The ZMan is an insightful writer and he has a history lesson on what kinds of conflicts afflict regimes that no longer satisfy their elites or their proles. See what you think.
Category: Reviews
Reviews of books, movies, tv shows and other items
Dead of Night – An OCF Classic Movie Review
“Dead of Night” is a 1945 British film that consists of a group of characters thrown together in a home and each tells a supernatural story. Then these characters turn out to be the subject of another character’s dream. And finally, the whole story turns out to be part of an endless recursive dream nightmare, a dream within a dream, within a dream like the images produced by two mirrors facing each other. The only actor I recognized was Mervyn Johns who played Bob Cratchit in the 1951 movie Scrooge.
The stories include a young girl meeting the ghost of a boy who was murdered a century ago in the old house where the girl is visiting. Another story involves a race car driver who while recovering from a crash has a vision of a hearse driver inviting him into the coffin. Later he sees the same man as a bus conductor inviting him to board the bus. He backs away and as he watches the bus drive off and crashes killing everyone aboard. A third story involves a bedroom mirror possessed by a murderous spirit. The fourth story is a comical golf ghost story. And the final story is about an evil living ventriloquist dummy.
Back in the underlying scene the character who recognizes the other characters from his dream commits a murder and then somehow finds himself inside the five stories we have just witnessed in a mish-mash of the stories until finally he awakes in his own bedroom. His wife consoles him for having another nightmare. He then receives a phone call that sends him to the house where the earlier story takes place. And the whole thing circles round to the introductory scene.
Despite the theatricality of some of the scenes the movie works. Of course, it’s all ridiculous but the atmosphere of the movie is claustrophobic enough to produce the requisite discomfort in the audience that makes a ghost story work. Admittedly the golf story is a bit of a distraction from this mood but there are enough creepy moments and characters to make this movie a success. I’ll have to say that the fact that the cast look like ordinary people and lack the movie star good looks of an American production actually goes a long way to aiding the illusion we are inside the story with them.
Like many British films from the middle of the 20th century the story had to depend on a good script and competent actors instead of expensive sets and special effects to immerse the viewers in the story. And because of that this movie still works as well today as it did back then. And it stands up after repeated viewing. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. The British love a good ghost story and this one has several. Dead of Night probably won’t work for those who depend on comic book special effects to tell a supernatural story. But if you have an imagination you may like this one.
King Kong – An OCF Classic Movie Review
King Kong follows in the tradition of books and movies that have explorers wandering into uncharted territories and finding wonders never before seen. One of the sources for these movies was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s 1912 novel, “The Lost World.” In this story adventurers travel to a plateau in the Amazon jungle and discover a land that time forgot, inhabited by living dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures. A silent film version of The Lost World was made in 1925 and the stop motion animation by Willis O’Brien in that film was the precursor to what O’Brien would do in King Kong.
The plot of King Kong follows the adventures of intrepid adventurer and film maker Carl Denham, played by Robert Armstrong. Denham has made his name by travelling to primitive locales and filming the wild animals of these areas. Lions and rhinos and other exotic creatures have been his subjects but his financial backers say he must add a pretty girl to his movies or the public just won’t care and won’t pay to see his movies.
So, for his next film he recruits a pretty young woman named Ann Darrow played by Fay Wray. He finds her broke and hungry on the streets of Manhattan and convinces her to go along on his sea voyage to make his film. Once he convinces her he’s on the level she agrees and the action moves to the ship “Venture” and we meet Captain Englehorn and his colorful crew including first mate Jack Driscoll who will be the romantic interest for Ann Darrow.
Once on-board Denham reveals the details of the expedition. He has obtained a map locating an uncharted island inhabited by natives that live on one side of a cyclopean wall that protects them from some nameless terror. Denham intends to go to the island and discover the reality behind the story. During the voyage Jack Driscoll and Ann Darrow fall in love and he repeatedly expresses his unhappiness with her being involved in the dangerous business of the expedition.
When they reach the island, the natives are in the middle of a ceremony to offer up one of their women as a “bride for Kong.” The natives see Ann and offer to buy her as a substitute for their bride. Denham and the crew return to the Venture and say they will return the next day to negotiate with the tribe to film the secrets of the island.
But during the night the natives row over to the Venture in their outriggers and secretly kidnap Ann. Eventually the crime is discovered and Denham, Englehorn and especially Driscoll mount a rescue mission taking most of the crew along and their guns, ammunition and the gas bombs that Denham stocked to handle large animals.
