Balance of Terror by: Paul Schneider and directed by: Vincent McEveety

 

“Balance of Terror” is written by Paul Schneider and is directed by Vincent McEveety.  It was filmed under production code 9, was the 14^th episode of Star Trek Season 1, and was broadcast on December 15, 1966.

 

It is always important when engaging with any piece of media to pay attention to the time period in which it was made as that will always inform how it is presented and the context in which it was made.  “Balance of Terror” is perhaps the perfect episode of Star Trek because of this: Paul Schneider provides a tense, one hour thriller set on the Enterprise exploring the worldbuilding of Star Trek’s universe.  A century before the show the human race had begun their expansion into the galaxy, coming across the Romulan empire and through subsequent wars, peace only came with the establishment of a Neutral Zone and a line of human Federation outposts guarding one side.  At the beginning of “Balance of Terror” there hasn’t been any contact with the Romulan empire, humans have forgotten what they look like and the Enterprise has been called in when the outposts start going dark.  A Romulan ship has breached the Neutral Zone, destroying several of the outposts in an attempt to bait the Enterprise into breaking the treaty to begin a war.  The Cold War becoming hot was always a possibility and Star Trek was put into production only three years after the Cuban Missile Crisis, and a decade after Joseph McCarthy’s New Red Scare.

 

“Balance of Terror” includes a cold open with two crew members attempting to be married before the Enterprise comes under fire and the tension of the episode begins.  While it isn’t a long scene and these two characters are single episode characters, it does go a long way to show a sense of normalcy for the ship in a story where the danger comes not from exploration, but from an unprovoked source.  Reflecting the Cold War scenario, the conflict between the Enterprise and the Romulan Bird of Prey is a battle of the minds.  The first act of the episode doesn’t give us a view of the Romulans, just the destruction of one of the outposts and the death of a survivor to make the viewer completely on the side of the Romulans.  There are hints that a spy on the Enterprise may have given them information about their weapons, and when it is revealed that the Romulans as a species are clearly related to the Vulcans, it is Spock who is believed to be the informant.  A lesser script would have an actual informant, but Schneider errs on the side of being unfounded paranoia, we have already spent nearly half a season with Spock and know that he would not put the crew in danger.  There is this underlying bigotry from Stiles, one of the navigators of the episode who lost family in the previous conflict, and the way the episode is directed at points makes the viewer question, if only for a moment, if there isn’t a point that Stiles is making.  There is a moment where the Enterprise powers down and circuits have broken that Spock is fixing and the tension as he accidentally turns on the power, revealing their position to the Romulans, briefly, but enough for them to attack.  The second half of the episode is dominated by two performances, William Shatner as Kirk and Mark Lenard as the Romulan Commander.  The exploration of the Romulans as warlike intentionally juxtapose the peaceful Federation and the Commander and Kirk, while not sharing the screen for the majority of the episode, create this intense relationship as one attempts to outthink the other.  Lenard’s final monologue in particular casts this reflective mirror to who Kirk is as a person, he’s the one making the decisions without the approval of those above him as a signal sent had not been replied to until the very end of the episode.

 

Overall, “Balance of Terror” is the second example of what Star Trek can really do when it is at its best, providing a harrowing thriller whose one casualty may just be there to have a death that punctuates the fact that people get hurt.  It’s an episode of suspicion and barely making it out without a scratch and holding up a mirror to Star Trek’s lead to show that Kirk can go to some very dark and interesting places.  10/10.

The Conscience of the King by: Barry Trivers and directed by: Gerd Oswald

 

“The Conscience of the King” is written by Barry Trivers and is directed by Gerd Oswald.  It was filmed under production code 13, was the 13^th episode of Star Trek Season 1, and was broadcast on December 8, 1966.

 

It’s always interesting when Star Trek does an episode that doesn’t quite feel like Star Trek.  “The Conscience of the King” is one such episode, not really following a science fiction story but following a deeply human genre.  There really aren’t any science fiction elements outside of the trappings of the Enterprise and the fact that there is space travel: they’re just there for the setting, when really this is an episode about past trauma coming to haunt someone.  The setup is that twenty years previous a governor called Kodos called for half of his population, a total of 4,000 people, to be executed during a horrific food shortage.  When the supply ships came they found the bodies and he was apparently killed, nine people are left alive knowing what he looked like, and the galaxy moved on.  The episode opens in the present with Dr. Thomas Leighton, played by William Sargent, convinced that Anton Karidian, an actor in a company travelling the galaxy is somehow Kodos and he has tricked the Enterprise into arriving.  It isn’t long before he winds up dead under mysterious circumstances, his body found by Kirk, and a plan is hatched to bring the actors aboard the Enterprise by cancelling their transportation to their next stop.

