The Enterprise Incident by: D.C. Fontana and directed by: John Meredyth Lucas

 

“The Enterprise Incident” is written by: D.C. Fontana and is directed by: John Meredyth Lucas.  It was filmed under production code 59, was the 2^nd episode of Star Trek Season 3, the 57^th episode of Star Trek, and was broadcast on September 27, 1968.

 

When I knew I would be going into the third season of Star Trek, I was ready for even the highs to not match what worked about the first two seasons.  “The Enterprise Incident” exceeded those expectations largely because D.C. Fontana was allowed minimal interference in her script, plotting a tightly paced thriller split entirely between two ships so the episode could be shot on a tighter budget, for the model shots ships are reused to great effect.  “The Enterprise Incident” begins with the viewer brought into a mystery: instead of Kirk it is McCoy who gives the opening log narration, noting how Kirk has become erratic as the tease has Kirk demanding the Enterprise cross the Neutral Zone between Federation and Romulan space and become surrounded by three Romulan ships in their own space.  William Shatner’s performance is dialed to eleven here, snapping at the rest of his crew to go forward and eventually being transported to the Romulan ship with Spock as prisoners.  Then the twist hits, the Federation is entirely aware of Kirk’s actions, he has sealed orders to infiltrate the Romulan ship with Spock to steal a new cloaking device in a piece of espionage.  This is a Cold War story that directly paints the United States in a negative life while the Romulans, representing largely the communist enemies of the United States during this period, yet still manages to have them coming out on top at the last moment.  The Federation is largely portrayed in this episode as shady: Kirk is being used for this mission because of his previous recklessness would give them plausible deniability in the event the mission goes awry, only Kirk and Spock are initially aware of the mission with the rest of the crew having actual deniability and are saved because the Romulans realize that they are just following orders, and the Enterprise itself is at stake during the mission.  Shatner’s performance is reflective of this, after dialing back the outbursts once the twist is revealed Kirk undergoes plastic surgery to imitate a Romulan which is one of those ridiculous plot points that is somehow played completely straight.  Shatner dials it back and plays Kirk as the strategist throughout, becoming almost sinister in achieving the goal, something that is done with a decent amount of the runtime left so a further wrench is thrown in with Spock’s plot of the episode.

 

Leonard Nimoy once again is the standout performance of the main cast (though there are moments where DeForest Kelley as McCoy early on gets wonderful moments to be caring and James Doohan as Scotty gets the chance to be over the top in command of the Enterprise while Kirk is on the Romulan ship).  Spock throughout this episode is established to be unable to lie, so D.C. Fontana’s script is careful in the wording of Spock’s conversations with the Romulan commander, played by Joanne Linville, and sub-commander Tal, played by Jack Donner, as to be obvious enough to show he is hiding something while never giving the game away.  Spock does this verbal dance, building the idea that perhaps as a Vulcan and genetic cousin to the Romulans he may actually wish to build power within the Romulan Empire of his own, only if he gives the Enterprise over to them properly.  Joanne Linville as the Romulan Commander, like the Romulans in “Balance of Terror”, is one of the most complex characters developed for Star Trek.  Both D.C. Fontana’s script and John Meredyth Lucas’s direction allow this rare female character to have her own power, set completely outside of her sexuality, while building this little romantic temptation with Spock.  It’s something that female characters really haven’t been allowed to have with Gene Roddenberry’s views on women in power interfering, but Fontana has clearly written the commander to be powerful.  Lucas never shoots the commander through the male gaze either, her costume is also not accentuating her sexuality in any large way, and Linville’s performance is often even and measured.  It’s one of the best guest star performances in Star Trek and it ends with the character a prisoner on the Enterprise and the world going on.  “The Enterprise Incident” becomes an episode where the development of the Romulans cannot change but the Federation inherently does, it’s opening the door for Star Trek to become a modern story not afraid of criticizing the dominant power structure all in late 1968.

 

Overall, “The Enterprise Incident” is an episode that Star Trek needed after a very lackluster third season premiere.  D.C. Fontana proves that she is one of the best scriptwriters on the show and clearly deserves her spot in the history of the show.  Director John Meredyth Lucas shoots the limited sets incredibly tightly and Leonard Nimoy and Joanne Linville carry the episode with their excellent performances throughout.  Heck even William Shatner’s over the top performance at the beginning is fun and the transition from mystery to thriller is wonderfully done to make this up there with some of the highs of the series.  9/10.

Bookshops & Bonedust by: Travis Baldree

 

When I read Legends & Lattes I noted that it wasn’t a book that was in the genre I generally read, but it was incredibly charming, incredibly cozy, and incredibly romantic.  It was also quite a quick read from start to finish, and Travis Baldree wrote and released the follow-up exactly one year later with Bookshops & Bonedust, instead of continuing the story, jumping back for a prequel story about Viv before discovering her love of coffee.  Baldree’s prequel continues the general vibe of being a cozy fantasy, however, the perspective of Viv here is quite rough: she is still a mercenary and believes that might just be her only purpose in the world as an orc.  It’s a particularly interesting element for the character as an issue prequels can generally fall into is the problem of knowing where characters have to end up, the story already has an endpoint where it must go and while this can be rectified depending on the genre, it’s something that is largely an issue.  Bookshops & Bonedust is a prequel whose biggest issue is that it falls into this problem because the reader knows where Viv is going, Baldree writing on the strength of making this earlier Viv being different enough from the Viv the reader is familiar with while essentially following the same, very cozy, plot of Legends & Lattes, but with a bookshop.  Now the setting itself is something that largely tempers the similarities between the two books, and Baldree does succeed at largely making Viv feel less developed, but not in perhaps a lazy way.