Meanwhile we find out what being the “bride of Kong” entails. The natives bind Ann’s arms to two pillars located outside of the wall that protects the village. They then sound a huge gong and out of the jungle stalks a sixty-foot-tall gorilla. This is Kong and instead of killing and eating his “bride” he is fascinated by her. And despite her continuous blood curdling screams he gently frees her from the pillars and carries her away into the jungle in his hand as if she were a toy.
Denham and his men show up just as Kong leaves with Ann. They split up with Denham and Driscoll taking half the men and following after Kong. Captain Englehorn remains in the village with his men to guard the gate against the natives interfering with their escape.
Once in the jungle the rescue party discover that Kong is just one of many monsters to contend with. They run into a Stegosaurus that requires a gas bomb and a hail of bullets to kill. Next, they are attacked by a Sauropod as they cross a lake on a raft that they’ve built. Several of their party are killed by the giant beast.
Meanwhile Kong is having troubles of his own. He meets up with a Tyrannosaurus and battles the reptile to the death. At one point the tree that Kong has left Ann in is knocked over by the titanic brawl between the two giants. But afterwards Kong moves on with the girl in hand.
Finally, the rescuers catch up with Kong as he crosses a ravine on a massive fallen tree trunk. But when they try to follow Kong lifts the tree and shakes all but two of the men off the trunk where they fall to their deaths. Jack Driscoll has managed to reach the far side where Kong is while Denham is trapped on the far side of the ravine. Once Kong has moved on Driscoll and Denham have a talk from opposite sides of the ravine. It is agreed that Driscoll will follow Kong and attempt to free Ann while Denham will return to the village and organize another rescue party.
As Kong climbs up to his mountain lair, he battles two other prehistoric creatures. First a reptile with an elongated neck and tail that makes it almost snakelike, almost strangles Kong but is finally dispatched by the giant primate. And then once on top of the mountain a Pteranodon tries to fly off with Ann but is killed by Kong. But while Kong is distracted fighting with the giant flying reptile, Driscoll, who has been tailing Kong, sees his chance and carries Ann on his back down a vine off the top of the mountain. Kong starts pulling the vine up but when the couple are almost level with Kong they let go of the vine and land in the water below the mountain cliff.
Jack and Ann swim away and then run through the jungle and end up back at the village just in front of Kong. The crew and natives bolt the gate in the wall but Kong by sheer brute force cracks the huge wooden bolt and forces his way into the village. There he fights the villagers who use spears to try to kill the giant. He crushes them with his feet and kills some of them with his teeth. He runs amok smashing their thatched huts but when he reaches the crew of the Venture, he has a more difficult foe. Denham throws one of his gas bombs at Kong and the gas renders the huge ape unconscious.
Now Denham conceives of a new idea. He convinces the crew to help him bind Kong and float him back to New York on a raft behind the Venture. He tells them that exhibiting Kong in New York will make them all fabulously wealthy. And that’s what they do.
In the next scene we are at a theater on Broadway and it’s opening night on Denham’s exhibition of Kong. It begins well with Denham introducing the story then opening the curtain to reveal the giant ape manacled and in leg irons attached to a massive scaffold. Then he introduces Jack Driscoll and Ann Darrow and plays up the angle that Kong’s capture was the result of a Beauty and the Beast story. Kong was captured because he could not resist coming back to the village for Ann, his beauty.
But when Denham has the photographers come up to the stage to take photos of Kong and his captors the beast becomes enraged by the flashbulbs thinking that Ann was in danger. He broke his chains and smashed through a brick wall and rampaged through Midtown Manhattan. Climbing up the wall of a nearby hotel he improbably finds Ann Darrow in one of the rooms and heads uptown to the Empire State Building with Ann in hand.
On the way he kills several passersby and crushes a car or two but most notably he attacks an elevated subway train. He rips up the track and when the train falls through the whole in the tracks he pummels it with his fist as it lays there like a dying beast while the passengers scream in fear and agony.
