“Shore Leave”
Written by Theodore Sturgeon
Directed by Robert Sparr
Season 1, Episode 17
Production episode 6149-17
Original air date: December 29, 1966
Stardate: 3025.3
Captain’s log. The Enterprise has been in space for three months. They arrive at a planet, and Sulu, McCoy, and a bunch of others take a landing party down to investigate it. Kirk is tired and needs sleep, something he’s been told by McCoy as well as Yeoman Tonia Barrows. (He complains of a kink in his back, and Barrows gives him a massage; Kirk thinks it’s Spock, but when the first officer moves to stand next to him and he’s still getting the backrub, Kirk quickly tells her to stop. This, children, is how slash fiction gets started.)
Down on the planet, McCoy and Sulu are raving about how magnificent the planet is: no animal life of any kind, just plants, dirt, and water. McCoy thinks it’s perfect for shore leave, as it’s right out of Alice in Wonderland. Then, when Sulu goes off to catalogue some plants, McCoy sees a human-sized white rabbit in a waistcoat checking a pocket watch and declaring that he’s late. He runs off, and a girl in a pinafore dress shows up and asks if McCoy has seen a giant white rabbit. Stunned to uncharacteristic silence, McCoy just points in the direction the rabbit went. After she curtsies and goes on her way, McCoy throws his head back and yells, “SULU!!!!” at the top of his lungs. Sulu comes a-runnin’, but of course, he didn’t see anything…
Kirk authorizes shore leave on the planet. Barrows notices that Kirk’s name isn’t on any of the shore parties, and he says that’s right, he’s just tired, and he’s not going, so there, nyah, nyah. McCoy then reports what he saw, which Kirk interprets as a ploy to get Kirk down. Spock then shares a report he saw from McCoy’s medical log about a crewmember who is fatigued, irritable, reflex response unacceptably low, yet he refuses to take shore leave, which is, of course, his right. But Kirk self-righteously says that the person’s rights end at compromising the safety of the ship, and that crewmember will go down on his order.
The crewmember is, of course, James Kirk. And if you needed more proof that he needed leave, it’s that he fell for Spock’s obvious rhetorical trick…
Down on the planet, Lieutenants Esteban Rodriguez and Angela Martine are doing their survey. Martine is trying to get Rodriguez to relax and not work all the time. Kirk and Barrows beam down. The captain tells the pair to finish up their report, send it Spock, and go enjoy the planet. He goes over to McCoy to tease him about his rabbit story—but there are also giant rabbit tracks in the dirt. Kirk puts the shore parties on standby. McCoy objects, but until Kirk has an explanation for a rabbit and a girl on a planet that has no animal life, he doesn’t want to bring his people down.
They then hear gunshots. The three of them run to find Sulu target practicing with a police special, an antique firearm that he’s always wanted for his collection, and which he found lying on the ground. Kirk confiscates it, telling him he’ll get it back at the end of the school year.
Barrows notices that McCoy’s rabbit came through there. Sulu and Barrows follow the tracks while Kirk and McCoy go back to the glade where he saw them. McCoy and Kirk joke about the situation, although the doctor is glad for the tracks, as he was starting to feel a bit picked on. Kirk sympathizes, as he was the designated victim of a practical joker in the Academy named Finnegan. They also find the girl’s tracks, and so McCoy follows the rabbit further while Kirk backtracks the girl’s footprints.
Turning a corner, Kirk sees Finnegan, a giggling buffoon in a cadet uniform, who hauls off and belts Kirk, and then goads him into taking a shot back at him, which is what he’s always wanted. But before he can return the favor, he hears Barrows scream. Finnegan taunts him for running away, but Kirk ignores him and he meets up with McCoy as they find Barrows crouched over near a tree, her uniform torn. She reports that she thinking that the planet was a like a storybook, and that all a girl needed was Don Juan—and then Don Juan showed up and attacked her with a jeweled dagger. Sulu went after him, and Kirk goes after Sulu, leaving McCoy to take care of Barrows.