 

Viv’s arc here is getting her to the point where she would be fully willing to leave the mercenary life behind her.  She is a woman who largely wants action and is dealing with a society that as an orc has the world look at her as a warrior and just a warrior, potentially a very dangerous one.  Baldree’s opening chapters of Viv being unable to do anything and walking with a cane are genuinely great and a fascinating little character study.  She is stuck in a small town and has her eyes on a largely disused bookshop, something that when she enters she nearly destroys some books and the proprietor, Fern, and her pet, Potroast, are determined to make friends.  This leads the three of them down a rabbit hole and around town into revitalizing the bookshop as Viv discovers a love of reading.  Yes, this is essentially the same plot but the switching of the roles so Viv is the one who has to learn to accept new ideas and fall in love with reading action and romance.  Now without the slow burn of the romance that was the heart of Legends & Lattes, Baldree replaces it with an interesting series of female friendships and expansion of one’s own worldview which is incredibly fun.  Like Legends & Lattes there is a third act “big bad”, one that had been foreshadowed and built up nicely throughout the novel, though not nearly for the same impact which is perhaps the thing that’s holding Bookshops & Bonedust back from being perfect.

 

Overall, Bookshops & Bonedust is a book that’s going to give readers essentially the same feeling of reading Legends & Lattes while potentially setting up something for the sequel.  It falls into some of the general issues of prequels and removing the romance doesn’t quite hit the same, but the new characters are equally as wonderful and it’s just nice to see more of Viv.  Baldree clearly struggled with finding what would be his second book and I hope the third will work out and exceed the ever so slight step down this book represents.  8/10.

Star Wars: The High Republic: The Rising Storm by: Cavan Scott

 

As I move into the third Star Wars book with Cavan Scott’s The Rising Storm, continuing the High Republic era of stories, I am reminded of my experience with the prequel trilogy.  Star Wars has always had political commentary, much of the original trilogy has its roots in deriding the Vietnam War with the Empire largely representing the United States.  The prequel trilogy is equally political, though also completely through the storytelling lens of George Lucas which largely failed due to issues with pacing, dialogue, and just muddling some of the themes.  The Rising Storm is the first of these High Republic novels that feels as if it is taking George Lucas’ themes of political corruption and how that can begin the crumbling of a democratic republic as represented by the High Republic.  Now Cavan Scott clearly hasn’t written a novel that completely encompasses these themes as this is a novel that is one early installment in a multi-year initiative to explore the era, but Scott makes the all important effort to show the early stages of corruption, mainly through alliances being made with the Hutts which is essentially shorthand for a government dealing with the mob.  The Rising Storm is as close as a direct sequel to Light of the Jedi that could be with a completely different writer, pushing the timeline one year in the future which assists in making this easier to get into without having to be bogged down with the continuity details of the previous novel which is wonderful.

 

Scott as a writer also clearly had more experience in novel writing than Charles Soule, understanding how to make a breakneck pace of a novel, especially as the plot moves towards a quite explosive climax.  This is not done with a countdown to the climax a la Light of the Jedi, but by Scott decreasing the length of the chapters as they increase on average, though also understanding that sometimes a chapter may need to be longer than a previous chapter.  Though like Light of the Jedi Scott is dealing with many, many characters, not all being given perhaps enough time to be fleshed out.  The characters at least on this read who I found the most interesting to follow were Bell Zettefer, and Chancellor Soh, at least on the side of the Jedi  Where Scott does succeed are the several philosophical discussions on the Jedi and their relationships with one another.

 

Sex is something that Star Wars as a franchise feels a little too light on necessarily including, especially with the prequel trilogy largely establishing the rule about Jedi Knights and Masters not being able to be married, as well as a general discouragement of sexual relations.  The Rising Storm actually posits that perhaps the no marriage and no sex rule isn’t as set in stone as possible: characters have sex in this novel, though not explicitly depicted, and there are discussions about how that relates to their emotions.  This is largely something drawing on real world Buddhist and Hindu ideas of nirvana and enlightenment, not allowing one’s emotions to truly rule them, the Jedi being explicitly written as having to put the needs of the Order and others before their own personal feelings.  It’s something Claudia Gray equally worked with in Into the Dark, though for a younger audience, and feels as a natural theme for the High Republic novels.  It’s paired nicely with the exploration of the Nihil as villains, largely being as complex as the Republic in terms of a society.  The Nihil are very human villains and seeing events from their perspective is excellent, large point of views with their agents and how their plans can largely be one step ahead of the Republic.  It’s also nice to have a faction of antagonists who aren’t the Sith.

 

Overall, The Rising Storm shows that Cavan Scott, while wonderful on audio, is equally competent as a novelist.  While the novel suffers from being a bit overstuffed with characters and occasionally cutting away too early from a plotline, it’s quite the fun read from start to finish, feeling like an action movie put to page in a great way.  The philosophical discussions comparing the Jedi, Nihil, and the Republic are the high point especially when some of the characters sadly don’t have enough time to always be as developed as they can be.  7/10.