 

Karidian is played by Arnold Moss and he isn’t actually a large part of the episode, his scenes being short yet given this brilliant gravitas.  There’s a confrontation between him and Kirk around two thirds through the episode and his final speech at the end are both beautiful and incredibly well acted, but it’s the fact that he isn’t there that makes the tension work.  The real inciting incident of this episode is a death and Barry Trivers’ script is one that builds its tension on reflecting Kirk, Spock, and McCoy off one another.  Spock is the one to relate Kodos’ history and represents the complete belief that Karidian must be Kodos, McCoy is the skeptic, and Kirk is somewhere in the middle realizing that the strange goings on have been following this troupe of actors.  Seven of the nine people who could implicate Kodos are dead, and the last two are Kirk and Riley from “The Naked Time” whom Kirk demotes to engineering and is poisoned.  Riley, it is revealed, is one of the settlers that escaped Kodos’ massacre despite his entire family dying, which is really why Kirk demotes him in a misguided attempt to protect him.  The episode is very clear that Kirk is in the wrong in not bringing Riley into his confidence, once he comes to the conclusion that Kodos is alive the climax hinges on first Riley trying to kill Kodos and then the reveal who has been murdering the nine who could incriminate Kodos.

 

There are obvious parallels to Hamlet and Macbeth, made more obvious by the troupe producing both of those shows with Kirk’s plot reflecting Hamlet’s plan to reveal Claudius and Kodos plot being a reflection on Macbeth with some interesting twists.  Trivers also does some interesting reflections on what one is to do when faced with the difficult decision of destruction.  Reflecting the nature of Star Trek as an American frontier drama in space, this episode grapples with the difficulty of having to end the lives of those under your care to avoid a more horrific fate and firmly comes down on the side of not giving it an explicit answer.  Kodos doesn’t explicitly say what he has done or even acknowledges himself, but the performance is steeped in subtext and intrigue of a man who has been living with what he did.  He doesn’t get some last minute redemption or a noble sacrifice, he ends the episode being shot by his daughter who succumbs tot an Ophelia-like madness.  And that’s basically where the episode ends, it’s certainly an odd climax and the final set honestly makes it feel like Gerd Oswald is trying to use shadows with the on-stage setting though is a bit too overlit.  That and the fact that some of the pacing is just a bit off with a first act whose setup doesn’t quite come together.

 

Overall, “The Conscience of the King” is an episode that revels in its drama and tension, with several scenes of peril being shot in an attempt to emulate Alfred Hitchcock’s definition of suspense (one including a literal ticking time bomb).  It’s an interesting reflection on looking at the horrific acts people can do without really reckoning with it and its ideas entirely.  As an episode it perhaps is overlooked when it could easily have entered pop culture as one of the more interesting.  9/10.

The Mysterious Affair at Styles by: Agatha Christie

 

Agatha Christie’s career as a novelist spanned six decades, beginning her writing in 1916 with The Mysterious Affair at Styles which would not be published for four years in 1920.  Written during World War I, there is an interesting tinge to the tone of the novel that reflects the active threat that is ravaging the world on a level that hadn’t really been seen before this point.  Christie worked as part of the Red Cross during the war and it was here where she begun work on this novel.  It is incredibly fitting that this is a locked room mystery involving death by poisoning, since working in a dispensary is where she learned quite a bit about medicine and poisons.  There is this general pop culture idea that Christie as a novelist could get away with murder and that genuinely doesn’t surprise me since as a mystery novelist while her own inspirations included Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes.  What the reader will find from reading The Mysterious Affair at Styles is that unlike Doyle, Christie has actually taken the time to think out her plot and mystery so the conclusion is something that could happen.  The actual clues in the novel end up adding up so not only the actual murderer is revealed properly if you’re paying attention, but also so that the misdirects feel like they could also adequately work.

 

While Christie as a novelist is already leagues ahead of Doyle’s mysteries (only The Hound of the Baskervilles really deserves its status in the great listings of mystery novels), you can tell that she has taken inspiration from Doyle in terms of structure.  Hastings is the narrator of The Mysterious Affair at Styles, working as the Watson to Poirot’s Holmes.  He’s a character who is there to ask questions and be impressed when Poirot investigates and makes strides in the case while sharing at least some intelligence of his own.  If one was to compare this to A Study in Scarlet (the first appearance of Sherlock Holmes), Christie devotes a large early portion of the novel to Hastings and his experiences at Styles: he’s there in an attempt to relax after serving time in the war.  This only serves as a reminder of the fact that World War I is happening on the continent which adds this tension.  It’s not a tension of invasion, but it adds this layer of mistrust and sadness since a calm summer’s day should be just that but it almost cannot be.  There is a character revealed to be a German spy as a red herring to the murder itself and while there is an issue with the way the character is described, falling back on Christie’s tendency for otherizing foreigners, especially non-white foreigners, there is an interesting acknowledgement of the war.

