Classic Trek reviews!
Watching through classic Trek! A little while ago, Chrislynx and I watched The Conscience of the King, a first season ep that felt strongly like someone's re-written radio script for an episode of The Whistler set on an ocean liner in 1947. In that setting you could have a great plot along the lines of "Is this famed actor from Buenos Aires actually a Nazi death camp commandant?"
Some elements of the mystery are weakened in the futuristic setting. Spock can (and does) call up photos of their suspect and a known mass murderer from the computer banks, and they are clearly the same person, yet the scene ends with him and Kirk still uncertain. I imagine this playing out very differently in a contemporary setting, with travellers on a ship comparing yellowed newspaper photos to the actor's glossy headshot.
I enjoyed it. Nice, solid melodrama, Uhura sings a sad song about space, and Julie Newmar doesn't need any "vaseline on the camera lens" to let people know she's the female foil in this episode.
Other thoughts:
1. This episode firmly establishes the Trek trope that future people like watching incredibly low-budget stage productions.
2. Uhura has a fantastic voice.
3. Lt. Riley must have been in kindergarten when the Tarsus IV massacre took place.
4. The episode introduces the ideas of human improvement through eugenics versus social improvement through technological innovation and education. This conflict is explored in much more depth in Space Seed, later in the same season.
Some elements of the mystery are weakened in the futuristic setting. Spock can (and does) call up photos of their suspect and a known mass murderer from the computer banks, and they are clearly the same person, yet the scene ends with him and Kirk still uncertain. I imagine this playing out very differently in a contemporary setting, with travellers on a ship comparing yellowed newspaper photos to the actor's glossy headshot.
I enjoyed it. Nice, solid melodrama, Uhura sings a sad song about space, and Julie Newmar doesn't need any "vaseline on the camera lens" to let people know she's the female foil in this episode.
Other thoughts:
1. This episode firmly establishes the Trek trope that future people like watching incredibly low-budget stage productions.
2. Uhura has a fantastic voice.
3. Lt. Riley must have been in kindergarten when the Tarsus IV massacre took place.
4. The episode introduces the ideas of human improvement through eugenics versus social improvement through technological innovation and education. This conflict is explored in much more depth in Space Seed, later in the same season.