While searching for the helmsman, he comes across some lovely flowers—and then sees an old flame from his Academy days, Ruth. He’s totally goofy over her, and completely forgets about his search for Sulu. It takes both McCoy goading him and Rodriguez reporting a flock of birds (on this planet with no animal life) before he finally remembers reality and tells everyone to rendezvous at the glade.
Spock then contacts him, reporting an energy field beneath the planet’s surface, one that’s draining power from the ship and interfering with communications.
McCoy escorts Barrows—she has a hand in his arm, and they flirt pretty outrageously—and she comments on how in a place like this a girl should be dressed as a fairytale princess with a big hat. They then come across the very dress she was talking about. She raves about how she’s a princess of the blood royale to be protected. McCoy encourages her to try it on—she’s reluctant, but he insists. While she changes, Rodriguez contacts McCoy, but the connection is awful, and he’s barely able to tell McCoy about the rendezvous. McCoy shouts into his communicator before he realizes he doesn’t have any bars and closes it. Then Barrows comes out in the dress and froofy hat and McCoy is totally smitten.
Rodriguez and Martine are menaced by a tiger and Sulu is attacked by a samurai. Worse, phasers no longer work, while communications are entirely down. Spock beams down—barely. The last of the energy the ship had was enough to transport Spock, and the energy drain is getting worse.
McCoy and Barrows are the first to arrive at the glade. McCoy makes an offhand comment about how a princess shouldn’t be afraid when she has a brave knight to protect her. Then an armored man shows up on horseback with a spear and attacks McCoy. Convinced that it’s a hallucination, McCoy stands his ground—and is impaled by the spear. Kirk, Sulu, and Spock show up just as McCoy falls. Spock tries to shoot it with his phaser, which doesn’t work, but Kirk still has Sulu’s revolver, and he takes out the knight with it.
Barrows bursts into tears, blaming herself. Kirk gets her under control, and then Sulu notices that the “knight” is an automaton—and not only that, the knight has the same cellular structure as the plants and dirt and water here. Everything on the planet has been artificially created to mimic the real thing.
Rodriguez and Martine see a twentieth-century military plane, which does a strafing run, killing Martine. When it flies over the glade, it distracts the rest of the landing party long enough for McCoy’s body and the knight to be taken away.
Spock hypothesizes that the planet is somehow making everyone’s thoughts come to life. He queries Kirk on what he was thinking about, and then Finnegan shows up again. Kirk chases him, ordering Spock and Sulu to find McCoy’s body.
Kirk eventually catches up to Finnegan and they get into a manly manly fist fight. At the end, right before a bloody, bruised, shirt-torn Kirk kayos Finnegan, the latter says that Kirk is exactly what he expects him to be.
Spock catches the tail end of Kirk’s catharsis, and they realize that Spock’s hypothesis was on the nose. Spock, of course, stupidly cites Rodriguez thinking of a tiger, and the tiger naturally shows up. As they head away from the tiger and back to the glade, they are strafed by the plane and attacked by the samurai.
Barrows changes back into her uniform (which is now torn in a different place), and is attacked by Don Juan again. Sulu and Rodriguez drive him off, and then Kirk orders everyone to stand at attention and not think of anything.
Only then does the planet’s caretaker show up and explain everything. This planet is a futuristic amusement park, where one’s heart’s desire is made real instantly—but none of it is permanent. As if to prove the point, both McCoy and Martine show up, the former with two female members of a chorus line he remembers from Rigel II. A jealous Barrows immediately claims McCoy for herself, leaving the dancers to go for Sulu and Spock. Also Uhura contacts Kirk, reporting that the power drain is gone. The caretaker says that humans aren’t ready to know about their people and their advanced technology, but he can go ahead and send shore parties down. Kirk, inexplicably, finds this acceptable and orders Uhura to let transporting commence.
Spock gives his dancer to Sulu (wah-HEY!) and says he’s had all the shore leave he needs and will go back to the ship. Kirk’s about to insist he stay and that Kirk himself will go back, but then Ruth shows up and he decides to stay.
Later, we see Kirk, Sulu, McCoy, and Barrows reporting for duty and saying they had an awesome shore leave. Spock tut-tuts and calls them illogical, and everyone laughs for an unconvincingly long time before Kirk orders them to leave orbit.