 

The murder itself is almost immediately given to strychnine poisoning though the rest of those at Styles hope it could just be a simple case of heart failure.  This is all a family affair, the Cavendish’s and the Inglethrop’s living at Styles as well as a few of their close friends who have close connections to the family.  Christie’s first interesting implication is that this may have been made to look like a woman committed the murder since it was done with poison, while a man would do something more forceful.  Gender is honestly an interesting recurring theme in Christie’s work and it’s interesting how it develops since her work spans nearly 60 years.  The women of The Mysterious Affair at Styles are all wives and domestics while the men are gentlemen and professionals, but there is one female character who is allowed to work closer to a man’s field.  Cynthia is an orphan who works in a nearby hospital’s dispensary, someone who might be considered an author insert character, Christie losing her father at a young age and spending time during the war in a dispensary.  There is even some gender ideas played around with in the characterization of Hercule Poirot, not quite living up to the traditional 1920s masculinity.  As well as being a foreigner, he is incredibly obsessive-compulsive about his appearance and the strange little man persona is something that Christie will develop over future novels with this interesting sense of almost a manipulative streak.

Overall, while The Mysterious Affair at Styles is clearly a first novel yet has an amazing little locked room mystery that almost deconstructs the society it takes place in.  There are points that haven’t aged well and some prose mistakes from Christie, but you can clearly see why she became popular and grew into the Queen of Crime.  8/10.

The Stormlight Archive: Words of Radiance by: Brandon Sanderson

 

Brandon Sanderson’s initial pitch for the second installment of The Stormlight Archive was to title it The Book of Endless Pages.  His publisher promptly told him why that would be a bad idea for the title of any book in a series whose shortest entry still clocks in at 1,000 pages, but since Sanderson wished each title for the series to be in line with an in universe book, the title would echo thematically The Way of Kings becoming Words of Radiance, being published in 2014.  Since this is also a sequel, this review will contain spoilers for The Way of Kings though not for future installments of The Stormlight Archive.  Writing a sequel is also notoriously difficult, and Sanderson has setup The Stormlight Archive so that each novel switches the character for a primary focus.  The Way of Kings had Kaladin and following the revelation that she killed her father, Shallan Davar becomes the focus of the flashbacks and the major player for Words of Radiance.  This isn’t to say that Kaladin, nor the other characters from The Way of Kings are neglected, Sanderson is great at striking a balance between the characters.  Dalinar perhaps has less focus as his plotline is mainly seen through the eyes of Adolin and Kaladin, Kaladin and Bridge Four now being part of his and Elokhar’s personal guard, but there are still essentially three main plot threads despite the three main focus characters being in the same place geographically for much of the novel.  By the end of Words of Radiance there is a series and Cosmere changing event that means that from this point The Stormlight Archive will have plotlines that are less split as these as several characters’ goals align with one another going forward.

 

Words of Radiance opens with a prologue once again showing the night Gavilar Kholin was assassinated.  This time that fateful evening is shown from the perspective of Jasnah Kholin who hires assassins to watch Gavilar’s wife and Sanderson hints that it may have been possible for Jasnah to stop the assassination, though despite her intellect she did not have the crucial piece of information to do so.  She also had a physical chance, though she did not know it, seeing Szeth leaving the feast hall before her meeting.  Not knowing how the Parshendi who take responsibility could have killed Gavilar, nor how Szeth managed to actually do it is interesting for Jasnah as it provides her motivation for what we already know about her in The Way of Kings.  In Words of Radiance, she actually becomes a more minor supporting character as Shallan is out on her own for the majority of the novel, though it is eventually revealed just how far she had gotten in her researches and how the rest of the characters have had to catch up to her intellect.  Szeth oddly enough does feature in the novel, growing into his own person in a very quiet arc sprinkled in the interludes where his new master is revealed and there is an interesting switch in his personal goals and level of control that’s just slipped right at the end.

 