Spock's Brain by: Lee Cronin and directed by: Marc Daniels

 

“Spock’s Brain” is written by: Lee Cronin, a pseudonym for Gene L. Coon, and is directed by Marc Daniels.  It was filmed under production code 61, was the 1^st episode of Star Trek Season 3, the 56^th episode of Star Trek, and was broadcast on September 20, 1968.

 

Star Trek was essentially up for cancellation at the end of Season 2, but fans Bjo and John Trimble organized and executed a letter writing campaign to NBC to renew the show.  Gene Roddenberry took this opportunity for some leverage with NBC that if they were to continue they’d maintain an ideal timeslot of 7:30. However, this would not be the case as the third season of Star Trek was shifted to the Friday night death slot of 10:00.  Gene Roddenberry took a backseat, leaving producer duties to Fred Freiberger, a producer who in science fiction circles would become known as the show killer as he oversaw the cancellation of several science fiction series, and script editing duties to Arthur H. Singer.  Both Gene L. Coon and D.C. Fontana throughout production on the season had falling outs with the team and their respective story and writing credits would be replaced with pseudonyms, plus the budget, already cut during production of the second season, was cut one final time and the episode count decreased.  As had become tradition with Star Trek the episodes were aired out of order with the season premiere being “Spock’s Brain”, an episode that is held in Star Trek fan circles as the worst of the entire show.

 

So, of course, “Spock’s Brain” is an episode that is bad, but not quite as bad as its reputation would suggest.  The plot is utterly ridiculous and there is a lot of sexism here, but in the same vain of “Mudd’s Women” there is this utterly odd retro camp appeal that at least watching the episode you have some enjoyment at the insanity.  Leonard Nimoy, however, is not served at all by this episode, the plot being that a child like female humanoid alien boards the Enterprise, causes everybody to pass out after Kirk immediately makes a pass at her (Shatner’s performance here is incredibly over the top which is not good but is at least fun), and steals Spock’s brain.  This leaves Nimoy no real opportunity to act, spending much of the episode just standing or walking through the scenes, whenever his voice is heard coming from the stolen brain Nimoy is almost phoning in the voicework because there really is no material to work with.  Coon’s script almost wants to explore a society divided along lines of sex with the women living underground as these naïve and rather stupid children while the men live above ground and are savage and stupid.

 

There could be an interesting dichotomy there as Coon seems to lead the episode to a resolution where the men and women have to live together, except it’s mired in the sexism of explicitly claiming the gender roles of men and women are objectively split along those lines.  What further drags this down is not only having this society being rather underdeveloped but the performance from Marj Dusay as Kara is this almost insipidly high voice that’s meant to sound sweet and innocent but just is incredibly grating.  The character is essentially viewed as having the mind of a child making the sexual advances feel incredibly weird.  The society itself has a computer that Spock’s brain is needed to operate that somehow gives intelligence in bursts, something to add tension to the final act when McCoy has to perform surgery on Spock to put his brain back in his head.  And then the episode just ends, it’s kind of a mess.

 

Overall, “Spock’s Brain” may deserve the reputation of being quite a bad episode of Star Trek though there are a few moments with some genuine care, largely the brief sequence of trying to trace the aliens that took Spock’s brain, but the dialogue has this weird tendency to repeat, the premise itself is ridiculous and over the top, and it’s clear that nobody in the cast are actually getting material tot use their acting skills.  This is an episode I don’t ever need to see again.  3/10.

Yumi and the Nightmare Painter by: Brandon Sanderson

 

In keeping with the four Secret Projects from Brandon Sanderson, Yumi and the Nightmare Painter is written to take Sanderson largely outside of his own comfort zone in writing a primarily fantasy romance.  While Sanderson has written several romance subplots, like many male fantasy authors, it’s not something that is necessarily his strong suit.  The romantic subplots have a tendency to follow the same general structure and with Yumi and the Nightmare Painter Sanderson has taken that structure while expanding it to the length of a novel.  The general plot beats and progression for the third of the secret projects is actually quite predictable, Sanderson sets up a pair of love interests who are complimentary opposites forced into a mutual situation and the relationship builds from there, though with a general twist of this being a Cosmere novel and like Tress of the Emerald Sea, is narrated by Hoid to the reader (Hoid being present for Painter’s half of the novel in the form of a statue).  Yumi is essentially a monk summoning spirits to grant the wishes of the villages she travels to, while Nikaro is the Nightmare Painter, tasked with holding back living nightmares from destroying his society.  Yumi’s world is bright and warm with flying plants and spirits that must be summoned by Yumi as yoki-hijo, while Painter’s is dark and he is tasked with destroying the lesser nightmares with his own paintings.  There’s a large portion at the beginning of the novel wonderfully dedicated to showing each characters’ dissatisfaction with their particular lives, even if that is largely subtextual, before the true inciting incident of the pair being bound to go between their worlds every day or so.  Yumi has to navigate Painter’s world while Painter has to navigate Yumi’s.  The rest of the book is the “investigation” and exploration of their respective roles as they fall in love with one another.

