“By Any Other Name” is written by D.C. Fontana and
Jerom Bixby, from a story by Jerome Bixby and is directed by Marc Daniels. It was filmed under production code 50, was
the 22nd episode of Star Trek Season 2, the 51st episode
of Star Trek, and was broadcast on February 23, 1968.
D.C. Fontana’s skills as a script doctor for Star
Trek are perhaps something that has a tendency to go largely unnoticed. She is probably the only reason “Charlie X”
isn’t one of the worst things put to television and there is the distinct
feeling that her work with Jerome Bixby on “By Any Other Name” was to make Bixby’s
rather high concept script work on a television budget, though never enough for
Bixby to totally lose his original vision as evident by both Bixby and Fontana
sharing scripting duties. The script is
rather high concept, involving the Kelvans, a race of god-like aliens from the
Andromeda Galaxy who wish to spread out and conquest the galaxy. Now the script of the episode is odd, making
a distinction between conquest and colonization, showing the latter as a good
thing due to the Federation’s colonization and the former as wrong and
evil. Now I’d like to be able to read
this as attempting some sort of anti-colonization piece, the Kelvans have to
learn to cooperate with the Federation in the end, beginning the episode as
cruel and authoritarian towards the crew of the Enterprise, and everything
wraps up neatly with a Federation proposal being sent to their home planet and
the planet the episode begins on proposed as the new home. This ending is especially odd because the script
points out early on that this could very well be the conclusion that solves
this, meaning the episode feels as if we’re waiting with Kirk, Spock, McCoy,
and Scotty for the aliens to come to this resolution. It drags out the episode, only to have it elevated
by the utter insanity that the episode decides to go through.
“By Any Other Name” takes its title from Romeo and
Juliet, and it almost seems as if Bixby and Fontana wish to show some parallels
to humanity with the Kelvans, the performances from Barbara Bouchet, Warren Stevens,
and Stewart Moss being particularly stilted and becoming more humanlike. Kirk quotes the line directly early in the
episode with the complete comparison to a flower and the plan to “corrupt” the
Kelvans are to make them aware of aspects of life, humanity, and emotions. Spock pretends to be ill so McCoy gets him to
the Enterprise and pumps him full of drugs, with a wonderful piece of
face acting from Majel Barrett as Nurse Chapel.
Scotty gets one of the Kelvans incredibly drunk which leans into some
Scottish stereotypes but James Doohan’s performance is a riot. Kirk gets the female Kelvan to fall in love
with him by getting her to understand the concept of kissing, something foreign
to them. There is some tonal whiplash in
this back half of the episode since these hijinks are played as hijinks, but
early on the Kelvans outright murder a yeoman and redshirt to show their
general power, they are not human and do not follow human morality. Shifting then from this very serious danger
into a humorous runaround on the Enterprise makes “By Any Other Name”
kind of a complete mess. Marc Daniels is
in the director’s chair for this episode so it looks great and the scenes are
paced incredibly well so it isn’t a total loss.
Once the episode goes into the comedy portion it really does pick up and
the insanity of it all is incredibly fun to watch.
Overall, “By Any Other Name” is kind of the definition
of a perfectly fine episode of Star Trek. The plot is a plot that by this point Star
Trek has done before and the twists on it are to make it into a comedy
which is at least an interesting bent for an episode. The performances and direction are the only
thing really selling this one as the emotional whiplash took a high concept
script and genuinely attempted to make it work on television. 6/10.
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