Kaladin’s plotline begins Sanderson’s examination of mental health.  While Kaladin clearly would be dealing with post traumatic stress from his time as a slave and his continued distrust of the upper classes are something that undercuts the novel.  He is only using Dalinar for his own ends and as an opportunity to set himself up as a person: he wants to see Roshar changed since all lighteyes treat darkeyes as lesser at best and as chattel at worst.  Throughout Words of Radiance he slowly learns what it means to be a Windrunner, Surgebinder, and eventually a Knight Radiant as Syl spends much of the novel guiding him through many of his decisions.  A lot of the novel is spent with the members of Bridge Four, building their relationships and outlook now that they are not slaves.  One of the earlier scenes involves each member being tattooed with the symbol of Bridge Four, for some to cover up their slave brandings, while for others just to show solidarity as a group.  One outlook is that Bridge Four is what freed them from slavery and they owe it to Kaladin as their captain, but for whatever reason Kaladin cannot be tattooed.  The ink does not take over his slave glyphs meaning he is constantly reminded of his past throughout the book.  That can be seen as almost a visual representation of his depression which informs the rest of his character arc for the novel.  Kaladin also spends time attempting to understand lighteyes politics and training with the lighteyes as he approaches status himself which is interesting as Moash, the member of Bridge Four whom Kaladin is the closest foil for, actively is part of a plot to assassinate Elokhar.  Moash blames all lighteyes for the death of his family, something that he is not entirely unjustified for doing.  This is an unjust system that systemically discriminates based on eye color and has a long history of doing so, and while Sanderson firmly puts the issue on the system and those upholding it, the attempt to show how subtly the bigotry is upheld by otherwise well meaning people with Elokhar’s characterization, he never makes it so Moash is unsympathetic.  Moash is more vilified for starting on a path to become the thing he hates, literally and figuratively.  Kaladin agreeing to help him also triggers the death of Syl who slowly realizes what she is and what her relationship to Kaladin is.  Shen, the Parshmen member of Bridge Four, also is allowed to develop here into a speaking character beginning an almost second foil for Moash as someone who is working for the “enemy” throughout (despite only revealing it at the very end).  All of these elements come together in one of Sanderson’s best climaxes where all three storylines make it together.

 

Adolin is technically the leader of a plotline in the novel, however, his is perhaps the smallest and is more of an overlapping plotline between Kaladin’s and Shallan’s.  The way Adolin interacts with both characters is fascinating, Shallan becomes betrothed to him and they develop a very nice relationship, but he also has this massive quiet respect for Kaladin.  He shows it by being annoyed, but the respect and friendship grows into something special throughout the book with the way Kaladin brings Renarin into the fold of Bridge Four (Renarin dealing with his own insecurities as a Kholin who is more intellectual than a fighter).  It only deepens when Kaladin saves Adolin from an unjust duel, something that Kaladin is thrown in prison for afterwards due to a particular outcome, and Adolin throws himself in prison because of it.  As a character he undergoes great growth and potential to be a Radiant, though it builds through a darker side to the character, something more sinister, something that comes out in the final moments of the novel proper.  That event is one of the best individual scenes that Sanderson has written which I cannot spoil that informs where the third book goes and how Adolin and Shallan’s relationship parallels their pasts.

 

Shallan’s flashbacks are fascinating after The Way of Kings revealed that she is responsible for killing her father.  Since there are flashbacks you do get to see that event in Words of Radiance at the very end of the sequence and it is intense.  The flashbacks build and you can understand the equal trauma Shallan has experienced from her father who was nothing but abusive.  While Sanderson as a writer can not be described as grimdark, some readers may find this aspect of the plot difficult.  It is done with the gravity that any situation of this nature must be done, and setup in flashback so the reader knows that Shallan will make it out along with her brothers, but it honestly may be disturbing for some.  The abuse also is something that isn’t just fixed.  While not explored in The Way of Kings as Sanderson peeled back layers to the revelation of Shallan’s spren Pattern and the fact that she is a murder, Words of Radiance begins to manifest her dissociative identity disorder.  Now since this is a fantasy novel this is not a perfect allegory, the alter that manifests here, Veil, is initially created by Shallan as a disguise using Lightweaving as she is a Radiant.  However, once Shallan creates the disguise Sanderson immediately refers to Veil as her own person.  Shallan always refers to Veil as someone else, not someone who is just her in a disguise.  This is a thread that will develop further and while I will discuss it I will add the caveat that DID is not a disorder I am entirely familiar with.  Shallan’s plot has her on her own for the first third before arriving at the Shattered Plains, believing that Jasnah is dead, she manages to lie her way in with Jasnah’s assassins who are working for a group called the Ghostbloods.  The Ghostbloods clearly have larger implications for future books but they show how Shallan can learn to lie and be independent in her own right.  Her narration is perhaps the most interesting.

 

Overall, Words of Radiance manages to improve in almost every aspect upon the predecessor.  It continues Sanderson’s exploration of mental health and colonization.  If there is one big issue is that Sanderson falls back on a trope in fantasy where a character is killed but at the very end it is revealed in fact that they are alive (and prominently featuring in Oathbringer as they are on the cover).  It does feature one of Sanderson’s best climaxes and the characters are incredibly strong while there is a clear plan as to where The Stormlight Archive is going despite only four mainline installments being out.  There’s almost too much to discuss, this review not doing characters like Rock, Renarin, Navani, or even Hoid who has one of the best scenes justice, but all I can say is if you enjoyed the first one you need to continue onto the second.  9.5/10.