Meanwhile Driscoll and Denham know that Kong has Ann. They alert the authorities and convince them to have fighter aircraft stationed at Floyd Bennett Field in South Brooklyn attack Kong on the top of the Empire State Building. The four pilots wait until Kong puts Ann down and then commence to strafe him with their machine guns. One of the pilots ventures too close and his plane is grabbed by Kong and sent to its destruction against the side of the building. Finally, after many strafing runs Kong succumbs to the bullets. But before falling to his death he picks up Ann and then puts her down as if saying goodbye. A final burst of bullets hits him and he tumbles off the side of the tower and to his death on the pavement below.
On the pavement Denham looks on the shattered body of Kong where a policeman declares that, “the planes finally got him.” But Denham retorts that it was, “Beauty killed the Beast.”
In my opinion King Kong is a fantastic movie. Even with the primitive special effects and improbable plot and eighty-nine years later it is still an exciting and enjoyable adventure. And in addition to the adventure, the liveliness of the characters is noticeably superior to the typically depressed and inert nature of modern characters. Even in the depths of the Great Depression there is a positivity that pervades the actions of the characters that reaches the audience. In every crisis of the story Denham and Driscoll use brains and bravery to win the day. This was the American spirit that saw that generation weather the Great Depression, fight World War II and build the greatest country on the face of the earth. This movie is highly recommended.
Star Trek – The Original Series – Complete Series Review – Season 2 Episode 19 – A Private Little War
Let me just start by saying that this episode is so awful that you must see it. It’s marvelously bad.
When first join our heroes, McCoy is rooting around on his knees in the foothills of Los Angeles. Spock and Kirk were nearby discussing the peaceful inhabitants of the planet (I suppose Angelinos) and Kirk’s earlier visit to the planet as a young officer. Suddenly they notice that one tribe with fake black hair is ambushing with another tribe with fake blond hair. And the attackers have flintlock rifles while the rest of the planet is still using bows and arrows. And most importantly the man about to be shot is Kirk’s old friend Tyree. Rather than use his phaser (and disobey the prime directive) Kirk throws a rock at the rifleman and spoils his shot.
Hilarity ensues as Kirk and Spock flee back to McCoy while being pursued by the tribesmen. Finally, one manages to shoot Spock in the back and they barely have time to beam up to the Enterprise before being finished off by the black wig guys. Back on the ship McCoy and his esteemed colleague Dr. M’Benga who luckily is an expert at Vulcan physiology, are able to stabilize Spock’s vital signs but his life hangs in the balance as space age medicine is reduced to watching as the self-healing capabilities of Spock’s mind are left to repair the damage.
Kirk wisely decides not to hang around for that snooze fest and instead beams down to the planet with McCoy and determine if the Klingons that have been seen in orbit are responsible for the advanced weaponry (primitive firearm) that Kirk observed earlier. Kirk’s plan is to speak to his old friend Tyree who is chief of the blond wig tribe and also an embarrassing pacifist. But when they approach the village they are attacked by, and I kid you not, a man in a gorilla suit that’s been bleached white. And if that wasn’t ridiculous enough, they glued a horn on its head and put a row of huge spines running down its back. The gorilla man tosses McCoy away and then starts gnawing on Kirk’s shoulder while he writhes in pain. Eventually McCoy comes to and blasts the gorilla with his phaser.
But now we find out that this is no ordinary albino, horned gorilla but the much more dangerous albino, horned, venomous gorilla. Now here is the first Shatner Mockery bonanza. Kirk is dying of the venom and he starts shivering and generally spassing out in an hilarious manner. This is some serious bad acting. Then we get to the village and find that Tyree’s wife, Nona, is a witch woman and can cure the deadly bite of the albino, horned, venomous, gorilla. Nona is played by Nancy Kovack, a highly attractive young actress who has been squeezed into a pair of skin tight, leather hip huggers and the traditional gorilla fur bodice.
Meanwhile back on the ship Spock is in a coma. Dr. M’Benga tells Nurse Chapel that at a certain point Spock would begin to awaken and whatever he asked her to do she must do it. When Spock wakes, he tells Chapel to slap him in the face hard, over and over again. At first reluctant, but after additional demands from Spock she starts slapping him ringingly and seems to warm to her work. Scotty walks in and restrains her bodily but just then Dr. M’Benga arrives and finishes off the face slapping. Successfully slapped silly Spock makes a full recovery.
