The Deadly Years by: David P. Harmon and directed by: Joseph Pevney

 

“The Deadly Years” is written by David P. Harmon and is directed by Joseph Pevney.  It was filmed under production code 40, was the 12^th episode of Star Trek Season 2, the 41^st episode of Star Trek, and was broadcast on December 8, 1967.

 

Media in general, but especially television, has never been particularly kind to the aging process.  It’s often treated more a curse than a blessing and elderly characters are often stuck in minor, often underwritten roles.  Shows like The Golden Girls are an exception for exploring characters of advanced age in a complete light, and that show in particular is considered a pioneer for writing characters of an advanced age.  As Star Trek aired nearly 20 years prior to the beginning of this shift, it is utterly fascinating to see how it has portrayed older characters.  “The Menagerie” two-part based on the original pilot, “The Cage”, cast an older doctor character for the ship, but “The Deadly Years” from the second season is the episode that has tackled aging head on and as such it is an incredibly dated mess of an episode.  “The Deadly Years” opens with the pre-credits cliffhanger sting is the discovery of dead bodies that have died of old age, and that fear of the old is the general attitude the rest of the episode takes towards the elderly.  This is only made further apparent by the elder characters being played by progressive stages of old age makeup and not actually casting older actors, mainly because the premise of the episode is that the landing party who discovered the bodies (except for Chekov who is immune) begin to age rapidly and are set to die in only a few days.  This premise inherently builds in the horror of aging, but David P. Harmon could very easily have used this as an appreciation of growing older.  The characters growing old, done through outrageous makeup that really only looks good on DeForest Kelley and Leonard Nimoy, is treated as horrific.  Every character loses some specific aspect of their physical and mental state, Kirk developing arthritis and losing memory, Spock losing his intellect, McCoy’s accent becoming more pronounced, Scotty losing his general energy, and Lt. Arlene Galway, played by Beverly Washburn, losing her looks, hearing, and life.

 

Harmon’s script is especially egregious in the way it treats its female characters.  Galway’s one character trait is vanity, this not being a karmic punishment, but treated as just a horrific tragedy.  She is also the only character of the Enterprise crew to die, being only a day player.  As this is a death that is meant to show the stakes of the rest of the afflicted male characters, it’s essentially fridging this character.  Harmon’s only other significant female character is Dr. Janet Wallace played by Sarah Marshall, who is this episode’s romantic interest to Kirk which Harmon uses to do this weird tangent about how terrible age-gaps in relationships are which doesn’t actually go anywhere.  It might be an attempt to show how Kirk is married to the Enterprise, but this has been done leagues better in other episodes.  “The Deadly Years” also generally suffers from the fact that there clearly isn’t enough material to fill an hour, several scenes just lingering when they should have ended, basic information being repeated after every commercial break including the basic premise of the episode, and an added plot of Kirk having to give up command where he is written to be completely irrational.  There is another commodore character, this time played by Charles Drake, who takes command and puts the Enterprise in danger, violating the Romulan Neutral Zone, so the climax can have some action and a quick resolution of Kirk redoing the climax of “The Corbomite Maneuver” in about two minutes after having his proper age restored to him.  The entire second act of the episode is given up to Kirk being removed from command and it just happens incredibly slowly.

 

There are a few highlights of the episode.  Joseph Pevney is in the director’s chair and once again his direction is dynamic, especially in drawing out subtle background performances from Nichelle Nichols, George Takei, and Walter Koenig throughout the episode, though Koenig gets to go over the top in the opening sequence.  Shatner, Nimoy, and Kelley are also clearly acting their socks off to work through the old age makeup as it becomes progressively restrictive throughout the episode.  Drake’s portrayal of Commodore Stocker is also excellent until the climax decides that Kirk needs to save the day so Stocker holds the idiot ball, before this point being portrayed as caring and understanding despite having to make the difficult steps to relieve Kirk of command.  Of course, Kelley’s Southern accent is also just delightfully camp even if the material he is working with is generally subpar.

 

Overall, “The Deadly Years” is an episode that relies on a terrible trope and generally unsavory portrayal of the elderly, going so far as to otherize those that get old and live a long life all for the purposes of cheap horror.  Even outside of the problematic elements, much of the episode is padded out and clearly working from a script that didn’t have enough ideas to sustain a complete episode of Star Trek.  One of the major missteps of the series and the weakest episode I’ve seen for a very long time. 3/10.