The Murder at the Vicarage by: Agatha Christie

 

It was in elementary school when I first came across the work of Agatha Christie with an assignment to write and present a book report on a mystery.  The teacher thought The Hardy Boys wouldn’t be advanced enough for the level I was reading at and recommended I try one on Murder on the Orient Express.  I enjoyed it immensely, read a few others, but never got past some of the big ones.  The idea to write thoughts on the works of Agatha Christie didn’t really come from any plan, just seeing a selection of her works at my local library and feeling in the mood for a mystery.  I hadn’t read any of her work featuring Miss Marple, so I decided to go with the first novel to feature the character with The Murder at the Vicarage.  Published in 1930, it's kind of a perfect example of a cozy mystery from Christie: it’s set in a small village in the English countryside, has a small cast of characters (many of whom have motive for murder), and essentially follows the slow investigation of a crime instead of a tense thriller.  While this isn’t a thriller, it doesn’t ever feel like the pace is lazy, a bit slow in places, but not lazy.  It took me an evening to read the book while sipping on a cup of hot cocoa which might be coloring my opinion, but the low stakes assist in Christie increasing the intrigue into these characters.

 

The victim, Colonel Protheroe, can only be adequately described as an awful person, always putting his nose into the business of others and generally alienating those around him.  What’s especially interesting about this premise is while this is the first novel for Miss Marple, the perspective is from the vicar Leonard Clement, a man who’s in love with his much younger wife Griselda and Miss Marple feels like a supporting character.  This is so Christie can successfully execute the idea that Miss Marple is just investigating the crime in the background while the two police inspectors investigate in the foreground.  The police are incompetent but not illogical, easily falling for the red herrings the culprit carefully laid out to get away with it, making it almost humorous when they’re revealed by a seemingly harmless old woman.  Clement’s perspective is also a fascinating one, since he’s this nervous man whose insecurities and willingness to please everyone around him is what directly leads to the almost comedy of errors the police inspectors undergo.

 

Miss Marple on the other hand is utterly fascinating in her outlook.  Christie doesn’t give much on Marple’s history but her character is one completely in tune with the idea of human nature ruling thought.  While there are only two initial suspects, she expands the list to seven separate people because as an older woman she’s heard things and the gossip of St. Mary’s Mead is almost always aflutter.  She also notices details and sees the tiny cracks throughout which makes the final chapters where everything is put together rather special since the rest of the supporting characters get more in depth explorations.  The final pages muse on the idea that crime might be eventually medicated out which is an interesting idea and so very of its time in its misunderstanding of perhaps why people kill.

 

Overall, The Murder at the Vicarage is a mystery that somehow acts as very cozy as well as shifting gears to include aspects of a thriller at points.  Miss Marple is such a great idea for a detective with how Christie writes a sweet old lady who also doesn’t take no nonsense but the shame comes with the fact that she isn’t really in it all that much.  The other supporting characters are great but it does take just a bit too long to get going and maybe drags in the actual wrap up.  7/10.

The Menagerie Part I and II by: Gene Roddenberry and directed by: Marc Daniels and Robert Butler

 

“The Menagerie Part I” and “Part II” are written by Gene Roddenberry.  “Part I” is directed by Marc Daniels and “Part II” is directed by Robert Butler.  They were filmed under production code 16, were the 11^th and 12^th episodes of Star Trek Season 1, and were broadcast from November 17-24, 1966.

 

“The Menagerie” is going to be a difficult story to discuss.  It’s the only story from Star Trek to be shown over two parts and was devised by Gene Roddenberry as a budget saver to have two episodes for less than the price of one, reusing footage from the initial pilot “The Cage” and filming a frame narrative set in the present on a couple of sets with a production time of only one week.  From the behind the scenes side, it’s actually quite a brilliant conceit to deal with the difficulty of the production schedule in this way as well as making it so the original cast and conceit of Star Trek could have their work shown to the world.  “The Cage” does exist in its original form and is included on home video releases, that does not mean “The Menagerie” has no purpose or has become redundant.  “Part I” actually only has the basic setup from “The Cage” while “Part II” has the most footage from “The Cage,” including altering some shots to provide an ending to the episode in the present which is dubbed and presented cleverly that you probably wouldn’t notice if you were watching at the time (not so much with modern screens).  Marc Daneils, director of “The Man Trap” directs the frame sequence and his direction is wonderful, elevating material that is clearly limited by very few sets and supporting actors.

