TOS reviews
Below the cut there's discussion of "Day of the Dove," "For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky," and "The Tholian Web." Contains spoilers for these episodes; also contains my thoughts on OT3s and hairpieces.
"Day of the Dove
Apparently the reduced S3 budget meant that all the Klingon makeup in this episode was done with brown shoe polish. It's hideous. And (perhaps to spare the costumes) their necks weren't painted, so they all look like they've been playing in mommy's makeup box without adequate supervision. Won't someone teach the Klingons how to apply foundation so it blends? Please? It would be a mission of mercy.
I have to say that this was my main impression from the episode. Well, that and Scotty's new haircut, a Roman-style crop that looks wonderful on him. He's ten years younger and ten times handsomer all of a sudden.
The plot is dumb, to put it mildly. Why do all the Federation officers know how to fight when swords? (And if there had to be swords, why not an awesome fight scene for Sulu, who canonically is brilliant at it?) Why is everyone on the Enterprise secretly racist against the Vulcans, so that poor Spock gets called names whenever there's an "alien mental influences" plot? I suppose it's possible that Scotty's unexpected outburst was pure fabrication, along the same lines as Chekov's phantom brother, but I'm still getting tired of this plot device. Spock being anti-human in return was a new twist, though, and I'm willing to believe that he does find a shipful of humans damn annoying sometimes.
Has someone written the Harry Potter crossover where this episode's alien is actually a space boggart? What with laughter destroying its power and all.
Moving on to the decidedly unfunny, there was Chekov's attempt to rape Mara. That scene wasn't as bad as it might have been (it clearly showed rape as an act of aggression), but it irked me that Mara, a soldier, couldn't defend herself against one small skinny ensign and had to be rescued. Also her shirt getting torn and her making no attempt to cover herself--because apparently the show thinks that the torn-clothes, just-sexually-assaulted look is waaaaaay sexy. Ugh. And then Kang thinking that Kirk raped Mara, and that was why Kirk didn't kill her, and (this is the jaw-dropping bit) that somehow this explained Mara arguing for a truce. Um, no. Eventually Mara stands up for herself, but for some reason she lets Kang continue in this delusion long enough for him to have a big mano-a-mano fight with Kirk.
The dialogue in this episode got on my nerves too--since when does Spock speak in cheap aphorisms? He's not a fortune cookie.
About the only bit I liked was how after Kang introduces Mara ("My wife Mara, my science officer") there's a cut to Kirk and his science officer. Possibly-unintentional slashy parallels, yay!
"For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky"
Oh McCoy, you poor secret woobie! So lonely, so unhappy, so stoically concealing it all! You now rival Spock for my woobie-love.
I found this gratifying, not just because I love a secret woobie, but also because I've long been convinced, without any real evidence, that McCoy is lonely as hell. The Kirk-Spock friendship, whether one reads it slashily or not, is so strong that it makes him a bit of an outsider. They both like him, and I'm sure he knows that, but they're a duo and he's never going to be fully included. *hugs him lots*
I should probably admit from the start that I read McCoy's relationship with Natira with the assistance of my handy slash goggles. (I've been surprised to find myself shipping Kirk/Spock/McCoy, because I've never been very interested in shipping a threesome before; in fact I've been downright averse to it. But the K/S/M chemistry and subtext are very strong, even though, as you can see from the paragraph above, I don't think the relationship is fully equal or makes McCoy very happy.) So I acknowledge my slashy bias, but I don't think I'm wrong in saying that this is not the romance of the century. Natira is very much the pursuer, with McCoy accepting her rather than wanting her. His body language in the scene where she proposes is full of reluctance (and coded very female--it duplicates any number of movie/TV scenes where a woman had just been proposed to by a man she doesn't really love, and she turns, gets up, puts some distance between them while she tries to figure out what to say). He eventually says yes to her, but he would've said yes to anyone. "If you only knew how I needed some kind of future, Natira," he says. It's significant that before he beams down, Christine Chapel advises him to live the rest of his life as fully as possible; now he's been given a chance to be loved, and he's going to take it. Even if it means accepting the Instrument of Obedience, which is not something I can see McCoy doing in any other circumstances.
Then there's the fact that Kirk more-or-less orders him to seduce Natira so that Kirk and Spock can look for the power source. And that McCoy later offers himself to her so that she won't have them executed. And that after they've gone he risks everything to get information back to them. When Natira says, "Until you are dead, he will think of you and disobey," she's not wrong.
Even before McCoy learns he can be cured, he's already told her that he won't stay. He asks her to come along, but it's obvious that she's going to refuse, and neither of them seems too broken up about it. I'm convinced that Natira's thinking went, "Okay, whatever's going on between you and your two special friends is way too complicated for me."