Anyway, Nona is disillusioned with the pacifism of her husband Tyree and wants him to get Kirk to provide phasers to allow Tyree to become the great leader of the blond wig nation. In exchange for the promise of advanced weapons she agrees to cure Kirk. This involves her cutting her hand and placing it on the bite while gyrating and undulating on top of Kirk in a highly humorous display. Kirk is cured and later on Nona drugs Kirk to get his phaser. But another albino, horned, venomous gorilla shows up and to save herself from the gorilla she rolls around on the ground screaming for Kirk to help. But the drug has doofed him out and it takes almost two minutes of rolling on the ground before he gets around to disintegrating the gorilla. But for his trouble all he gets is a large jagged rock smashed against his skull by Nona as she steals his phaser.
She has decided to switch sides and take up with the more aggressive and obviously more manly chief of the black wig tribe. She finds a few black wigs wandering around and tells them to take her to their leader. But they are so excited by the tight pants that they start pawing at her. Just then Kirk, McCoy and Tyree show up. Thinking that Nona had led them into a trap they stab her to death and then proceed to get their clocks cleaned by Kirk and to a small extent Tyree. Now that Nona is dead Tyree sees the light of day and tells Kirk to get him a bunch of rifles. This fits in with Kirk’s plan to supply the blond wig guys with exactly the same weapons as the Klingons provide to the black wig guys. He explains that his theory is based on the balance of power that existed between the East and West during the cold war and how that prevented total war. He tells a skeptical McCoy that he doesn’t like the solution but that it is the only way to prevent catastrophic defeat by one side. Then it mercifully ends.
What a mess. The wigs, the monster suit, Shatner’s bad acting, the embarrassing scenes with the monster, the embarrassing scenes with Nona, the embarrassing scenes with Nurse Chapel, Dr. M’Benga’s name. Really the only positive thing the episode has is Nona’s outfit. But this is a Shatner mockery bonanza. I score this episode 4 // 10.
05OCT2020 – OCF Update – photog Bound
Regular readers of OCF will have been dismayed at the low output for the last couple of days. Shameful as it is to admit, the day job is interfering with my work here on the site. As tragic as it is it will be short lived. After Wednesday I will have a very long break that will allow me to bloviate to my heart’s content.
In the meantime, I’ll produce as much content in the next couple of days as is humanly possible while simultaneously being beaten like a red-headed stepchild or whipped like an army mule. Working where I do is akin to being an orc. But not one of the really cool orcs like the Uruk Hai, more like the morgul rat types that grumble and complain and are constantly whipped by the non-commissioned officer orcs that always overhear them grumbling.
The President has once again befuddled his critics and seems to have dodged the COVID bullet and now claims he’s feeling better than he has in twenty years. What the hell! Where’s my dose of dexamethasone? I could really use a dose of “twenty-years-younger” right about now. Oh well, he is the leader of the free world, if there is a free world anymore.
As an aside ShatnerKhan III will occur this Saturday and as a major change of pace, there will not be any pastrami or corned beef. There was a decision to go with homemade sausage. There will apparently be both regular Italian sweet sausage and a specialty thin Italian sausage called cervellata that was much in demand in Brooklyn back when there were Italian neighborhoods in Brooklyn. Of course it isn’t pronounced anything like it’s spelled thanks to the magic of southern dialectical Italian. It sounds more like shivrelod. But if you told that to one of the guys from the old country they’d claim you weren’t hearing it correctly. Yeah right!
It has been speculated that ShatnerKhan has degenerated into an excuse for eating fattening foods. I would argue that is actually an upgrade. Be that as it may, we will be breaking new ground exploring a little known gem from Shatner’s middle period called The Devil’s Rain (1975). Just listen to this summary and look at the cast.
A satanist cult leader is burnt alive by the local church. He vows to come back to hunt down and enslave every descendant of his congregation, by the power of the book of blood contracts, in which they sold their souls to the devil.
Starring Ernest Borgnine, Eddie Albert, Ida Lupino
You might think this could be a good horror movie. You might be wrong. To round out the program we’ll be watching a favorite Star Trek episode to be decided by popular acclaim, listening to some of Shatner’s latest spoken word songs and watching a particularly disturbing interview that includes Shatner and Mike Tyson threatening each other with death.
In addition to sausage and peppers sandwiches there will be pumpkin, coconut custard and apple pies a la mode, various sweets and coffee. Camera girl offered a fruit salad as a healthy choice but we’re going with mounds bars and M&Ms. Considering the age and weight profile of the audience there may be casualties.