 

The frame story is set in the present of the show with Kirk and Spock arriving on Starbase 11 in response to a call from former captain of the Enterprise Christopher Pike, played by Sean Kenney in the frame sequence and Jeffrey Hunter in the flashbacks.  Spock brings Pike to the Enterprise for a medical check and performs a mutiny to take the ship towards the forbidden planet of Talos IV.  Kirk chases in a shuttlecraft with Commodore Mendez, played by Malachi Throne, and eventually put Spock on court martial which leads into the footage of “The Cage”.  This is essentially all of “Part I” and honestly, it’s brilliant.  The pacing is amazing, Leonard Nimoy as Spock throughout manages to inject some subtle emotion to his scenes as you really get to see that he’s doing these shady dealings with the Talosians for his very old friend and colleague.  Nichelle Nichols and DeForest Kelley as Uhura and Bones both get to have these brilliant reactions to their colleague’s betrayal while William Shatner gives his best performance yet in “Part I” where he grapples with the fact he might be leading Spock to his death.  “Part II” continues the court martial and is where the frame story breaks down, mainly because instead of just letting the footage from “The Cage” play and tell the story to the court, there is a continual cutting back to the court martial scene to lead to commercial breaks.  This has a knock on effect that means the present day plot doesn’t have nearly enough time to adequately wrap up, eventually revealing that it has all been an illusion to stop Kirk from taking the Enterprise away from Talos IV.

 

Then Pike is sent down to the planet to live his days out and the story ends which really doesn’t work as a resolution and exacerbates an issue the story, and Star Trek up to this point has been having with blatant ableism.  It is revealed in “Part I” with Pike’s introduction that he was disfigured and confined to a wheelchair unable to even communicate outside of blinking a light to indicate yes or no.  This is already a not great piece of disabled representation, as at points in “Part I” characters comment on how tragic and much of a loss it is for the character of life, but the plot of “The Cage” reveals that the Talosians are the remnants of a race nearly extinguished in a great war so they have been searching for new species to help keep their culture alive through captivity (another issue with “The Cage” footage itself).  They have the power to alter the perceptions and reality of those on their planet and in its vicinity so Pike regains his ability essentially through magic.  This is treated in the denouement as the correct decision, even giving him a romantic partner who was also physically disabled and made whole again.  This continual thread of anyone who is not fully able bodied being treated as lesser has honestly stood out more since the rest of Star Trek’s politics so far have attempted to be progressive and these two episodes continue to take away the agency of any disabled character.  While some may say it’s just a reflection of it’s time, it does not make it okay and really makes the ending of this story feel awful.

 

The plot of “The Cage” that are shown through the two episodes of “The Menagerie” on its own is actually quite good and an interesting look at the original vision for Star Trek.  Only Leonard Nimoy as Spock and Majel Barrett from the show proper appear, with Spock being much younger and with different makeup and Barrett playing Number One, the second in command on the Enterprise.  Number One is atypical for a female character of the 1960s in that she is given power and command when Pike is on the planet.  There is a character who you can see the roots of Bones in Dr. Boyce played by John Hoyt who gets a nice little character scene that perhaps doesn’t need to be included in “The Menagerie” but would work in “The Cage”.  Jeffrey Hunter as Pike is also very charismatic as the leading man and able to show a real internal struggle as he attempts to be free.  The design of the Talosians while a bit standard alien costuming, this is a point in time where aliens like this hadn’t become so synonymous with sci-fi aliens so it really works.  The ending of “The Cage” plot also does fall apart in the end, with the characters being let go after the Talosians just decide they aren’t suitable which is really a shame since it also doesn’t feel like a real resolution.  Robert Butler’s direction is also quite ambitious with what it tries to do with the sets that aren’t nearly as polished as the show proper would be and he must be commended.

 

“The Menagerie” is a story that starts off great but doesn’t stick the landing.  It makes perfect sense why it was made but the resolution being so steeped in ableism as well as being such an anti-climax, ending on a quip between Spock and Kirk that just doesn’t land, means that it’s a story that doesn’t work.  While I usually try to give a score for a story of serialized television on the whole since these episodes are so different the scores will be split so Part I gets a 9/10 and Part II a 4/10.

Relative Dementias by: Mark Michalowski

 

Relative Dementias is an odd title.  It’s clearly a take on Relative Dimensions as in Time and Relative Dimension in Space, and with a title like that for Mark Michalowski’s Doctor Who novel debut is an interestingly reflective one.  It takes unseen elements from the Doctor’s time at UNIT, a Dr. Joyce Brunner and her son Matthew are our most well rounded secondary characters, the former investigating an Alzheimer’s care facility in the year 2012 while the later has gone AWOL from UNIT and undergoing his own turmoil and loss in sense of identity.  This is especially in regards to UNIT, its purpose as a whole, and the role the Doctor in general has played in the affairs of Earth.  While the reflection is on the Third Doctor’s actions, this is a novel set with the Seventh Doctor and Ace travelling with each other, though not a continuation of the BBC Books Tucker/Perry Seventh Doctor post-Survival sequence of Illegal Alien, Matrix, Storm Harvest, Prime Time, Heritage, and Loving the Alien.  This placement also means that Michalowski is writing for a Seventh Doctor and Ace that are in the middle of their development so the reflective nature of the story looks on where they have come from while also noting where they might be going.  The reflective nature of the novel is perhaps where the story really ends up shining, the first half is quite slow and contemplative, with the mystery of where Joyce has disappeared to being the main thrust for the Doctor and Ace.