This brings us neatly back to McCoy's relationship with Kirk and Spock. The scene where McCoy tells Kirk about his illness is wooden and strangely emotionless, but emotions run very high later. Kirk and Spock are both solicitous and tender towards McCoy whenever he seems unwell. I especially love the moment when McCoy wakes after the initial attack by the oracle, and he realizes from the way Spock's touching him (i.e., lengthily and unnecessarily) that Spock knows.
They both try, in their typical ways, to dissuade McCoy from staying. Kirk orders him to return to Enterprise, Spock tells him he's being illogical. I like this exchange: McCoy: Natira's asked me to stay and I'm staying.
Kirk: As her husband?
McCoy: Yes. Is that too much to ask, Jim?
Non-slashy interpretations of this are possible, I admit, but it can easily be seen as Kirk expressing jealousy and McCoy saying, "Hey, why am I not allowed to have something just for myself instead of perpetually being the third wheel with you two?"
The fact that they don't say goodbye when Kirk and Spock beam back up just kills me. They all look sad and intense, but nobody says a damn word. Silly boys.
I'd already read (on Memory Alpha) about McCoy's relationship with Natira before seeing this episode, so I approached it with some nervousness fearing it would kill my OT3. As you can see, I don't think it does. If anything, it strengthens it. I very much doubt that McCoy's going to take Kirk up on his offer to go and pay the colonists a visit in a year.
"The Tholian Web"
Apparently a lot of people really like this episode. I don't, primarily because the tension between Spock and McCoy is so extreme as to be out of character. They've had this exact same conflict before, with McCoy accusing Spock of wanting command a little too much. But that was a long time ago, and since then they've developed an important mutual trust and mutual fondness. I don't see them being at each other's throats this way.
It can, of course, be explained as the influence of interspace, but it bugs me that there was no explanation in the text. The writers, Judy Burns and Chet Richards, really seem to believe that this is how Spock and McCoy think of each other.
Their reconciliation, however, does a lot to make up for the annoyingness of their quarrel. McCoy acknowledging that Kirk's death hurts Spock is lovely, as is the later moment when McCoy (having lost his temper again) apologizes and Spock says, "I understand, doctor. I’m sure the captain would simply have said, 'Forget it, Bones.'" So Spock's personal method for being a good captain is to ask himself "What would Jim Kirk do?". *hearts him* And when Uhura and Chekov return to the bridge from sickbay, he's careful to tell them how much they were missed, just like Kirk would've done.
How sweet that Kirk's last orders are basically, "Be nice to each other, you guys." I don't understand why McCoy and Spock deny having listened to them. I mean, I get that they're embarrassed to admit that they were quarrelling, but it's still kind of ridiculous. That last scene does rather explode the notion that Vulcans can't lie, though. Spock takes an active part in the lie--he contributes to it, he doesn't just fail to correct McCoy. Kirk sees right through them, of course.
Uhura had some good scenes in the episode (and we got to see her quarters!), which I was happy about. Still not enough Sulu (and too much Chekov, in my opinion), although this episode finally made me understand why some folks ship Sulu/Chekov. It's hard to interpret Sulu cradling the unconscious Chekov's face in his hand (rather than letting it rest on the hard, uncomfortable console) as anything but a declaration of love. And back during "Day of the Dove," Sulu was the one who knew Chekov didn't really have a brother, which does at least imply that they know each other pretty well.
Scotty gets the best funny lines in this episode, in the scene where he, Spock, and McCoy drink the antidote. There's another nice Spock and McCoy moment at the end, too. McCoy: In this derivative, mixed with alcohol, it merely deadens certain nerve inputs to he brain.
Scott: Oh, well, any decent brand of scotch'll do that.
McCoy: One good slug of this and you could hit a man with phaser stun and he'd never feel it or even know it.
Scott: (drinks eagerly) Does it make a good mix with scotch?
McCoy: It should.
Scott: (takes carafe) I'll let you know. (leaves)
McCoy: Well, drink it down, Spock. It's the human thing to do. That's a medical order. (raises glass) Captain. (McCoy drinks; Spock drinks.)
I could wish that Scott got more character development than "He sure loves his whisky," but the sad truth is that nobody but Kirk, Spock, and McCoy has had any development since early S1. (To repeat my earlier point: NEEDS MORE SULU.)
Randomly: I have a question for those of you who knows production details. Memory Alpha mentions that when Shatner wore the spacesuit in "The Tholian Web," he didn't bother wearing his "frontal hairpiece." Did he always wear one on the show? I've heard the Shatner toupee jokes, of course, but he certainly didn't look like he had a hairpiece in S1. Later he sometimes seems to be wearing a (really bad) one and sometimes not. But I am visually inept and quite likely to miss these things; anyway, my inquiring mind wants to know! (ETA: prof_pangaea has revealed the sad truth, and a little googling provided visual evidence.)