There was a discussion about live streaming our comments on The Devil’s Rain but in order to maintain anonymity I purchased multiple copies of the mask that Michael Myers wore in Halloween. This mask is supposedly based on a mold of William Shatner’s face.
After wearing one for thirty seconds I don’t think this will work out. I also have my doubts about our technical ability to perform a live stream. But some enthusiasm still exists.
Strange and stranger things are happening wherever you look but I contend we need to have some fun in the midst of this so bear with me. I’ll be back to share some serious thoughts soon but right now chaos reigns here at the compound.
Horror Then and Now
My longtime readers know that I indulge myself in the run-up to Halloween with book and movie reviews that concur with my preferences for that holiday. A couple of years ago I wrote reviews for all the Universal Classic Monster movies of the 1930s and 1940s. I usually take the season as an excuse to reread Bradbury’s “Something Wicked This Way Comes” and watch the movie for good measure.
But last year I reviewed Psycho and this year I intend to review the Thomas Harris novels that include the character Hannibal Lecter. Many years ago, a friend gave me his copy of Red Dragon and I found it to be one of the most unsettling things I had ever read. And although the violence and insanity were pretty extreme by the standards of that happier time, the thing about the book that truly frightened me was the plausibility of the killer’s method for stalking his victims and the impossibility of protecting your family from someone who was determined to kill in that fashion. I guess it was the fact that I had a young family at that time and the idea that I might be powerless to save them that horrified me. And that is when I first became aware that true horror always has a human face. It won’t be a normal human but it will look out of a face that is attached to a driver’s license and a cellphone and a bank account.
So, there is a difference between the good old days and the bad new days. We stopped trying to gently scare children and now we horrify adults by showing them what’s really out there. I’ll be the first to admit that watching Frankenstein or Dracula doesn’t actually involve any fear for anyone over the age of ten. It was natural that movie makers and writers would escalate the violence and cart out the gore to tempt adult thrill-seekers, mostly in their teenage years, to spend their entertainment dollars on the latest fright fest. Back in the 1970s Texas Chainsaw Massacre was the poster child for exploitation movies aimed at frightening audiences out of their seats. Since then every year has upped the ante until lately the content has gotten so bad that the real name for what this represents has been designated. These movies are portraying torture through grisly dismemberment.
I consider that a distinction can be made between these gore fests that are almost bereft of meaningful characters and plot and crime drama like “Silence of the Lambs” which while it does include the description of horrible violence and depravity is not focused on flinging gore across the screen to delight the demented. It tells the story of people. This includes the victims, the police and even the murderer. We supposedly learn a little about what drives some of these characters to become monsters.
I’m not a devotee of crime drama or fiction. As I said I was given the Red Dragon book long ago and because of it I went to see the Silence of the Lambs when it came out. Out of a sense of curiosity I read the rest of the Lecter books and saw the movies and tv series. I don’t think the later books were as good as the first two but I will review them all for general interest purposes.
But I have all the Universal Monster movies on DVD and I intend to watch them all with my younger grandsons as soon as the lockdown ends. They’re the correct age and they’ll get a kick out of them. And truth be told, so will I.
Guest Contributor – War Pig – Apologia for Giant Space Amoebas
(Editor’s Note: This essay addresses my diatribe against giant space amoebas.)
Gently, gently. Remember when those shows aired. It was the late 60s. We were shooting for the moon (and made it). Nothing seemed impossible to us. Back then a transistor radio the size of the palm of my hand was the latest and greatest portable music. 8 track tapes were all the rage for your car. Technology by today’s standards was Neolithic. Cars were not fuel efficient; their cubic inches were only surpassed by their horsepower ratings. Personal/corporate jets were becoming more popular. Most television programming was still in B&W, although prime time went all color in 1966. Color TVs did not outsell B&W televisions until about 1970. CB radios were just becoming the thing. Still mostly as trucker toys until the mid-seventies. Cars did not have cellular phones, they had radiophones and they were so expensive only the wealthy had them. Seat belts? Just beginning to attract notice. GPS? A dream someone in DARPA had. Night vision? First generation Starlight Scopes. Lasers? Sci-fi. Bell labs was doing some laser research but as a weapon, or as a range finder, or as a thermometer or as a pointer? That was genuine Star Trek stuff. Lost in Space had its first season in B&W. A self-aware robot? Laser pistols? FTL travel in a flying saucer? Golden aliens? Remember the sci-fi movies of the 50s and 60s. Godzilla, a mutant lizard so huge he would collapse under his own weight in the real world. Rodan, another impossibly huge reptile who incidentally could exceed the speed of sound without flapping his wings. The Giant Claw, an antimatter bird from another galaxy, here to lay eggs and destroy our world. Robot Monster, a movie with the villain as a man in a gorilla suit with a space helmet for a head. War of the Worlds with Gene Barry. A lot of eye candy in there, but science? Nah. When Worlds Collide, where we as a species land on an interloper planet when our world is destroyed and it just so happens to have a breathable atmosphere and earth-tolerant temperature.