Can’t we just reverse the polarity? The people of the planet are able to read people’s minds with something that looks like a cheap radio antenna and produce things instantly within moments of their thinking it. Fancy stuff. You have to wonder if this first contact eventually led to the replicator technology we see in the 24th century.
Fascinating. Spock doesn’t understand these silly humans with their notion of gadding about in the grass when they “rest.” To his mind, you should rest by taking a nap (not in so many words, but that’s what it boils down to). This actually makes him sound less like a strange alien who doesn’t understand humans and more like an old man who just finished shaking his fist and telling the kids to get off his lawn.
I’m a doctor not an escalator. McCoy is the first to be given a “present” by the planet’s owners, and it freaks him right the hell out. And then he gets killed, but they’re able to easily repair a spear wound.
Ahead warp one, aye. Sulu’s latest hobby is firearms, following botany in “The Man Trap” and fencing in “The Naked Time.”
Hailing frequencies open. Uhura’s on the bridge the whole time. The impression is that she didn’t get shore leave, since she’s still sitting there with Spock when everyone else beams back at the end. Poor her…
No sex, please, we’re Starfleet. In Ruth we have yet still another woman from the captain’s past. The ending implies that he spent his shore leave with the fantasy version of Ruth, and I have to wonder how the real Ruth would feel about it. (Probably as pissed as Leah Brahms was…)
Meanwhile Martine is apparently over Tomlinson, since she’s flirting with Rodriguez, McCoy and Barrows are all over each other, and McCoy had some fun on Rigel II once.
Channel open. “An old Earth name for a place where people could go to see and do all sorts of fascinating things.”
Spock failing his saving roll versus “descriptive phrasing.” Seriously, the best Mr. Nit-Picky Specific can do is “all sorts of fascinating things”?????
Welcome aboard. We’ve got recurring regulars DeForest Kelley, Nichelle Nichols, and George Takei, and the rest of the landing party is played by Emily Banks (Barrows), Perry Lopez (Rodriguez), and Barbara Baldavin (returning as Martine following “Balance of Terror“). Oliver McGowan plays the Caretaker, and the various creations of the planetary theme park are played by Paul Baxley (the black knight), William Blackburn (the white rabbit), Shirley Bonne (Ruth), Marcia Brown (Alice), Bruce Mars (Finnegan), James Gruzal (Don Juan), and Sebastian Tom (the samurai).
Trivial matters: This is the first of two scripts written by science fiction great Theodore Sturgeon, the other being “Amok Time” in season two. This script was heavily rewritten by both Gene L. Coon and Gene Roddenberry, as Sturgeon’s original draft (which was called “Finagle’s Planet”) was too expensive to film and too fantastical. Sturgeon submitted two other story outlines to the show, but they were never produced. One was a sequel to this episode; the other was “The Joy Machine,” which was later developed into a novel by James Gunn.
The animated series did a sequel to this episode called “Once Upon a Planet,” which we’ll cover when we get that far. It’s unknown how much of Sturgeon’s sequel (and/or Sturgeon’s initial draft of this episode) was used by scriptwriters Chuck Menville and Len Janson.
This is one of four episodes not adapted by James Blish, but rather by his widow J.A. Lawrence after he died while in the midst of Star Trek 12. Lawrence wrote the adaptation for this episode, as well as “And the Children Shall Lead,” for that volume, as well as the two Harry Mudd episodes in Mudd’s Angels.
Allegedly, William Shatner hoped to wrestle the tiger that was used, but was talked out of it. There were also plans for an elephant, but it never materialized.
Like Mears in “The Galileo Seven,” Barrows was originally written as Rand, and the sexual tension was between her and Kirk. In their rewrites, Coon and Roddenberry changed it to flirting with McCoy and added the character of Ruth for Kirk to be goofy eyed at. There has been some fan speculation that the “blonde lab tech” that Kirk almost married, mentioned in “Where No Man Has Gone Before,” was Ruth.
