The Way to Eden by: Arthur Heinemann from a story by: Michael Richards and Arthur Heinemann and directed by: David Alexander

 

“The Way to Eden” is written by: Arthur Heinemann, from a story by: Michael Richards (a pseudonym for D.C. Fontana) and Arthur Heinemann, and is directed by: David Alexander.  It was filmed under production code 75, was the 20^th episode of Star Trek Season 3, the 75^th episode of Star Trek, and was broadcast on February 21, 1969.

 

There’s something fascinating about media’s attempts to show generational divides and you would think Star Trek with its largely progressive messaging would have done this more than once in its initial run, but that was only saved for an episode near the end of the third season.  “The Way to Eden” is one of those episodes taking an idea submitted by D.C. Fontana and then altering it so much from the original proposal that Fontana requested to be credited by her pseudonym Michael Richards while Arthur Heinemann rewrote the outline and script for the episode.  “The Way to Eden” is an attempt by Star Trek to engage with the counterculture of the 1960s which despite everything the show has attempted in progressing television, it seems to have great contempt for it while also paying lip service to the basic ideas of wishing for peace, love, and understanding in the end.  Most of the issues here are down to Heinemann who previously scripted “Wink of an Eye” and as with the previous episode “The Way to Eden” struggles in terms of providing any characterization for the group of hippies.  Instead Heinemann is focusing on how the space hippies of the episode are on paper intelligent, but have no real motivation outside of some generic authority bad before hypocritically following a central leader who leads them to their doom.

 

Heinemann struggles with providing an actual drama for the 50-minute runtime of the episode, much of the episode being devoted to musical numbers about finding Eden and sticking it to some sort of man (but not really).  There is a moment where their plan is to take over the Enterprise and shout Herbert at Kirk as some sort of idea of authority.  They’re also ready to just outright kill the crew on the Enterprise to get to Eden for reasons that aren’t defined at all, the episode wants them to be intelligent enough to understand this.  Some of the drama is also having the hippies deny that one of them is a carrier of a deadly disease because technology is apparently responsible for the disease, so it shouldn’t be a problem.  A better writer would use this as a commentary on how humanity has a tendency to create many of its own problems, largely due to society’s obsession with money and profit, but Heinemann isn’t interested in attempting any sort of messaging.  Heinemann just wants to write an episode with hippies and songs and a conclusion of them all essentially dead by their Eden being a poison.  The most charitable reading on the ending is what would be a great one against those who are obsessed with the return to traditionalism, however, because it is hippies that are the ones wanting to “return to tradition” which is just a gross misunderstanding of the hippie counterculture of the 1960s.  On the production side, this being an episode of the third season of Star Trek it is greatly affected by the slashed budget of the season and that shows.  David Alexander is directing the episode and he is clearly trying his best to bring emotion out of the actors, but he’s also dealing with an episode whose costume design is particularly lacking.  The design of the space hippies are essentially dressed in rags with died hair and prosthetics to imply something, I’m not entirely sure if they’re supposed to be aliens or just humans into body modification.  The script implies that the episode is about humans, but the prosthetics around the ears and the particularly bad wigs indicate the hippies are aliens.

 

Overall, “The Way to Eden” is easily among the weakest of Star Trek’s episodes and like many of the weak episodes, it’s one where things could have easily gone differently had the writer been interested in actually saying something with the premise.  There’s barely 20 minutes of material stretched to 50 with inane musical numbers and very little to actually say about its premise.  2/10.