*****
"Day of the Dove
Apparently the reduced S3 budget meant that all the Klingon makeup in this episode was done with brown shoe polish. It's hideous. And (perhaps to spare the costumes) their necks weren't painted, so they all look like they've been playing in mommy's makeup box without adequate supervision. Won't someone teach the Klingons how to apply foundation so it blends? Please? It would be a mission of mercy.
I have to say that this was my main impression from the episode. Well, that and Scotty's new haircut, a Roman-style crop that looks wonderful on him. He's ten years younger and ten times handsomer all of a sudden.
The plot is dumb, to put it mildly. Why do all the Federation officers know how to fight when swords? (And if there had to be swords, why not an awesome fight scene for Sulu, who canonically is brilliant at it?) Why is everyone on the Enterprise secretly racist against the Vulcans, so that poor Spock gets called names whenever there's an "alien mental influences" plot? I suppose it's possible that Scotty's unexpected outburst was pure fabrication, along the same lines as Chekov's phantom brother, but I'm still getting tired of this plot device. Spock being anti-human in return was a new twist, though, and I'm willing to believe that he does find a shipful of humans damn annoying sometimes.
Has someone written the Harry Potter crossover where this episode's alien is actually a space boggart? What with laughter destroying its power and all.
Moving on to the decidedly unfunny, there was Chekov's attempt to rape Mara. That scene wasn't as bad as it might have been (it clearly showed rape as an act of aggression), but it irked me that Mara, a soldier, couldn't defend herself against one small skinny ensign and had to be rescued. Also her shirt getting torn and her making no attempt to cover herself--because apparently the show thinks that the torn-clothes, just-sexually-assaulted look is waaaaaay sexy. Ugh. And then Kang thinking that Kirk raped Mara, and that was why Kirk didn't kill her, and (this is the jaw-dropping bit) that somehow this explained Mara arguing for a truce. Um, no. Eventually Mara stands up for herself, but for some reason she lets Kang continue in this delusion long enough for him to have a big mano-a-mano fight with Kirk.
The dialogue in this episode got on my nerves too--since when does Spock speak in cheap aphorisms? He's not a fortune cookie.
About the only bit I liked was how after Kang introduces Mara ("My wife Mara, my science officer") there's a cut to Kirk and his science officer. Possibly-unintentional slashy parallels, yay!
"For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky"
Oh McCoy, you poor secret woobie! So lonely, so unhappy, so stoically concealing it all! You now rival Spock for my woobie-love.
I found this gratifying, not just because I love a secret woobie, but also because I've long been convinced, without any real evidence, that McCoy is lonely as hell. The Kirk-Spock friendship, whether one reads it slashily or not, is so strong that it makes him a bit of an outsider. They both like him, and I'm sure he knows that, but they're a duo and he's never going to be fully included. *hugs him lots*
I should probably admit from the start that I read McCoy's relationship with Natira with the assistance of my handy slash goggles. (I've been surprised to find myself shipping Kirk/Spock/McCoy, because I've never been very interested in shipping a threesome before; in fact I've been downright averse to it. But the K/S/M chemistry and subtext are very strong, even though, as you can see from the paragraph above, I don't think the relationship is fully equal or makes McCoy very happy.) So I acknowledge my slashy bias, but I don't think I'm wrong in saying that this is not the romance of the century. Natira is very much the pursuer, with McCoy accepting her rather than wanting her. His body language in the scene where she proposes is full of reluctance (and coded very female--it duplicates any number of movie/TV scenes where a woman had just been proposed to by a man she doesn't really love, and she turns, gets up, puts some distance between them while she tries to figure out what to say). He eventually says yes to her, but he would've said yes to anyone. "If you only knew how I needed some kind of future, Natira," he says. It's significant that before he beams down, Christine Chapel advises him to live the rest of his life as fully as possible; now he's been given a chance to be loved, and he's going to take it. Even if it means accepting the Instrument of Obedience, which is not something I can see McCoy doing in any other circumstances.
Then there's the fact that Kirk more-or-less orders him to seduce Natira so that Kirk and Spock can look for the power source. And that McCoy later offers himself to her so that she won't have them executed. And that after they've gone he risks everything to get information back to them. When Natira says, "Until you are dead, he will think of you and disobey," she's not wrong.
Even before McCoy learns he can be cured, he's already told her that he won't stay. He asks her to come along, but it's obvious that she's going to refuse, and neither of them seems too broken up about it. I'm convinced that Natira's thinking went, "Okay, whatever's going on between you and your two special friends is way too complicated for me."