At one point, Kirk refers to Martine as “Teller.” She’s only credited as Angela, and was originally written as a different character named Mary Teller, but it was changed when Barbara Baldavin was cast.
Both Finnegan and Ruth appear in Star Trek Annual #2, published by DC, which chronicled Kirk’s Academy days. It was by Peter David, James W. Fry, Curt Swan, & Arne Starr. In addition, Finnegan appears in the novels Captain’s Peril and Collision Course, both by William Shatner with Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens, and the My Brother’s Keeper trilogy by Michael Jan Friedman. Finnegan also shows up in the final two issues of the Who Killed Captain Kirk? story arc in DC’s first Star Trek run from issues 49-55 by David, Tom Sutton, & Ricardo Villagran; that story takes place in the movie era and shows that, three decades later, Finnegan’s still a practical joker, but also is a commander for Starfleet Security who investigates a murder attempt on Kirk.
Barrows appears in the McCoy novel in the Crucible trilogy by David R. George III, which establishes that the pair of them eventually married, and also in the final issue of DC’s first Trek monthly volume, issue #56 by Martin Pasko and Gray Morrow.
To boldly go. “I’ve already had as much shore leave as I care for.” One of my favorite authors is Alfred Bester, but whenever I introduce him to people, I always have to qualify it by saying that he wrote his best work in the 1950s, and so his attitudes toward women and non-white people is somewhat backward. If you can filter that out, you can appreciate The Demolished Man (one of the best stories about telepathy in the history of the world) and The Stars My Destination and his amazing short fiction.
As with Bester, so too with this episode. The mainstream of 1966 was one where women were referred to as girls and yearned to be protected and where men speaking to them condescendingly in a don’t-worry-your-pretty-little-head tone was actually seen as somewhat respectful. Plus it was perfectly okay to do horrific ethnic stereotypes, so it never occurred to anybody that the portrayal of Finnegan as a giggling goon with an Irish folk music motif playing every time he’s on screen would be spectacularly offensive.
I expected all that going in. I knew that Finnegan would make me roll my eyes and I knew that McCoy’s drooling over Barrows and Barrows’s notions of what “a girl should have” would make me nauseous. Filtering that out, I was able to enjoy episode—
—at first. The first seventy-five percent or so is actually fun in a turn-off-your-brain way. In particular, I was overjoyed to see the larger crew camaraderie return, with Sulu and McCoy’s chat in the beginning, the flirty conversations between Rodriguez and Martine, Kirk and McCoy’s joking about the rabbit, and so on.
But it kinda fell apart at the end, starting with the simply endless fistfight between Kirk and Finnegan at Vasquez Rocks. Seriously, the stupid fight lasts about seventeen days, straddling a commercial break, and I wanted to gnaw my leg off at the knee by the end of it.
And then our heroes who are specifically in space to seek out new life and new civilizations are perfectly okay with these alien douchenozzles who’ve messed with their minds and lives, and killed two of them (brought them back, yes, but still…), say, “Oh, we’re just really advanced, too much for you to understand,” and they just accept that? And Spock agrees with him? This isn’t the Starfleet we met in “The Corbomite Maneuver” that values meeting new life and opening relations with them. These are aliens who can read people’s minds without their consent, and our heroes’ response is to just go along with it?
On top of that, the scenarios and things they get are so unimaginative. It’s all 19th and 20th century stuff (except Barrows’s medieval fairy princess and the black knight), but it feels like a missed opportunity. Why couldn’t Sulu have found an early laser pistol prototype from the 21st century? Why couldn’t Rodriguez dream up a super-villain from a current popular three-D drama? Why is everything they think of from the distant past? This was a chance to show a bit more of the life of people in this future and they blew it.
Still, mostly a fun episode. Except for McCoy being creepy and Finnegan being awful and the bad ending.
Warp factor rating: 5 (if you can filter out the period sexism and stereotyping); 3 (if you totally can’t)
Next week: “The Squire of Gothos”
Keith R.A. DeCandido is involved with two nifty Kickstarters, one for a superhero anthology called The Side of Good/The Side of Evil (in which Keith will have a story), the other for a web series that combines 50s and 60s pulp sci-fi with a modern sensibility (think Buckeroo Banzai meets Emma Peel) starring Singularity & Co.’s Cici James called Atomic Annie (for which Keith will be putting together a short-story anthology).