 

The actual plot beats of the romance are perhaps the most predictable thing about the novel, as well as one of the large twists about their respective worlds that the narration from Hoid actively lampshades.  However, Sanderson being predictable does not mean that he is writing a bad book, far from it.  There’s this clear love throughout Yumi and the Nightmare Painter, the reader clearly understanding how much of this was a love letter to his wife much like Tress of the Emerald Sea.  The general romance may be simple, but it’s a simple romance story done incredibly well, especially when Sanderson gets to dissect who Yumi and Painter are.  Both characters are being held back due to their own situations and decisions they have made that they must overcome, both fulfilling these restrictive roles in rather oppressive societies, albeit societies that are oppressive in very different ways.  Yumi comes from an esteemed religious upper class background which has forced her into an exclusively ritualistic life while Painter’s lower class position is working within a system that only allows advancement for those already with wealthy connections.  Perhaps the best sequence of the novel is this point where Yumi and Painter, on Painter’s world after several weeks of dealing with the body swap shenanigans, go to a carnival and for the first time really cut loose.  Sanderson uses this after both characters have revealed their particular damage and one of the bigger twists about the nature of their world has been revealed.  It’s where the slower burn of the romance can actually come to fruition without a kiss since when in each other’s world they become incorporeal, Painter only being seen in this form by Design, a cryptic from Roshar who owns a noodle shop and is a delightfully inhuman character.  Yes, this is still a Cosmere novel so there are actually a lot of references to other pieces of the Cosmere, including some things that have not been published yet, but luckily Sanderson is wonderful at straddling the line of giving the correct ones enough explanation so well-versed readers will understand the references.  It is a bit integral for the climax of the novel to work with an understanding of the Cosmere, but as an ending it’s actually outside Sanderson’s usual type of ending.  There is that usual increase of pace to the climax, but it is a much more reserved ending that reflects on the nature of art and why art is important.

 

Overall, Yumi and the Nightmare Painter was an almost surprising success. Sanderson’s Asian influences never feel as if he is attempting disrespect and there are clearly ideas being drawn from cultures he is familiar with.  Things are added once again by the deluxe edition’s illustrations by Aliya Chen add to that understanding, Chen doing something more somber and suitable for the more reserved tone than the previous two Secret Projects.  Yumi and the Nightmare Painter is a novel that works so well because Sanderson plays to his strengths where he can with a pared down story that focuses in on the characters, the supporting cast being quite small for a fantasy novel and especially for a Sanderson novel.  While it doesn’t quite reach the heights of Tress of the Emerald Sea it genuinely reads among some of Sanderson’s strongest works.  9/10.

The Shadow Rising by: Robert Jordan: Reactions to Evil (Chapters 2 to 4)

 

““Light!” It slipped out before Perrin could stop it.  Moiraine’s eyes turned to him.  “You mean what happened to . . . Rand is going to start happening to everybody?”  “Not to everyone.  Not yet, at least.  In the beginning I think there will only be a few bubbles, slipping through the cracks the Dark One can reach through.  Later, who can say?  And just as tav’eren will tend to attract these bubbles more powerfully than others do.”  Her eyes said she knew Rand was no the only one to have a waking nightmare.” – The Shadow Rising, p. 101.

 

The Shadow Rising proper begins with bubbles of evil.  This is not the first time for an installment of The Wheel of Time to begin this way, The Great Hunt began with the suggestion of a bubble forming around Rand al’Thor while training with Lan in Fal Dara, but it is the most expansive time yet.  The chapters this essay covers are the first time the reader gets to be in the heads of Rand, Mat, and Perrin and specifically their reactions to these described bubbles of evil appearing in Tear.  Jordan takes the particular time for the manifestations of evil to form related to each of the characters on their deepest levels: Perrin’s axe tries to kill him and Faile, Mat is attacked by the images on playing cards, and Rand is attacked by images of himself.  Mat’s is perhaps the least obvious ‘fear’ to parse out exactly what it means.  Perrin and the axe has been a thread since The Eye of the World as he grapples with violence and Rand’s fear of his own madness since The Great Hunt, but Mat as a character hasn’t actually had enough time to fully explore his own fears.  His reaction to the bubble of evil is also the one that takes him furthest away from Rand: he actively finds Thom Merrilin for advice.  Thom is playing his own game, he's positioned himself in the servant’s quarters to stop the association with Rand while Mat’s fears are laid out here: “As good as.  She’s always asking people where I am, what I’m doing.  It gets back to me.  Do you know anybody who won’t tell an Aes Sedai what she wants to know?  I don’t. As good as being watched.” – The Shadow Rising, p. 109.  It’s the Aes Sedai as an organization whom Mat blames for his missing memories and a lack of identity.  Identity being in flux is something that all three of the boys generally share, Rand having just declared his identity while Perrin spends much of his perspective unsure of where he will be going as a person.  Mat as a character is so determined to not be manipulated, Thom is easily able to manipulate him into staying until the next morning, despite the base instinct to run away from his problems and go.