All entertainment and even world events led us to suspend belief. For the USA, nothing was impossible. Colonize Luna (the Moon), then Mars. Mine the asteroid belt. Surely FTL ships would be along before our grandchildren passed away. It was a time of unbounded enthusiasm. Science fiction was mostly fiction and was pure escapism, entertainment.
Yet, many things have come true. Kirk’s communicator was our flip phone. His tricorder our Tablet PC. We have remote monitoring of body functions as McCoy had in sick bay. Our machines talk to us and are voice-programmable. Ever talk to Siri or Alexa? We can compress enough data on a postage stamp sized SD card (like Spock’s data discs) that would have taken three buildings filled with machinery and magnetic tape storage in the 60s. We can stream live events and movies in excellent resolution and stereo sound to our hand-held smart phones. We have access to most of the world’s information at out fingertips. We can shoot down planes and missiles with lasers.
Roddenberry didn’t dream big enough. My maternal grandfather was born in the nineteenth century. He told me of how things were when he was a child. He was literally born in the horse and buggy era. He remembers the big hooraw over the Wright Brother’s first flight, and he lived to see men walk on the moon. I in turn tell my grandson what it was like when I was a child. I also add in the parts about walking to the school bus drawn by a team of muskox in minus 40-degree weather through snow three feet deep and fending off dire wolves who were trying to get my school lunch made from mammoth tenderloins. Just for fun. But remember back in your childhood, photog. Compare it to today. You and me both listened to 45 RPM records. Technology is advancing faster all the time. My first airliner ride was in a Super Constellation, a prop-driven airliner. My first helicopter ride was in a Sikorsky H-34, the type Fernando Lamas piloted in The Lost World, with Michael Rennie.
We’ve come a long way pretty fast. Back then it took less suspension of disbelief than it does now.
On Giant Space Amoebas and TV Science Fiction
I’m more than halfway through my episode by episode review of the complete Star Trek, the original series (TOS), and it has been eye opening to see how terrible some of the episodes were. Of course, that’s probably more a reflection of how long it’s been since I’ve seen these shows. Nonetheless I think there are some observations I’d like to make.
Over the course of the show we’ll see planets with humanoid inhabitants almost exclusively. Oh, sure once in a while they’ll have pointy ears or green skin but nine times out of ten, they look like they come from California. And just to make the situation even more ridiculous we’ll even find planets that have Space Nazis, Space Romans, Space Bootleggers and even Space Americans and Russians who have survived a Space WWIII and are living like nomads but still wielding an American flag and a copy of the Constitution. And I say, sure, why not? After all they could get the costumes at the Desilu props department and we could chalk it all up to some multiverse probabilistic hand waving stuff.
But where I draw the line is the planet sized amoeba made of protoplasm. This doesn’t make any sense at all. In fact, it’s insulting to anyone of even modest intelligence to think such a thing is anything but laughable. I mean come on! What’s next? If you ran out of awful plots what would they find next inside of an opaque interstellar cloud? A giant negative energy absorbing aardvark or lemur? Maybe there could be a planet-sized ranch or Cape Cod building along with an equally cosmic sized old guy sitting on his porch yelling at the Enterprise for travelling across his lawn at warp factor 3 and threatening Kirk with a light years spanning garden hose?
I guess I’m getting a little cantankerous but is it so much to ask that a show that forces us to suspend disbelief about faster than light travel and inexplicable teleportation devices at least meet us half way and make believe that they’ve provided us with a fig leaf to cover the colossal absurdity of whatever gold-plated impossibility they are foisting off on us at the moment. At least get Spock to say that the amoeba is composed of some unknown form of condensed negative energy that behaves like a cosmic equivalent of protoplasm. Would it be that hard to say some gobbledygook like that just so we didn’t feel that we were watching a show that couldn’t rise to the level of realism exhibited by the Teletubbies?