As a mid-teens girl at the time of the original series, I rolled my eyes at the standard sexism, but I’d seen it on every show on at the time so I was used to it. That’s one reason I enjoyed Spock so much– he wasn’t required to do the manly man with the bimbo on each arm.
Having the crew think of things from the past was an act of cheapness rather than a lack of imagination on the part of the writers or the characters. Finding a gun or outfit in Paramount’s prop department was much cheaper than creating something new. Remember that even some of McCoy’s medical instruments were repurposed salt and pepper shakers.
You gotta love the color-coordinated belly button covers on the chorus line dancers.
The pictures in the rewatches are usually quite sharp, this time they’re a bit pixelated. TorChris, I’m just curious, what happened?
Worth noting that this is the debut of composer Gerald Fried, who would go on to do a number of ST’s most memorable scores (most famously “Amok Time”). Before (and after) this, he’d done other shows including The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and Gilligan’s Island. This is no doubt the Trek score that draws most heavily on Fried’s sitcom experience.
I agree about the overindulgent Finnegan fight. Not only is it too long, but it’s bizarre for Kirk to be having fun brawling like this when he was just mourning McCoy’s apparent death minutes before. I know ’60s TV tended to downplay the impact of death, but this is an extreme case. There’s also the way Kirk’s shirt tears — it’s perfectly intact in one shot, but torn to shreds in the next. It’s like a parody of ST’s gratuitous Kirk-shirt-tearing.
Barrows is enormously hotter than Rand ever was. I wish she’d stuck around for more episodes.
It’s odd that there’s been so little exploration of Ruth in tie-in fiction. It’s worth noting that she was played by a 32-year-old woman, but was someone Kirk had known at the Academy, when he was in his late teens or early twenties. Which suggests that she was “the older woman,” perhaps someone he had a Mrs. Robinson type of relationship with, or maybe just admired unrequitedly (since there’s an air of poignant regret and longing to Shatner’s performance and Fried’s scoring). Granted, though, Bruce Mars was 31 and playing a character who was presumably about a decade younger, so maybe I’m reading too much into it.
Speaking of ethnic stereotyping, this is the first time in the series that Sulu is written as having any kind of stereotypically Asian interests. Considering how he’s been portrayed in the past, I have to wonder why he dreamt up a samurai instead of Cardinal Richilieu or Comte de Rochefort. And if he was into Japanese culture, why would he be afraid of a samurai? They’re sort of the national heroes of legend, the equivalent of Arthur’s knights to an English person.
It’s also probably the first time that Sulu — who was conceived as “pan-Asian” and given a theoretically Filipino surname — was written as having a specifically Japanese identity, reflecting George Takei’s ancestry. It probably influenced the tendency of later novelists and comic-book writers to portray Sulu as specifically Japanese and heavily invested in Japanese heritage and culture.
Keith, your suggestion about dreaming up a 23rd-century fictional villain reminds me of Doctor Who‘s “The Mind Robber,” which was very like this episode, taking place in a “Land of Fiction” where imaginary characters came to life. The late-21st-century companion Zoe came across a comic-strip superhero from her era, the Karkus, who acted more like a villain — but the tiny Zoe was able to use her photographic memory of her judo lessons to wrestle the big musclebound hero into submission, which, rather creepily, made him her slave.
I actually kind of think that the TAS sequel, “Once Upon a Planet,” tells a better story than this one overall. But we’ll get to that in time.
This was the episode that Cleveland Amory spent most of his time discussing in his review of “Trek” for TV Guide. Amory was amused by Kirk’s instructions to the crew: “Face front, everyone. Don’t talk. Don’t breathe. Don’t think.” Finding the episode and the show rather too fanciful for his taste, Amory wrote, “it was good advice, and in our opinion the best way for an adult to watch this program. For the kids, though, let them breathe…they’ll love it.” Unsurprisingly, this mixed review drew ire—and mail—from the show’s already loyal adult fans. A self-described curmudgeon, Amory was not famed for bowing to public opinion. Nevertheless, at the end of the season, Amory named Star Trek as the show he had most over-criticized: “lately we’ve enjoyed and admired much in this series.”