 

Rand’s reaction is perhaps the most vulnerable reaction.  Over the past three books, while all three of our characters of this section have gone through much, Rand’s internal torture has been there since The Great Hunt and Jordan has realized this.  Rand is being manipulated on essentially all sides, while Moiraine is the closest to having Rand’s best interests at heart she is still an Aes Sedai and still is preparing for the Last Battle.  The Shadow Rising’s opening sees Rand in a position of institutional power, he is exclusively referred to as the Lord Dragon and has already been having nightmares of the women he loves destroying him and Moiraine still manipulating him.  Rand is not only confronted by the bubble of evil but has to deal with those using their sexuality to get to him: Berelain, first of Mayene, introduced at the end of The Dragon Reborn establishes herself here by attempting to seduce Rand.  Jordan coats the language in Mayene not being so formal of a culture, dismissing his rejections initially due to Rand’s own naivety as being promised to Egwene (something already being broken at this point in Rand’s own mind with dreams of Elayne and Min) and just a general disinterest or reluctance in sex.  Berelain joins several female Wheel of Time characters in the femme fatale archetype, something that will develop towards different affections going forward but here is how the interaction ends ““I am the only one there is…The one you were treating as if we were betrothed.”  He meant it to smooth her, perhaps make her smile—surely a woman as strong as she had shown herself to be could smile, even if facing a blood-drenched man—but she bent forward, pressing her face to the floor.  “I apologize humbly for having most grievously offended you, Lord Dragon.” Her breathy voice did sound humble, and frightened.  Completely unlike herself.  “I beg you to forget my offense, and forgive.  I will not bother you again.  I swear it.  Lord Dragon.  On my mother’s name and under the Light, I swear it.”” – The Shadow Rising, p. 85.  Rand has power and does not understand how to use it, reacting by lashing out against the evil and showing himself to the world to be the dominant force of power rising.

 

This is finally contrasted with the equal uncertainties of Perrin.  When the bubbles of evil manifest, while Mat runs away, Perrin is the one to go find Rand, reflective of the fact that between him and Mat, Perrin is the one to stay and chase after Rand throughout The Dragon Reborn.  The loyalty of Perrin is fascinating as he is the first of the boys we see in this novel, and he is equally as uncertain as with Mat.  His relationship with Faile, something that The Wheel of Time fandom is rightfully critical of is actually quite sweet here.  There are the beginnings of the tensions between the two characters, but Perrin has grown a beard and it feels right for the character and their relationship.  The relationship is quite cute, Faile being the advocate for Perrin doing what he wants to do, despite their mutual stubbornness and the cultural differences of the pair there is that sweetness.  Faile genuinely cares about Perrin and while Jordan makes some interesting decisions with the character, here she has begun to become his rock to reailty.  We also see the aftermath with Rand and Moiraine from Perrin’s perspective, continuing the general thread from The Dragon Reborn so it’s his reaction that the reader sees, as well as more of the Aiel culture.  Mat is tricked into playing a game called Maiden’s Kiss, and Perrin is asked if he wishes to play.  Maiden’s Kiss is a game of being kissed at spearpoint by Maidens of the Spear.  It’s this interesting detail of Aiel culture, especially as the Aiel will also be taking center stage as the novel develops.

Assignment: Earth by: Art Wallace from a story by: Gene Roddenberry and Art Wallace and directed by: Marc Daniels

 

“Assignment: Earth” is written by Art Wallace, from a story by: Gene Roddenberry and Art Wallace, and is directed by Marc Daniels.  It was filmed under production code 55, was the 26^th episode of Star Trek Season 2, the 55^th episode of Star Trek, and was broadcast on March 29, 1968.

 

It’s clear that Gene Roddenberry believed that Star Trek would be ending after its second season.  The budget between the first and second season had been cut and the ratings weren’t entirely satisfactory for NBC.  Cancellation was coming and while in between seasons fans Bjo and John Trimble would spearhead a letter writing campaign that would renew the show for a third season, it became clear that Roddenberry was ready to move onto other things.  With Art Wallace, he had devised a half hour pilot for a show called Assignment: Earth, mashing up spy tropes and science fiction with Gary Seven being a human agent from the future sent back in time to stop the alien Omegans from changing Earth’s history so they can win a war and subjugate humanity.  As a premise, it’s one that probably would work quite well, but no television studio wished to even order the half-hour pilot, so Roddenberry and Wallace decided to use what may have ended up being the final episode of Star Trek as “Assignment: Earth”, reworking the pilot to a full hour with the Enterprise crew, mainly Kirk and Spock, integrated into the plot, having gone back in time for mysterious purposes, revealed at the end knowing that interstellar human agent Gary Seven, played by special guest star Robert Lansing, will be stopping the destruction of a world as the United States intends to launch a hydrogen bomb into space.  The Omegan threat was written out and Teri Garr was cast as the potential female lead of the show, normal secretary from the swinging ‘60s Roberta Lincoln.

 

“Assignment: Earth” has some very big issues, mainly due to the retrofitting of a pilot to be a backdoor pilot.  The big reveal at the end of the episode is that the Enterprise records showed a knowing that Gary Seven is interfering to keep history on the correct path, but this means that Kirk and Spock’s actions, continually being untrusting of Gary Seven making the episode feel as if there is a collapse of general structure with this one tiny reveal.  The episode also puts the Enterprise crew on the backseat, basically every major character has an appearance here bar Nurse Chapel, but really Kirk and Spock are the ones to really be involved in the plot.  Much of their actions are seemingly to discover who Gary Seven is and stop whatever potentially time altering plan he is executing.  The individual sequences are quite good, outside of that final reveal meaning much of the episode feels pointless.  Marc Daniels is in the director’s chair and the rather large sets that are built have enough spectacle to look as some of the best: Gary Seven’s office has several hidden gadgets and computers that are wonderfully 1960s, almost James Bond-esque.  The integration of stock footage of the Saturn rocket launches are also particularly well integrated, with simple color separation overlay effects to make it work.  William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy are also giving some genuinely fun performances, it’s always fun when Spock has to hide his ears while Kirk is in a trenchcoat and there are some little bits of worldbuilding that are particularly fun.  Nimoy also gets to hold a cat for a bit and the cat is such a calm actor.