This brings us neatly back to McCoy's relationship with Kirk and Spock. The scene where McCoy tells Kirk about his illness is wooden and strangely emotionless, but emotions run very high later. Kirk and Spock are both solicitous and tender towards McCoy whenever he seems unwell. I especially love the moment when McCoy wakes after the initial attack by the oracle, and he realizes from the way Spock's touching him (i.e., lengthily and unnecessarily) that Spock knows.
They both try, in their typical ways, to dissuade McCoy from staying. Kirk orders him to return to Enterprise, Spock tells him he's being illogical. I like this exchange: McCoy: Natira's asked me to stay and I'm staying.
Kirk: As her husband?
McCoy: Yes. Is that too much to ask, Jim?
Non-slashy interpretations of this are possible, I admit, but it can easily be seen as Kirk expressing jealousy and McCoy saying, "Hey, why am I not allowed to have something just for myself instead of perpetually being the third wheel with you two?"
The fact that they don't say goodbye when Kirk and Spock beam back up just kills me. They all look sad and intense, but nobody says a damn word. Silly boys.
I'd already read (on Memory Alpha) about McCoy's relationship with Natira before seeing this episode, so I approached it with some nervousness fearing it would kill my OT3. As you can see, I don't think it does. If anything, it strengthens it. I very much doubt that McCoy's going to take Kirk up on his offer to go and pay the colonists a visit in a year.
"The Tholian Web"
Apparently a lot of people really like this episode. I don't, primarily because the tension between Spock and McCoy is so extreme as to be out of character. They've had this exact same conflict before, with McCoy accusing Spock of wanting command a little too much. But that was a long time ago, and since then they've developed an important mutual trust and mutual fondness. I don't see them being at each other's throats this way.
It can, of course, be explained as the influence of interspace, but it bugs me that there was no explanation in the text. The writers, Judy Burns and Chet Richards, really seem to believe that this is how Spock and McCoy think of each other.
Their reconciliation, however, does a lot to make up for the annoyingness of their quarrel. McCoy acknowledging that Kirk's death hurts Spock is lovely, as is the later moment when McCoy (having lost his temper again) apologizes and Spock says, "I understand, doctor. I’m sure the captain would simply have said, 'Forget it, Bones.'" So Spock's personal method for being a good captain is to ask himself "What would Jim Kirk do?". *hearts him* And when Uhura and Chekov return to the bridge from sickbay, he's careful to tell them how much they were missed, just like Kirk would've done.
How sweet that Kirk's last orders are basically, "Be nice to each other, you guys." I don't understand why McCoy and Spock deny having listened to them. I mean, I get that they're embarrassed to admit that they were quarrelling, but it's still kind of ridiculous. That last scene does rather explode the notion that Vulcans can't lie, though. Spock takes an active part in the lie--he contributes to it, he doesn't just fail to correct McCoy. Kirk sees right through them, of course.
Uhura had some good scenes in the episode (and we got to see her quarters!), which I was happy about. Still not enough Sulu (and too much Chekov, in my opinion), although this episode finally made me understand why some folks ship Sulu/Chekov. It's hard to interpret Sulu cradling the unconscious Chekov's face in his hand (rather than letting it rest on the hard, uncomfortable console) as anything but a declaration of love. And back during "Day of the Dove," Sulu was the one who knew Chekov didn't really have a brother, which does at least imply that they know each other pretty well.
Scotty gets the best funny lines in this episode, in the scene where he, Spock, and McCoy drink the antidote. There's another nice Spock and McCoy moment at the end, too. McCoy: In this derivative, mixed with alcohol, it merely deadens certain nerve inputs to he brain.
Scott: Oh, well, any decent brand of scotch'll do that.
McCoy: One good slug of this and you could hit a man with phaser stun and he'd never feel it or even know it.
Scott: (drinks eagerly) Does it make a good mix with scotch?
McCoy: It should.
Scott: (takes carafe) I'll let you know. (leaves)
McCoy: Well, drink it down, Spock. It's the human thing to do. That's a medical order. (raises glass) Captain. (McCoy drinks; Spock drinks.)
I could wish that Scott got more character development than "He sure loves his whisky," but the sad truth is that nobody but Kirk, Spock, and McCoy has had any development since early S1. (To repeat my earlier point: NEEDS MORE SULU.)
Randomly: I have a question for those of you who knows production details. Memory Alpha mentions that when Shatner wore the spacesuit in "The Tholian Web," he didn't bother wearing his "frontal hairpiece." Did he always wear one on the show? I've heard the Shatner toupee jokes, of course, but he certainly didn't look like he had a hairpiece in S1. Later he sometimes seems to be wearing a (really bad) one and sometimes not. But I am visually inept and quite likely to miss these things; anyway, my inquiring mind wants to know! (ETA: prof_pangaea has revealed the sad truth, and a little googling provided visual evidence.)
*****