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such_heights) wrote2009-06-12 11:13 pm
such_heights) wrote2009-06-12 11:13 pm
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Star Trek Rewatch -- Where No Man Has Gone Before
Captain Kirk worries when his friend, Gary Mitchell, is transformed by the galaxy's edge into a powerful psionic being, endangering the ship, crew and beyond. [Memory Alpha]
We start with a Captain's Log voiceover explaining that they've picked up a distress signal from a ship lost centuries ago.
The first interior shot of the series is of Kirk, Spock, and a 3-D chess board.
The distress signal turns out to be emitting from a small beacon, and Kirk orders it beamed onto the ship.
(hi Scotty!)
It's a ship recorder designed to be ejected in case of emergency, and Spock tries to decipher what he can from the burnt out tapes.
As Spock relays the troubles of the SS Valiant, the Enterprise is approaching the edge of the galaxy.
With tales of peril being narrated by Spock, and deflectors picking up something strange at the galaxy edge, the ship plunges on regardless, which is going to end in tears.
Sparks fly, and two officers on the bridge get hit.
Dr. Elizabeth Dehner, a psychiatrist travelling on the Enterprise to study the crew, and Gary Mitchell, an old friend of Kirk's.
When Kirk rushes to Mitchell's side, it's only to find his eyes have been replaced by Ominous Plot Developments.
Turns out Mitchell and Dehner both had high ESP test scores, as did other crew members who were killed seemingly at random throughout the ship.
In sickbay, Mitchell starts displaying supernatural powers, like reading and retaining information almost instantly.
His behaviour is becoming more and more concerning. Meanwhile, the Enterprise is in dire need of repairs, or it won't make it back to the Earth in the crew's lifetimes.
Spock realises that what's happening to Mitchell must have happened to one of the crew of the Valiant, and that's why the ship was destroyed. Kirk doesn't disagree, but he rejects Spock's notion of killing Mitchell, deciding to maroon him instead.
(hi, Delta Vega!)
Once down there, the crew start making repairs and Mitchell is imprisoned behind a forcefield, growing ever more powerful, threatening, and disconnected from his crewmates.
Mitchell uses his powers to kill Kelso, and when he's left alone with Dehner it turns out she's developed powers too.
They escape, and Mitchell wanders the landscape, transforming it as he goes.
Realising Mitchell has to be stopped, Kirk goes after them.
However, Mitchell's already pretty prepared.
Dehner stays with Mitchell for a time, but then she sides with Kirk and uses her powers against him.
This puts Mitchell and Kirk on more even terms. They fight, and in a stunning turn of events, Kirk gets his shirt torn.
Kirk eventually kills Mitchell by bringing down the rockface that was intended to kill him.
He rushes to Dehner, but he's too late.
When he returns to the Enterprise, he records both Dehner and Mitchell as having given their lives in the performance of their duty.
As Kirk explains that's how he wants Mitchell's service record to end, Spock admits that "I felt for him, too."
*
I find it fascinating looking at the show in its infancy - we catch a few glimpses of Sulu, but there's no McCoy or Uhura or Chekov yet. They haven't quite settled on what they're doing with Spock yet. The women wear trousers!
*
What did you think of the episode?
Use this post to share anything you'd like, either directly in the comments or by linking to your own journal. It'll be open all weekend, and you can come back and add anything episode-related at any time.
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They haven't quite settled on what they're doing with Spock yet.
*nods* In the beginning of the episode, he mentions "One of my ancestors married an Earthwoman..." so maybe they hadn't even decided that he was fully half human yet.
Random things I noticed about the episode:
1. Women in pants!
2. SPOCK SHOUTS ALL THE TIME. Seriously, every time he's on the bridge, he yells all his lines. Thank goodness they stopped doing that.
3. It's amazing how much just a slightly different uniform and a more diverse bridge crew changes the feel of the show. Looking at all the white guys on the bridge in crew cuts and astronaut turtlenecks, they look really Buck Rogers-y. Add in Uhura and Sulu and take away the turtlenecks, and all of a sudden it just looks way more modern.
4. It's totally not slashy that Mitchell plotted to hook up a woman with Kirk and "outlined her whole strategy for her" to the point where Kirk almost married her. TOTALLY NOT SLASHY AT ALL. *coughs*
5. I like to pretend Dr. Dehner only faked her death and still exists on Delta Vega somewhere. Maybe she just left her body behind? Fic possibilities!
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1. Women in pants!
And with sensible hair! Where are all the crazy beehives and braids and curls?
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I thought this same thing when I was watching the new movie, and I was relieved they weren't that accurate. But then I saw a crewmember walk onto the bridge with a 6-inch spike of hair on her head. LOL
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I so agree with that bridge crew diversity change. Watch the two blonde women and all the white guys makes me groan 'oh god, the 60s.' But I'm happy that I know that it changes and really does make all the difference with the show.
I wish they'd stay with the girls in pants though, bah
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It's also funny that they're apparently LEAVING THE GALAXY. Just for the astronomy lulz, I guess.
I wish they'd let at least some of the women keep their trousers and normal hair, but I guess it wouldn't be ST:TOS without the ridiculousness of the style they came to adopt.
But Kirk. Man, Kirk is the exact same. Hee.
(full episode reaction here: http://ignipes.livejournal.com/434038.html)
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I don't have much to say beyond what's already been said. I just rewatched the episode at my sister's a couple months back -- she has the entire show on DVD -- and I was pretty bored both times. I think it's because Mitchell hammed up most of the episode, and I prefer my ham to come from Kirk. I'm such a lousy Trek fan sometimes.
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I like the underlying story, but I couldn't get over Spock's eyebrows. Yikes, they were scary!!
My reaction post is on my LJ. I did some more icon bases, too.
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It was strange to watch it because so many of the things I expect to be there just weren't. I found it particularly funny that as soon as Mitchell became the super-being he started to keep his chin in the air constantly. It was very distracting.
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Late comment, but: I always figured that was 'cause he couldn't SEE through those silver contacts they made him wear... Poor guy. In the close-ups you can see sometimes that his eyes look kind of irritated.
But it's a great effect. *G*
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1. I was thrilled to see women in pants. *g*
2. Was vaguely shipping Jim/Gary. Okay, maybe a little more than vaguely.
3. And missing Uhura.
4. Also, I found myself more emotionally affected by the episode than I expected. It really made me sad, and that's not something I really ever associated with TOS before because I always regarded it as mostly camp.
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Maybe it was my age when I watched this series for the first time, but there are several episodes that were tragic to me. Charlie X is the worst, and one of the few that I don't like to watch over and over.
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That didn't happen with this particular episode for me, but that is the best part of original Trek for me: mixing truly touching moments with the cheese. "The City on the Edge of Forever", for example, made me weepy when I was a kid, and I'm sure it's the same now.
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Who wasn't shipping Jim and Gary? Yeeeeeeeeeah
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For me, when I was done watching I immediately had to go look up how they did the effect with Gary and Dehner's eyes. According to Wikipedia (but curiously not mentioned on Memory Alpha) they wore two pairs of hard contact lenses with crinkled tinfoil sandwiched inside. Pretty scary stuff. The guy who played Gary had such a hard time seeing through them he had to look down his nose to be able to see at all.
My favorite bit of this episode is getting a bit of Kirk back story. "A stack of books with legs," Kirk was a NERD! Also, he apparently taught classes at Starfleet Academy when he was a Lieutenant. Very interesting.
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He does a good job of making it look completely "normal" though. Doesn't look irritated or pained by them at all. I would totally have formed a facial tick
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