TOS Rewind #72: The Way to Eden

Groovy!  It's time for The Way to Eden.

Our swingin' podcast for this episode:



So let's get this out of the way now:  this is by no means the worst episode of the series. I may have placed the episode near the bottom when I was growing up (the honor for my least favorite during those years goes to this one) but today it seems to have slightly more to recommend it.

The outrageously campy outfits and songs are entertaining in of themselves which elevates the episode to at least the level of Spock's Brain. However, it's better than that, but first let's get the bad stuff out of the way.

Star Trek often made commentary on the issues of its time but it did this best when it was not quite so literal. By having the people portraying the youth counterculture be so much like real 1960s hippies (well, at least Hollywood's idea of them), it comes off as tone-deaf as a 1969 episode of Dragnet where the cops have to deal with LSD-using kids. 

The characters are dressed in super-groovy costumes and one of them even plays pseudo-folk music on his space-guitar. The whole thing is amusing, at least until the songs wear out their welcome, but extremely hard to take seriously. The flip side to this is the way the episode has most of the usual cast being so stiff and humorless. Kirk's "inflexibility" is a cheap way to garner sympathy for the seekers of Eden. This gets to a problem: the episode doesn't really want us to take the characters very seriously. Their leader, Dr. Sevrin, is morally compromised, if not actually insane and the others follow him without challenge. Only Irina, Chekov's love interest, seems to question him and does nothing even when it becomes obvious that he will kill to achieve his goals. The others are painted as childish, to the point of having one of the characters be the son of an important Federation official, and only interested in having a good time. Maybe you shouldn't put your idealistic dreams in the hands of a Nazi!

The saving grace of the script is the way life in the Federation is questioned. The characters are skeptical of modernity, as it appears to work in the 23rd Century. People seem to spend a lot of time in artificial environments and eat replicated food. It seems only fitting that some portion of the population might question or outright reject this life. The way this subject is approached is fairly weak but at least it's being brought up. This angle is helped by Spock voicing this point of view; he is apparently at least understanding if not sympathetic to this idea. Of course Spock is way too cool to be lumped in with the Squares like Kirk and Scotty. The plot point of having "Eden" being located within the Romulan Neutral Zone seems like an unnecessary story driver. Having the space hippies commandeer the Enterprise wasn't enough?

The acting is mostly fine, considering the way the characters are written but the songs are pretty bad and seem there partially to pad out the running time. This may be one of the only times where the syndication cuts of the series might actually improve the episode. The actor playing Irina has this horrible Russian accent that makes Natasha from the Bullwinkle cartoons seem authentic but I suspect she was directed to read her lines this way. Beyond being just stiff and uncool, Kirk and the others seem oddly ineffectual; Sevrin seems to gain control of the ship way too easily. Skip_Homeier, who plays Sevrin also played Melakon on the episode Patterns of Force, does well with what he's given to do. It's no surprise that he had a long career as a character actor. He manages to appear serious even with those bizarre ears.

Sometimes you just have to laugh and go with the flow, brothers and sisters.

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Eric's turn:

I'm taaaaalkin 'bout... “The Way to Eden,” possibly the cheesiest episode of Star Trek ever produced. The closest contender, at least in original Trek, is “Spock's Brain,” but I find “The Way to Eden” to be more fun. Maybe it's the music...

Seriously, I see this episode as a follow-up to the first season's “This Side of Paradise,” where Kirk proposes that humans “...can't stroll to the music of the lute. We must march to the sound of drums.” In “The Way to Eden,” however, we see a group of people determined to defy that way of life. Unfortunately, the treatment of the “space hippies” is grossly uneven. They are portrayed as fatuous, even puerile, but under Dr. Sevrin, they manage to knock out the Enterprise crew and effect an escape from the ship. I suppose my gripe is the disparity between the hippies' trappings and their intent.

As is typical of third season episodes, the idea being explored is interesting, but the execution is lousy. Apparently, the producers were unaware of the nature of the 60s counter-culture. I wasn't there for it, but everything I've seen and heard leads me to believe the flower children didn't dress and wear tattoos that look like a 6-year old girl's pastel dream house. And their music, although kinda fun in a laughable way, bears no resemblance to the music of the counter-culture. At first, I thought the reason for these errors was contempt on the part of the producers, but after further pondering, I think it was more ignorance and a profound lack of creativity and imagination. They (Fred Freiberger and co.) simply thought that those kids would dig the crazy costumes and hair. Sigh...

Setting aside that egregious blunder, our intrepid, 23^rd century flower children actually have an understandable, not unreasonable, goal: to free themselves from the complexity and artificiality of life in the highly technological Federation. And Spock understands this, he even supports it (with the caveat that they really shouldn't follow their resident nut job, Dr. Sevrin). In fact, the strongest validation of their purpose comes from Spock at the end of the episode when he tells Irina “I have no doubt but that you will find [Eden], or make it yourselves.”

Next time: “The Cloud Minders”

TOS Rewind #72: "Requiem for Methuselah"

Well look what folks in 1969 got to watch on Valentine's Day:

Requiem for Methuselah (2/14/1969)

Our podcast discussion:


Those few who tuned in that night didn't exactly get a happy romance, though I suppose if you're home watching Star Trek on a Friday night Valentine's Day, then maybe the bummer of a love story works somehow; or doesn't work, but I'll get into that below.