So, I’m not asking how Apollo got his temple to a planet, light years from Earth. Maybe it has a warp engine in one of the columns. I’m not complaining that the Gorn’s head looks like it was put together out of craft supplies bought at Walmart. All I’m asking is that a science fiction show give me at least some plausible fake science to placate my sense of scientific decency.
Oh, and would it have killed them to have a few more of those Vegas show girls show up once in a while? Nurse Chapel truly should have been retired on a pension and replaced with Terri Garr or Barbara Eden. Just saying.
Star Trek – The Original Series – Complete Series Review – Season 2 Episode 18 – The Immunity Syndrome
This is the one about the planet sized amoeba that wants to eat the Enterprise. When we come in the Enterprise is heading for an R&R shore leave to compensate them for some extreme duty they’ve been performing. Kirk gives a lecherous leer at one of his female yeomen who is passing by.
But suddenly Spock suffers a spasm and upon being interrogated by Kirk he tells the bridge onlookers that he telepathically experienced the death of the four hundred plus Vulcans aboard the Star Fleet ship blah blah blah. Kirk sends Spock to sick bay for McCoy to harass Spock over his inexplicable extra sensory perception across light years of distance.
Meanwhile Star Fleet preempts the shore leave and tells Kirk to investigate the loss of the Vulcan star ship and the mysterious silence of a solar system nearby. So, the Enterprise investigates and finds that the solar system is dead. And in the path of the missing Vulcan ship they find an inexplicable black zone in space. And of course, since they’re idiots, they fly into it. Now they’re trapped in the zone and can’t get out. They’re pulled toward the center of the zone and just for good measure, the zone is a negative energy field where both the ship’s energy and the humans’ life force are being slowly depleted. Kirk becomes irritable and fatigued and starts snapping at Spock and Scotty because they can’t provide much information on what is happening or how to escape. Finally, they see what is at the center of the black zone. There is an 11,000-mile long amoeba that Spock informs them is made of protoplasm. Oh, come on!
So now Spock and McCoy bicker over which of the two of them should be sent in a shuttle craft into the nucleus of the cell to provide scientific info on the organism and then die tragically as the creature absorbs him. Kirk agonizes embarrassingly then picks Spock to go. Spock sends a garbled transmission in which the key word to describe how to destroy the creature is unintelligible. Now Spock is dying in the amoeba and Kirk is inspired by McCoy’s maunderings about how the Enterprise is like a germ inside the cell to think of the word antibody which for some reason makes him believe that Spock had said antimatter would destroy the cell.
They put an antimatter bomb inside the nucleus and as the timer is running, they beat a pathetically slow retreat due to their low power reserves. They detect Spock’s shuttle craft and grab it with a tractor beam. Spock calls them and warns them that wasting power to save him is too risky. McCoy tells him to shut up and allow them to rescue him. Spock replies, “Thank you Captain McCoy.” They run out of power right before they escape the cell membrane but the bomb throws them clear including Spock’s shuttle craft. Kirk breathes a sigh of relief and begins to contemplate the debauches he will commit on his shore leave.
Okay, a planet sized blob of protoplasm. I could be wrong but wouldn’t gravity render all but an outer layer of such a mass into nothing but steam and some trace elements? Couldn’t it have been something like a cell but compounded of materials that could possibly have existed on such a scale? Ah, who am I kidding, this is Star Trek, anything goes.
So, peevish low-energy Kirk is mildly amusing. Spock and McCoy bickering over who is the likelier sacrifice in the shuttle craft is sort of fun. And there is a giant amoeba on the screen for part of the show. Let’s be kind and call this a 7 // 3.
Star Trek – The Original Series – Complete Series Review – Season 2 Episode 16 – The Gamesters of Triskelion
Another iconic episode. Alright let’s get it out of the way right at the beginning. Ratings must have been fading so they hired a Las Vegas burlesque queen in a very revealing costume to give the show a boost. And as I remember my adolescent self was not opposed to this aspect of the show at all. Honestly, she was probably the best-looking babe they ever had on the show. In terms of acting, well it was Star Trek so really, who cares?