 

The episode does fall down, however, when establishing Teri Garr as Roberta Lincoln.  Wallace, who is writing the final script of the episode from his and Roddenberry’s outline, is clearly attempting to write a liberated and free woman of the 1960s, feeling partially inspired by The Avengers’ Cathy Gale and Emma Peel, but sadly Garr doesn’t get much material to work with.  Gary Seven is also clearly written in the same vain as John Steed or the quite unlikely inspiration from Adam Adamant Lives!.  Roberta is underwritten: while there are moments where she spouts ideas of women’s liberation and the growth of culture in the 1960s, those are few and far between and Garr is forced to deal with just being wide eyed at the male characters.

 

Overall, “Assignment: Earth” as an idea for a pilot suffers largely from being just a bit too stretched for the one-hour format of Star Trek.  Having Star Trek characters interact with this pilot could be more interesting if there was more for those characters to actually do and work better.  The ideas are there and much of the style of the episode is quite good, the plot largely working except for one final line making quite a lot of it fall down.  You can really see why this wouldn’t have been picked up as a series, stylistically and in terms of characterization it’s going for something like The Avengers but American and never quite reaches that potential.  It’s still at least an enjoyable watch despite numerous issues holding it back, especially the sexism from Gene Roddenberry’s outline and Wallace’s script.  6/10.

And with that Star Trek's second season has come to a close and with it comes my Worst/Best episodes of the Season and the show so far:

Top 5 Worst Episodes of Season 2:

5. Who Mourns for Adonais?

4. The Changeling

3. The Deadly Years

2. The Gamesters of Triskelion

1. The Omega Glory

Top 5 Worst Episodes...So Far

5. The Deadly Years

4. The Alternative Factor

3. Charlie X

2. The Gamesters of Triskelion

1. The Omega Glory

Top 5 Best Episodes of Season 2:

5. Journey to Babel

4. The Doomsday Machine

3. The Trouble with Tribbles

2. Amok Time

1. Mirror, Mirror

Top 5 Best Episodes...So Far:

5. Space Seed

4. Amok Time

3. Mirror, Mirror

2. The City on the Edge of Forever

1. Balance of Terror

American Gods by: Neil Gaiman

 

American Gods, like the United States of America, is a sprawling work with many tangents, diversions, little cultures, and roundabouts throughout its rather large page count.  Neil Gaiman set out to write a novel about America, and in 2001 it was published for the first time.  A decade later, Gaiman revised the text to the Author’s Preferred Edition, the version that I read for the purposes of this review.  Like Gaiman’s larger bibliography, American Gods is a highly philosophical work wrapped in the core of a very pulpy novel, following several individual escapades of Shadow Moon, our human, American protagonist, released from prison days early due to the death of his wife in a car accident where she was conducting an affair with a mutual fan.  This inciting incident creates this sense of disconnect in the reader, Shadow’s personal identity throughout the novel has the sense of unbelonging, perhaps in a comment on the American prison system being punitive and not restorative, perhaps reflecting the very nature of America as lacking in a cohesive national identity.  Shadow takes a job with Mr. Wednesday, an anthropomorphic personification of the Norse god Odin, as a bodyguard, as they travel across America recruiting the old gods for a war against new, explicitly American, gods that essentially wish to live.  Some critics have pointed out some of the problematic portrayals of certain gods, which knowing Gaiman, is something that if he had the chance to rewrite or adapt in a new medium he would likely attempt to rectify.  There is also a valid reading that the poor portrayal of some gods may also be a particular comment on Gaiman’s part through using Wednesday as completely manipulative.  There is also an appearance from a figure heavily implied to be the Christian Jesus that Gaiman has flip-flopped on including in the novel through its various printings.  Two person cons are a recurring element in the novel through dialogue between Wednesday and Shadow, much of the point of the novel being an entire con on the part of Wednesday and how Shadow’s life falls apart.  By the end of the novel, while Shadow has gone through the hero’s journey, there is still this sense of displacement, but the idea that perhaps he is going to find something for himself now.

 

The new gods are largely used to also comment on American and modern society in general, Gaiman largely using these sets of anthropomorphic personifications to comment on often how fast the modern world is as well as its general similarities to the gods of the past.  While the new gods may act as if they’re “new”, adhering to the old rules of the gods for battle and their specific temptations and aggravations towards Shadow being reminiscent of the general ideas of old gods with the veneer of the new.  Gaiman is clearly not attempting to glorify the past either, while several of the god characters are incredibly endearing, Mr. Nancy and Czernobog in particular, the old gods are equally as bloodthirsty and destructive.  There’s also a lengthy section of Shadow having to live essentially a normal life while Wednesday is on his own which is a fascinating sequence, again one that often turns people off, but it’s also a chance for Gaiman to explicitly explore humanity as a whole, something he often does in his work, through the American lens.  The novel is dealing with themes on a cosmic scale, but at its core it really is Shadow’s story, the story of a man who has become part of a con to find some peace of mind.

