You should do that; I’d be curious to see what exactly the alleged “butchery” of Ellison’s script amounts to. I have a feeling that the original script might be excellent from a literary standpoint but have some rough edges from a broadcast standpoint.
Without veering into spolier-land for our (there are a few) thread participants who are doing a first watch-through, from what I’ve read (and observed, in examining and comparing them), the “butchery” is DC and Rod being script editors and ensuring that characters acted as previously established, series continuity was maintained, etc. So typical Ellison curmudgeonly behavior. Notice he didn’t “Cordwainer Bird” this one, at the end of the day.
Yeah, the legend is that basically Ellison wrote a good screenplay based on a good story idea, but the actual execution ignored the established nature of the characters and had them doing things that did not fit with that established nature.
I think technically the story was that the phaser one weapon had limited power, and it would clip onto the top of the phaser two handle-unit, which provided extra power presumably from a bigger battery.
At least I seem to recall that from the Star Fleet Tech Manual. Whether they actually did it in the show, I don’t recall.
It was in the Tech manual. Memory Alpha agrees. As well, it very obviously looks that way when you see the Phaser Two up close.
I’ll be damned. Never noticed that.
Are we doing Errand of Mercy yet? Because I have a real fucking problem with the passive aggressive Organians. The way they keep hinting at things. How they keep Kirk and the Klingon commander in battle until the very end. How they just… never mind. Maybe later.
Organians. The alien version of the Irish Mother.
Errand of Mercy is next week. We’re still on Devil in the Dark.
I always liked Devil in the Dark, except: It doesn’t seem to me that the being we see in the show can have done the things it is supposed to have done. That thing can barely belly-crawl across the flat cave floor. It’s not slow, I don’t mean that; I mean it’s limited to movement on horizontal surfaces. How did it pounce on its victims? How does it make a circular hole in a vertical cave wall which starts several feet above the floor? Does it jump?
(Yes, I know, creature effects limitations etc)
People do not parse strangeness very well. The miners were not expecting anything like the horta. When it appeared they did what any human would. They froze. And while their brain tried to figure out what was happening the horta killed them. They were killing its children.
I only watched the beginning of this episode last week, didn’t have the chance to see the rest before my CBS sub expired. (Don’t worry, I won’t fall too far behind this time, I plan to get Netflix soon when Hassan Minaj’s show comes back).
I do love that near the start of the episode, they go to war with the Klingon empire. And the way they find out is a short message from Starfleet. That’s it. We’re at war. No big announcement, nothing dramatic. Just a message. And there it is, says Kirk, we’re at war.
Very “Cold War” in it’s resonance. Reflective of 1966. Everyone thought war (big, World War kinda war) was just one radio message away, and society had been living that way for 15 years.
All right, so let’s talk Errand of Mercy. As @Rock8man notes, at the beginning of the episode the Federation goes to war with the Klingons and by the end of the episode, war is over. In between, not a whole lot happens. I say that a lot, but in this case, it’s an unusually low-key set of hostilities.
I’ll get this out of the way upfront - I don’t really like this episode. It’s the first episode to really devote any time to the Klingons, and it’s kind of cool for that, but I can’t find much else to like. Kirk and Spock and alone on the Organian planet and wage their own kind of resistance against Kor’s invading force and then just when things are getting interesting, the intergalactic grownups show up and take everyone’s toys away. I’m just not a fan of these kind of deus ex machina endings, where the all-powerful alien beings show up, do their thing and then go back to doing whatever it is they do in their spare time.
I have to agree with @RichVR’s perspective on the Organians themselves, they’re a smug bunch of bastards, aren’t they? Content to sit around and smile passively at the visiting aliens until violence threatens to break out and then oh no, we can’t have that, let’s just crank up the heat a little bit. I was a bit amused at both Kirk’s and Kor’s immediate distaste for the Organians’ placid, smiling demeanor and I can’t blame either of them for seeing stupidity behind their vacant appearances. I’d have probably talked down to them too.
Anyway, not much else to say from my end of things. I’d love to hear from someone who has a more favorable perspective on this episode.
Star Trek had a knack for introducing smart ideas that turn out to be future plot killers. Hey, we have transporters? No more stories based on the heroes being trapped somewhere! Communicators? Guess they can’t ever be out of touch. This episode introduces another. If the Organians won’t let the Federation and the Klingons fight, then no more stories about fighting the Klingons. I guess we’ll have to invent another enemy.
Not I. It’s a middling episode, mainly due to the alien deus ex machina Gene foists upon us, though the writers and DC do a good job later of using the Organian imposed peace to create some interesting situations and stories later, despite the future plot-killing boneheadedness @scottagibson rightfully refers to.
On the positive side, we get Kirk and Spock playing insurgent which is fun and we do get a fantastic character in Kor and a masterful performance by John Colicos in that role. “It would have been glorious.”
Remind me, is this the first time for the Klingons on the series, or did we have Klingons seen or even mentioned before that I’m forgetting?
First time.
Cool. That’s quite momentous. That means this episode introduced a species that is most closely associated with Star Trek to this day, I’d say. Though Vulcans would also be just as frequently thought of as the first aliens people think of I suppose. I never would have guessed before this re-watch that the Klingons were introduced so late, and well after the Romulans.
Kor (and later Koloth and Kang) are the reason they have that staying power. Good characters, well acted.