Kirk, Chekov and Uhura (boy that’s an odd combination) are in the transporter getting ready to beam down to planet XYZ123 when suddenly they vanish without the transporter even being energized. Scotty, Spock and McCoy jabber at each other trying to figure out what happened.
Meanwhile we see Kirk, Chekov and Uhura on a distant planet called Triskelion being assaulted by mismatched gladiators with silly weapons. The hot looking warrior woman named Shahna is dressed in an aluminum foil bikini and armed with a giant-sized bottle opener. A caveman in a Fred Flintstone suit is armed with a whip and a net. A relatively ordinary looking guy in hose and doublet named Lars has a letter opener as his weapon and then there’s this really small old woman who doesn’t do very much and maybe also had a giant bottle opener but since I was watching Shahna most of the time I’m not really sure what the other woman had.
Once the Enterprise crew is subdued by the “thralls,” a weird skinny, bald headed guy in a black robe tells them what’s what. He is the Master Thrall named Galt. He runs the gladiatorial games for the “Providers.” The Providers are disembodied brains living in a cavern a thousand meters below the surface of Triskelion and they spend their pathetic lives capturing beings throughout the galaxy with their powerful transporter beam and betting a currency called quatloos on the fights they organize between the captives. But since they are disembodied brains that live in a cave what they would do with the quatloos they win is completely meaningless.
Meanwhile back on the Enterprise Spock confirms that the landing party is not on the planet below and finding an energy signature in a cloud decides to head twelve light years in that direction to find the captain and company. McCoy and Scotty whine and complain about this decision and finally Spock has the best non-Shahna moment in the show when he tells them that since he is in command that he will do as he pleases unless (and hear he lowers his voice so that only the two of them can hear him) McCoy and Scotty intend to start a mutiny. The two complainers immediately started hemming hawing and denying they had any such idea and fall in line with the plan.
Kirk and company learn the hard way that Galt and the Providers use collars on the necks of the thralls to train and punish disobedience. They seem to learn that there is no escape and no way to resist. So, Kirk quickly gets down to business and seduces Shahna with his Shatnerly charms. He hugs and kisses her and tells her about the stars and Earth and how much he likes her. But in the next scene he kisses her and then socks her in the jaw to get her key to his cell and make a break with Chekov and Uhura. And since Providers are omniscient, they are quickly subdued and sentenced to die.
Kirk is now doomed to die but first he asks to meet the Providers face to face. He is transported into the crappy cave that the Providers live in and berates them for their pathetic existence. At this point the Enterprise reaches Triskelion and is immediately immobilized by the Providers. Kirk appeals to the Providers’ gaming blood and proposes a wager. If he defeats a thrall in single combat, he and his people will go free and the Providers will give freedom and training to the thralls to become independent beings on Triskelion. If he loses then the whole crew of the Enterprise will become thralls. The Providers decide instead that he’ll have to fight three thralls. Take that Kirk! Kirk dispatches the caveman and Lars but the third guy is only injured so he is replaced by Shahna who is still mad about the sucker punch Kirk gave her earlier. Finally, Kirk takes away her bottle opener and with Lars’ letter opener at her throat she surrenders. The Providers turn out to be good sports and keep their word and let the Enterprise go free and agree to turn the thralls into people.
There is a maudlin scene between Kirk and Shahna and after the landing party beams up Shahna gets a short monologue where she talks to the sky and thanks Jim Kirk for showing her the road to female empowerment and possibly less-revealing clothes.
So much to say. Besides Spock’s mutiny game I think the other stand out comedy was Chekov being cornered in his cage by his selected mate, the old short weird looking woman thrall. She’s smitten with him and he tries to be civil but he’s obviously weirded out by her appearance and overeager attentions. It’s very creepy.
This show is just overflowing with Shatner doing his thing. His shirt has been taken away and has been replaced with a harness that reveals his noticeable weight gain. He’s leaping around kicking and punching everything in sight. And of course, his amorous moments with Shahna highlight some of the very corniest acting Bill Shatner ever committed. But I think what I like best is when Kirk is dismissing the idea of the Providers betting “trifles like quatloos” when human lives were so much more meaningful. There we see Kirk the negotiator, Kirk the gambler.
So, all in all the girl is very attractive, although her eye makeup looked to be about an inch thick. The plot was amusing and reasonably clever. The Shatner mockery value was almost off the scale. I’ll give this an 8 // 10.