 

Michalowski uses setting perhaps to be one of the more interesting aspects of the novel.  The Doctor and Ace first appear to be going to Earth in the then near future of 2012, mainly to show Ace the sites of her future.  Michalowski while vague, uses these scenes to bring down the classic mid-20^th century view of the early 21^st century as fantastic and almost whimsical with its visions of flying cars.  This future really only looks like the 1980s with some different cars.  There is this relatively minor character here of Countess Gallowglass, a woman who runs a way station for lost aliens and to whom the Doctor has sent at least some of his mail in the past.  Her only purpose is to give the Doctor the letter that becomes the inciting incident of the novel, but there is something utterly wonderful about this woman that she kind of worms her way into the reader’s mind.  It feels like a reflection of the off-kilter nature of the rest of the novel. Off-kilter may not be the best description for what Michalowski does to reflect on Alzheimer’s disease and dementia in general, but there is a wonderful style of prose used so the reader can understand the trauma that those with dementia undergo at the center of the novel while also not forgetting the difficulties associated with those patients leave behind.  Graystairs, the main setting for the first half of the novel, is a memory care facility where you can tell that at least some of the patients are being abused, though subtly as to not arouse suspicion.  The abuse is psychological and extends to the families of the patients who have to chalk it up to the issues of living with dementia.  The melancholic tone is first planted in the mind of the reader due to the cover and made explicit by the prose and examination of the characters, especially Joyce and Matthew.  This becomes an issue when the second half of the novel devolves back into a standard Doctor Who story and it leaves me wanting more in a bad way.  While it is where much of Matthew’s plot takes focus and center stage the standard evil alien plot just falls flat for me and holds the book back.

 

Overall, Relative Dementias is a novel of two halves.  The first is an incredible reflection on losing one’s sense of identity and being lost in a healthcare or military system while examining the relationship of the Doctor and Ace before the rest of the expanded universe evolved it to a conclusion.  The second is a standard Doctor Who story that lets down the fact the first half is doing something different and innovative.  It’s still a great book overall despite lost potential as there are pieces of the second half that forward the ideas of the first.  8/10.

Mad Dogs and Englishmen by: Paul Magrs

 

J.R.R. Tolkein famously held allegory in disregard due to its limiting effect on storytelling: to write a true allegory one must create a one-to-one relationship between an aspect of the work that becomes poor if any divergence is made.  Mad Dogs and Englishmen in part feels like Paul Magrs wanted to take the idea of allegory and see how far he could diverge while making things incredibly over the top and camp, specifically writing an allegory for the Inklings and the dynamic between Tolkein and his close friend C.S. Lewis with a third interloper I suppose meaning to represent Meryn Peake or something.  The Smudglings as they are called have let an interloper into their group who has confused the Tolkein allegory, Reginald Tyler, to rewrite his The True History of Planets (a book which was already making its way to be over 1,000 pages) into a story about intelligent poodles from space, reflecting the politics on Dogworld which is ruled by an Empress and has its own Princess Margaret grabbing for power.  There is also a world for cats but that is one I’ve decided not to name for the double entendre should be obvious to the reader of this review.

 

This is only one of the three time periods that the book generally takes place in: 1942 with Tyler, John Cleavis, and newcomer William Freer; Las Vegas in the 1960s with Noel Coward and pop star Brenda Soobie who should be obvious to any reader as a version of Iris Wildthyme, and 1978 where stop motion animation pioneer Ron Von Arnim is being replaced by CGI in John Fuchas’ filmed version of The True History of Planets.  These plots somehow manage to overlap with the poodles finding their way into the TARDIS with two of their friendlier number intersecting a television miniseries version of The True History of Planets.  The True History of Planets and its adaptations are clearly the analogue to The Lord of the Rings with Iris Wildthyme and her bus becoming an analogue for The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe in genuine bits of absurdity.  The Doctor, Fitz, and Anji are also here, pushing the plot forward at every opportunity but somehow they are too subtle and normal for Mad Dogs and Englishmen.  No, I’m serious, the Eighth Doctor is somehow playing the straight man in this one as he tries to put the plot together but becomes exasperated with Iris, MIAOW, the poodles, and a time travelling Noel Coward.  Magrs is suppressing any lingering angst from The Adventuress of Henrietta Street and despite the back cover referencing a dark figure that you begin the novel believing might be Sabbath, and then the Master, but you become quite surprised when it eventually comes together.  Fitz has to be with Iris for a decent chunk of the book so he is out of commission as he also can’t really deal with the insanity of the Time Lady who can’t be a Time Lady since Gallifrey is destroyed, while Anji is stuck in an awkward situation in the past.