 

American Gods may not be Neil Gaiman’s conventional work, it’s long and meanders from place to place, from episode to episode, with a large segment of stagnation in the middle integral for forming the central thesis.  It’s a statement on the nature of America, the nature of belief, and the formation of myth and faith, making it right in line with Gaiman’s best.  9/10.

The Shadow Rising by: Robert Jordan: Seeds of Shadow (Chapter 1)

 

“The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend.  Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again.  In one Age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to come, an Age long past, a wind rose on the great plain called the Caralain Grass.  The wind was not the beginning.  There are no beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time.  But it was a beginning.” – The Shadow Rising, p. 13.

 

It has been a year since I last took a look analyzing Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time, largely due to not wishing to overstep on while the second season of the Amazon adaptation was airing, but now that the second season has come and gone to considerably better reception than the first, and the third is confirmed to be adapting The Shadow Rising, it feels the opportune time for entering that fourth novel.  The Dragon Reborn as a novel ended the shift of structuring these entries by having the Emond’s Field Five largely together at the beginning of the novel, going their separate ways, and coming back together by the climax of events, The Shadow Rising having the mission statement of breaking the world once again, though metaphorically, with the trajectory of the characters changing once and for all.  Jordan as an author is quite fond of being reactive when writing, Crossroads of Twilight is a novel that is entirely reactive to the final moments of Winter’s Heart, and the seeds of that are in how The Shadow Rising opens.  The Dragon Reborn sees Rand al’Thor naming himself the Dragon, but Jordan decides to move the timeline back slightly in the opening chapter of The Shadow Rising, setting up the novel from three different perspectives.  This is also specifically labeled to be Chapter 1 instead of a prologue, one of only two installments to do so, a specific distinction is fascinating as the prologues of The Wheel of Time begin to denote plotlines that may not progress in a particular installment, something not the case for the massive first chapter of The Shadow Rising.  “Seeds of Shadow” is split between four points of view and three distinct locations, all integral for The Shadow Rising.

 

It is easier to begin at the end of the chapter, mainly because the final point of view is from High Lady Suroth of the Seanchan.  The last time the Seanchan were properly seen was The Great Hunt, Suroth having found herself on top after the defeat of her people in Falme, the importance of this section being Suroth’s specific goal of finding the man who has claimed himself the Dragon Reborn.  Suroth, as with the Seanchan as a culture, are increasingly sadistic and tortuous, having already established herself as sul’dam over a damane Aes Sedai, and the Seanchan’s current clash are not with Andor but the Sea Folk, the Atha’an Miere.  Suroth’s specific motivation is being set on her own away from the Empire, being afraid of returning without having conquered the Westlands.  This allows the character to have a chance to explore her own agency with her final thoughts on the situation being “when I take him, do I give him to the Empress?  That is the question.” – The Shadow Rising, p. 50.

 

The theme of this chapter overall is preparation, working backwards a group of Children of the Light from the perspective of Dain Bornhald in Taren Ferry, one of the early towns the Emond’s Field Five passed through in The Eye of the World.  A character called Ordeith, described as a man whose accent is constantly slipping and going on about how “We will scour the Two Rivers…We will flog them, and flay them, and sear their souls!  I promised him! He’ll come to me, now!  He will come!” – The Shadow Rising, p. 43.  Bornhald is dealing with the death of his father Geofram Bornhald who also died in The Great Hunt, these consequences labeling the people of the Two Rivers as entirely Darkfriends.  Ordeith is believed to be a madman, but is bound to this group of Whitecloaks by the Lord Captain Commander, this idea being that the Two Rivers and surrounding villages due to their isolation from the taxes of Queen Morgase in Caemlyn has led to the fall to the Shadow.  It is also clear that Ordeith has no scruples about killing, three Tinkers are found to be missing, setting up this murderous intent and ability while contrasting with the moral dilemma of Dain Bornhald.  Bornhald as a character is able to look past Ordeith’s obvious insanity because he fully blames Perrin Aybara for the death of his father, and he will have his revenge.

 

