kirk, for starters, and then when Chris Pine showed up it took him several scenes to fully convince me that he had more going on internally than your average frat boy. The hitting-on of Uhura should've clued me in more than it initially did, because Kirk is quite quick with the repartee and rejoinders there, plus he's smart enough to season his brashness with self-effacement ("I thought you were just a dumb hick who only has sex with farm animals." "Well, not only."). But extricating oneself good-humoredly from an unsuccessful pickup and giving the finger to a rigged exam, though both impressive in their way, are not leadership, and it wasn't until Kirk was illegally on board the Enterprise, and forced to make a case for himself and his positions to the legitimate crew, that I started to feel he had both the verbal and intellectual chops to be a credible Starfleet captain.
And what about Spock? The first surprise is that old, supposedly uptight Spock is actually more laid-back than new emo-Spock. Sure, Old Spock talks like a college professor, but apart from that he seems fairly chilled out and approachable. Also, for a Vulcan raised on Vulcan, he's weirdly American; compare the way his countrywomen T'Pau and T'Pring speak (both accents and phrasing) in the later episode "Amok Time." (Yeah, I cheated and watched it out of sequence. It's the pon farr episode. Nothing more need be said.) You could almost imagine him saying, "The Celtics are enjoying a remarkably successful season this year" or "Mr. Sulu, in your opinion, is this an auspicious moment to buy stock in Dell?"
Zach Quinto's Spock, by contrast, has a self-conscious dignity and formality about him at all times despite his younger age, and now I understand why: if Spock is to be doing such outre things as sucking face with Uhura on the transporter pad and violently going off on anyone who insults his mother, he has to be wound that much tighter the rest of the time in order to maintain the tension that makes him Spock. The combination works perfectly.
Enough of this for now. I'll leave you with the contemplative parting words of James T. Kirk, in reference to the passing away of species and the fact of the universe moving on:
"I was thinking about the buffalo, Mr. Spock. [Long, pensive pause]
Warp One, Mr. Sulu."
*For all "TOS Review" entries, the song listed in this space will be the song that was topping the U.S. singles chart on the date the episode under review originally aired. This info comes from Joel Whitburn's Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits, which is also the best bathroom book you will ever buy.
**I'd call him a "red shirt," except that he's not wearing one. None of the other ERCMs who die in this episode are, either.
***The phrase "I've lost a crew member, and I want to know why!," and variations thereon, are already looking like they should be part of any good Star Trek drinking game, along with references to logic and the need to set one's phaser on stun.
****Aw, Marisa, I kid. In truth, the simultaneous public recognition of your amazingly youthful fortysomething hotness and your chops as a serious dramatic actress is one of the more satisfying developments to come out of Hollywood in the last few years, and could not have happened to a more deserving person.