 

Overall, Mad Dogs and Englishmen may be the most Paul Magrs a Paul Magrs novel has ever Paul Magrs.  The cover is garish with a banner and gold logo proudly declaring the “100^th BBC Doctor Who Novel” and features poodles with hands and weaponry, so the appearance of Iris Wildthyme becomes somehow one of the more normal things of the book.  Yet, this is a novel that I couldn’t help but quickly fall in love with for how weird and fun it is, the fun coming from the out there twists and turns that really work well with Magrs’ writing one of his more straight forward stories.  The prose itself is beautifully simple and leans less on the esoteric but is nevertheless weird and insane and just a genuinely good time from start to finish.  10/10.

The Fifth Elephant by: Terry Pratchett

 

While I haven’t been writing reviews for every Discworld novel I read, when I do it’s usually because I have something to say.  Early in 2022 I read Carpe Jugulum and it swiftly became one of my favorites from Pratchett for what it has to say on the encroaching nature of evil and how it evolves, done through the lens of vampires and the aristocracy going against the Lancre witches.  Now, nearly a year later, I’ve returned to Discworld to read the next novel, The Fifth Elephant, a book whose title is a clear reference to The Fifth Element as well as possibly the three Estates of pre-Revolutionary France.  The Fifth Elephant is a Watch book where Commander Vimes of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch is sent to Uberwald with his wife in his capacity as the Duke and ambassador to the crowning of a new dwarf king.  As with the previous book, this is a novel heavily concerned with aristocratic society and how it uses and abuses those underneath it, though perhaps not as pointedly about the cyclical nature of evil and injustice.  This time instead of vampires, it’s werewolves who have entrenched themselves within an old system of other species, mainly dwarfs who have incredibly rigid standards of gender and sex which must be challenged, as well as discrimination against trolls and tot a lesser extent regular wolves.  That isn’t to say there isn’t a vampire in The Fifth Elephant, but her part in the plot is only there to accent what Pratchett is doing and give Vimes someone to really work off.

 

Samuel Vimes as a character is an important one, he is in every sense of the world an honorable man despite being a cop, but hey this is the Discworld where perhaps ACAB doesn’t always have to apply.  He is also an officer and a gentleman above all else, often having his brain for normal human interactions with his wife be taken over to let her take the lead.  Sybil Ramkin is a character who Pratchett hasn’t always used, but here her role in events is perfect and underpins the idea of change with the final reveal of her pregnancy which breaks Vimes.  Breaking Vimes is not a bad thing, it mainly gets him out right at the end of the very systematic way of thinking and gets him to confront the fact that he is about to be a father, something that is not resolved at the end of the novel but it ties into a lot of Pratchett’s ideas about family.  Family is important to the dwarfs as is tradition, the werewolf leaders of Uberwald are Angua’s family, and Carrot and Angua hint at starting a family of their own by the end of the book (with this beautiful promise that Carrot will do whatever is necessary if Angua goes bad).

 

Angua’s family are your classic aristocrats who are out of touch and typically ruthless, her brother Wolfgang is an idiot with a taste for flesh who spends much of the middle of the novel hunting Vimes down as a game, her father is more wolf than man and has lost his senses, and her mother is the only one with any mind for strategy being partially responsible for the plan to steal a replica of the Scone of Stone which is integral in the coronation of the new dwarf king.  There are also quite a few things Pratchett has to say actively on the gender roles here which have evolved further from earlier novels with Cheery Littlebottom’s plot running in tandem with Vimes being the highlight of the book.  The plots with Vimes, Sybil, Cheery, and Detritus running one arm while Carrot, Angua, and Gaspode the Wonder Dog from Moving Pictures run the other incredibly well with the only real complaint being the third, much smaller subplot of Sergeant Colon promoting himself to Captain and having the rest of the Watch revolt due to his sloth and incompetence.  It’s not a bad plot by any means, but it does get in the way of what The Fifth Elephant is doing better and honestly Pratchett realizes it about halfway when it comes to a premature close and is not mentioned again until the very end of the novel.

 

Overall, The Fifth Elephant may be a title that’s a parody and doesn’t quite explain what the book is doing, but what the book is doing is brilliant and honestly if you aren’t reading these novels in order you will not get the brilliant one, two punch of Carpe Jugulum followed by The Fifth Elephant as those in power were clearly on Pratchett’s mind near the turn of the millennium.  9/10.