@@.-@ CL Bennett: Interesting point about the similarity of this episode to “The Mind Robber.” Could Trelaine, who we’ll meet in “The Squire of Gothos” be an analogue to the Celestial Toymaker? (Of course, both series would have their O.K. Corral shows: Who’s “The Gunfighters,” and Trek’s “Spectre of the Gun.”)
Entertaining review/observations as always.My two cents:
Fun romp.It’s not Star Trek with its thinking cap on, but it’s quite entertaining.My grade: 7
Favorite moment: Sulu grinning like a kid on Christmas morning while he’s showing off that revolver.
Least Favorite moment: McCoy just standing there during the knight’s attack.Even as a kid, I thought that that didn’t make any sense.Why would he be so certain that the knight was purely illusory?Why take that kind of chance?
Looking ahead: This was basically the first-holodeck episode.Seriously.
@@.-@ Christopher L Bennett:”Barrows is enormously hotter than Rand ever was. I wish she’d stuck around for more episodes.”
You and me both.She and Helen Noel were the two Star Trek guest stars that I had pre-pubescent crushes on as a kid
@@.-@ Christopher L Bennett:”Speaking of ethnic stereotyping, this is the first time in the series that Sulu is written as having any kind of stereotypically Asian interests.”
Yeah, but since this was paired with the American “police special” and the Western Fencing-Three Musketeers stuff form THE NAKED TIME, it feels more organic.It’s just another part of his personality.Interestingly, Scotty and Chekov were the one’s who were really defined by their ethnic backgrounds,\
Using familiar cultural figures (Alice in Wonderland, Don Juan, knights on horseback, princesses, etc): Yeah,on the one hand, using stuff from later on in the STAR TREK timeline would have been a nice bit of world-building (Barrows being menaced by Drelan-Sor, the brigand-king featured in Rigellian holo-novels, etc).On the other hand, using stuff that we understand allows us to share in the associations that the characters are making.Both approaches have their pluses and their minuses.
Kirk getting caught in the Ruth simulacrum, McCoy and Barrows deciding to engage in cosplay, Kirk getting too into the fight with Finnegan: I’m going to assume that the “amusement park planet” must radiate some kind of field that makes people want to go along with the simulations.
Quoth MByerly: “Finding a gun or outfit in Paramount’s prop department was much cheaper than creating something new.”
Piffle. It could’ve been a leftover laser pistol from “The Cage,” and the costume department already created Finnegan’s cadet shirt, a samurai outfit, and a froofy dress. Coming up with a simple costume for a 3D drama character shouldn’t have been any more complicated than created the cadet shirt.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Forgot to mention – I do find Sulu messing about with the plants in line with his interest in botany.
Now that I think about it, I suppose it was meant to be a result of their fatigue from spending so long in space without a break. They were so desperate for relief that they just lost themselves in the illusions. Unfortunately, that doesn’t really come through well. It might’ve been a richer episode if they’d played up that psychological angle more, treated the illusions as a dangerous temptation rather than just a mystery. (Sort of a proto-“Hollow Pursuits” meets the Land of the Lotus Eaters.)
Even the better episodes of TOS have some really dire moments, I’m finding on re-watch. All the sexism here, for example. I can see Kirk getting caught up in fighting Finnegan, because he saw him, at least in part, as an avatar for whatever was going on, including two deaths, and he thought he could get answers that way, but I don’t like him falling for Ruth. By that point he knows its a fantasy made from his own memories–Ruth is at best a mirror of Kirk’s idealized memories of Ruth, and should be no more satisfying than the Talosians illusion life was to Pike. (Nexus-Kirk figured this out right away.) Sulu blasting away with the handgun having no idea what it is or where it came from or reporting it first. The near rape of Barrows (which it clearly was intended to be, going as far as 1960s could go) being shrugged off as something she might have wished for. (Why would her mind summon a Don Juan who was a rapist rather than some more romantic idealized chivalrous version?) And so on.