I have to say that the premise of an immortal person who has lived throughout the ages, a witness to history, alone with himself, is an intriguing one. It's as if the people who came up with the Highlander films wanted to take this idea a step further, where the main character becomes almost a superhero. Instead of a bad-ass sword fighter, we get an old man who's been many of history's great figures and artists. That part gets a bit silly, "yeah, if there's any art you liked, it was probably done by me". The more credible, as far as it goes, idea is that of the immortal person who really is just the witness, not the subject. The character becomes slightly more plausible if he makes more of an attempt to not be noticed as the centuries go on. I also had to question how this guy would have such immense power. He is still a human being, right? He's not a Q or other omnipotent being. Flint may have lots of wealth (it's mentioned that the planet he's on was "purchased") and access to any of humanity's technology, but the things he's able to do seem way out of whack with anything anyone in the Federation can do. Also, at the end of the episode, McCoy says that Flint is going to age and die at a normal age, having left the Earth. Isn't it funny that Flint doesn't know this?

Having said all of this about Flint, I mostly liked the character. Part of the reason for this is the way that James Daley does the role; he really sells the "been there/seen that" business. Flint also seems to have gotten all the best dialogue lines of the episode. Sure, Flint's robot seems to be made from an old kitchen colander and spare parts from Nomad, but he sure has a lot of tricks up his sleeve, including a convincing android companion.

The romance angle of this episode is the real problem for me. I just don't buy the way that Kirk falls totally in love with Rayna within a few hours time. Maybe in a different story with different characters, this might be believable, but not with Kirk. There's also a somewhat creepy, underdeveloped father-daughter thing between Flint and Rayna. At first, we think she's been created to be a platonic companion or child figure. Sure, this sounds like the problematic relationship between Morbius and Altaira in Forbidden Planet, a film that Star Trek owes much to, but there is later on,  a definite romantic angle when it becomes clear that Flint, who eventually gets jealous,  wants Kirk to "show her the ropes," in a manner of speaking. Kirk can always be counted on to take care of this of course but it's unlike him to get emotionally attached, especially once it's been revealed that Rayna is an android. The final scene where Spock melds with Kirk to make him forget her is touching, mainly due to the affection the main characters have for each other, but rings hollow for me as Kirk's emotional state doesn't feel right.

Star Trek often explores ideas within its stories. There are two main concepts presented in this episode:  the nature of a man who does not age and artificial life. Either one of these ideas would have been more than enough material for a single episode but within this one, both are shortchanged, particularly when it comes to an android attempting to grapple with emotions. This issue was dealt with more effectively elsewhere in Trek; What Are Little Girls Made Of, for example and multiple Next Generation episodes.

The only comment I have about the remastering for this episode is that the imagery they used to depict Flint's castle seems way too over the top. It's nice to see something other than the reused painting from "The Cage", but this seems to have gone a bit far.

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Eric?

As I write this, I am still saddened by the loss of Leonard Nimoy on February 27^th. Science fiction has been an important part of my life for as long as I can remember, and that love affair began with Star Trek and its most vital element, Spock. He was the mirror that was held up to humanity, and he came to embody all that is best in Star Trek. As a literary character, Spock's only rival is, perhaps, the redoubtable Sherlock Holmes. And while Gene Roddenberry created Spock, Leonard Nimoy brought him so endearingly to life. For that, Mr. Nimoy has my undying gratitude. He was 83 when he passed, and in addition to acting, directing, and producing, he was also an accomplished poet and photographer. More importantly, by all accounts, he was a genuinely decent, loving person. Indeed, he lived long and prospered.

And appropriately, “Requiem for Methuselah” has an excellent example of why Spock is a great character. In our podcast for this episode, I was fairly harsh. Since then, however, I rewatched it a second time and found some themes I previously missed. Consequently, my opinion of it has improved. 

“Requiem for Methuselah” was written by noted science fiction author, the late Jerome Bixby, who also penned the classic episode “Mirror, Mirror” and the not-quite-so-classic, but still excellent, “By Any Other Name” and “Day of the Dove.” (As a side note, Bixby's last screenplay was for the 2007 film, “The Man From Earth,” which deals with themes and characters similar to those in “Requiem for Methuselah.” I highly recommend it.)

Initially, I found it rather ridiculous that Kirk could fall so deeply in love with Rayna in such a short time. After my second rewatching, though, it made more sense. Kirk and Flint are alike in many ways: they are both strong, authoritative, charismatic, masculine, and very lonely. And since Flint designed Rayna to be his perfect companion, it's not unreasonable that Kirk would quickly find her to be an ideal match as well.

More importantly, however, I found an interesting theme that is closely related to what Mary Shelley examined in her classic novel “Frankenstein.” Flint, like Shelley's Doctor Frankenstein, successfully creates human life in a laboratory using non-living material. Unlike Frankenstein, however, Flint's creation, Rayna, ultimately fails. And the way she fails is actually poignant; she can't live with the intensity of her newly awakened emotions for both Kirk and Flint. Interestingly, both Flint and Frankenstein ultimately suffer Rayna's fate, except where Rayna is guilty of nothing, their crime is hubris. It doesn't matter that one succeeded where the other failed.

Finally, in our podcast I was unduly harsh in my assessment of the closing scene where Spock, in an act of touching compassion, removes Rayna from Kirks memory in order to ease his friend's pain. This is actually a good example of what I noted in my opening comments: Leonard Nimoy's portrayal of Spock lends such a beautifully endearing quality to the character. I have a new appreciation for both.

Next time: “The Way to Eden”