The other two points of view are equally setting up pots being ready to boil over, though both involving the White Tower.  First, Min Farshaw has been sent to the Tower with a message from Moiraine for Amyrlin Seat Siuan Sanche.  Min’s entry into the Tower is fascinating as Jordan explicitly sets up a tragedy that is about to occur.  This is the first time where Min’s viewings are seen from her perspective, her point of view chapters in The Great Hunt are generally with characters whom she had already had viewings of, and the viewings here are all of tragedy, from three Aes Sedai who will die on the same day, to several of Gawyn Trakand in a bloody mask with images of weapons around him, and several of the major Aes Sedai characters.  Jordan specifically makes these visions to be off-putting and wrong, Sheriam is shown to be battered and bruised, Leane having a screaming mask, and one for Siuan especially.  “Not that she wanted to be disrespectful—that did not even occur to one facing a woman like Siuan Sanche—but the bow she usually would have made seemed foolish in a dress, and she had only a rough idea of how to curtsy.  Halfway down, with her skirts already spread, she froze like a crouching toad.  Siuan Sanche was standing there as regal as any queen, and for a moment she was also lying on the floor naked.” – The Shadow Rising, p. 28.  The use of “regal as any queen” is in line with the particular characterization of Siuan, who responds to the information with a serene calm and taking actions to keep Min in the tower, something that will force her to stay in the dress she is wearing as a disguise.  Min’s gender presentation is one of those interesting aspects of The Wheel of Time that sadly never gets explored to its fullest extent partially due to Robert Jordan being a straight white man writing in the 90s and early 2000s, and partially because as the series grows Min often gets sidelined.  Siuan specifically uses femininity as a disguise for Min, something that she revolts against, demanding the disguise being taken further with the use of makeup, curls, and the use of the full name she despises, Elmindreda.  The text explicitly refers to it as a trap, one shackling Min to something that she is not and giving the very manipulative Siuan Sanche what she wants, immediately paralleled with the revelation to the reader that Elaida discussing with Alviarin, a White Sistetr who has been vaguely important to this point, of dealing with Siuan.  This first chapter are the literal rising shadows of the title while the literal Shadow and its forces will be continued as the novel continues.

Bread and Circuses by: Gene L. Coon and Gene Roddenberry and directed by: Ralph Senensky

 

“Bread and Circuses” is written by Gene Roddenberry and Gene L. Coon and is directed by Ralph Senensky.  It was filmed under production code 43, was the 25^th episode of Star Trek Season 2, the 54^th episode of Star Trek, and was broadcast on March 15, 1968.

 

There are a lot of angles to look at “Bread and Circuses”.  When watching it, not long after the opening credits I mused to myself that it feels like a Star Trek episode distilled down to its most basic parts: there is a problem on the planet reflecting a previous era of the planet Earth so the production team can reuse sets and costumes from previous productions, and Kirk, Spock, and McCoy are sent down to investigate, make contact with the local population in the form of an underground resistance group, and eventually have to take down the regime in some way before moving on.  This is perhaps because “Bread and Circuses” is written by Gene L. Coon, the script editor and showrunner for much of the first two seasons, and series creator Gene Roddenberry in a rare collaboration.  This is the last episode to be credited outright to Coon, his contributions to the third season being credited under the pseudonym Lee Cronin, and you can tell that Coon is writing to a formula of an outlandish idea.  What if the Roman Empire survived into the 20^th century?  What would that look like?  What would gladiatorial games look like on television?  What about the Roman system of slavery?  How would our crew react to such a barbaric past?  And “Bread and Circuses” largely delivers on these questions in largely interesting ways, it’s the reason that of the three “the Enterprise discovers a parallel Earth” episodes of this second season (the others being “Patterns of Force” and “A Piece of the Action”), “Bread and Circuses” is certainly the most interesting to watch.

 

The Roman society as presented in the episode is also technologically equivalent with the then present day of 1968, the arena which is first seen on the Enterprise view screen looks like a 1960s TV studio set because it in fact is a 1960s TV studio set.  There are studio cameras broadcasting and the roaring crowds are done largely by an on-set sound mixer which is a wonderful image for much of the episode.  The episode itself is also filtering the Roman Empire through the lens of actors, writers, and creatives from 1968, which means that there are several half-truths and misconceptions abound, though luckily much of the darker side of the Empire, like the fact that it was an Empire, is brought to the front.  Roddenberry and Coon have setup Kirk especially to be the one wishing peace, resolved to not interfere with this society even as Spock and McCoy are sent into the arena as gladiators themselves.  The callousness of the Empire is represented by Proconsul Claudius Marcus, played by Logan Ramsey, playing this cat and mouse game with Kirk in an attempt to bring down the rest of the Enterprise crew integrated as slaves.

 

This aspect of the episode gives a cruel, but human villain to fight, as well as a resolution to the episode where the non-interference does not leave the planet better.  For an optimistic, but very 1960s ending, there is the musing that Christianity is going to cause the fall of the Roman Empire.  It’s an ending that largely undercuts what could have been a very powerful ending where the crew can’t always save the day, something that would largely reflect the progressive message of Star Trek.  There’s also a section in the middle where Kirk is seduced by a slave woman intentionally sent which just takes up time and feels like Roddenberry eye candy and general mistreatment of women.  This is in an episode where Kirk is paralleled with a second ship’s captain who attempted to hold out against this society and eventually had to integrate, having his own character arc of redemption, saving Kirk at his televised execution.  What makes up for this largely are some lovely character moments when the episode doesn’t focus on Kirk.  Leonard Nimoy and DeForest Kelley perhaps share their best scene together deconstructing Spock’s human side and James Doohan as Scotty taking command of the Enterprise has some especially over-the-top moments.

 

Overall, “Bread and Circuses” is the formula of Star Trek distilled down into the exact beats at the exact time so late in the second season, at points feeling as if Roddenberry is venting his own frustrations at the show (the television studio feels as if he is fed up with the executive interference and potential of an impending cancellation).  Much of the episode is tempered by Gene L. Coon understanding what makes Star Trek work and reining in Roddenberry’s personal tendencies, with Ralph Senensky’s direction being slightly unsure of how to pull out properly to show a television studio.  It’s a great, fun watch overall that has Star Trek written all over it for better and for worse.  7/10.