It’s not a bad episode but boy do you have to look past a lot.
I imagine the practical reason Sulu imagines the Samurai is that Barrows already has feudal Europe covered. The in story reason may be after having the revolver taken away Sulu got to thinking about his “want” list for his antique weapons collection..
Finnegan can be taken with some grain of salt, since the buffoon we see is the jerk that Kirk remembers with resentment, not the actual person. One of the things that bugs me is that Kirk seems to act as if he thinks the automatons are the real Finnegan and Ruth, even though he should realize that is almost certainly impossible as well as the Finnegan bot all but plainly telling Kirk he is not the real article (I wonder how much latitude the recreations have in their program to break the 4th wall?).
That’s the good thing of not being aware of American “national stereotypes”, the fact that Finnegan is supposed to be Irish and that this is related to his personality went right over my head. The only stereotype I’ve heard related to Irish people is Lord of the Dance :) The treatment of women is another issue altogether…
I think besides the fact that it was cheaper to use 20-th century objects, they were more recognizable by the audience. You see a revolver or hear ‘Don Juan’ and you know right away that it’s coming from Earth and has no place on that planet.
When I was watching this episode, I wondered if the planet had some (drug-like) influence on them, to make everyone act so non-perplexed: Sulu not being surprised by finding a pistol, Kirk having this fight (it really was endless) right after McCoy died etc.
Yes, it’s nice to see some regular crewmembers and their interaction again. And because I’m an Alice in Wonderland fan, I totally love the white rabbit and the little girl.
I didn’t mind the ending – I figure that it’s the aliens’ planet, they don’t want to be questioned or researched, but they are ok with others using their stuff, so it’s only polite to say thank you and go along with it. On the other hand, it always bothered me that they weren’t more inquisitive before, when they had all these impossible encounters. Oh well, I guess fatigue, or a drug-like influence, is a good enough explanation for that. I liked the bit about the importance of playing – it makes me more forgiving towards the episode’s flaws.
It’s quite a galaxy, isn’t it? All these old ruins and advanced beings with their totally different attitude towards the younger races that stumble across their stuff.
Another thought: Why didn’t Kirk want to go down to the planet? Normally he leads all the landing parties, and here he has to be tricked to leave the ship at all? But maybe that’s due to fatigue, too. The best thing about that scene is the way they play with it in TNG’s Captain’s Holiday.
Keith, the “previous” link links to Court Martial instead of The Menagerie.
For the longest time I thought Finnegan was played by Rich Little.
I used to think this planet was Risa, and still feel it would have made a more futuristic entertainment planet than the standard holiday resort Risa was shown as being.
@13/JanaJansen: First-season Kirk was a very driven, dutiful, serious, hard-working officer. He led landing parties when it was part of a mission, when he had a job to do; but this was recreation, and he wanted to use the downtime to catch up on his work.
@15/Tanya: Risa is really more analogous to Wrigley’s Pleasure Planet (mentioned in “The Man Trap”) or Argelius from “Wolf in the Fold.” Honestly, I regret that TNG created yet another hedonistic resort planet rather than reusing one of those.
@16/Christopher: I probably got the idea that he actually enjoys visiting all those different places from the novels. I think it makes sense, though – it’s sometimes criticized that the captain leads the landing parties in TOS instead of staying behind on the ship, and it’s done differently in TNG. So I figured he does it to mix duty with pleasure. But since there’s no duty involved in taking a holiday, this is no objection to your point.
Concerning holiday planets: Space is so big, they should have more than two holiday resorts. Those two are just the ones we’ve already heard about, so why not come up with another one? And I agree with Tanya, it would have been nice to see a holiday resort that differs more from the ones we have today, and this planet would fit the bill.
I like it that they consider it a good place for shore leave at all before learning about the “illusions”. After all, there’s nothing there but landscape and blue sky. But that might be exactly what people need most after several months in space.
@17/Jana: Partly it’s just that I would’ve appreciated the continuity — too many things in Trek got mentioned once and then disappeared. The problem is not that Risa existed, the problem is that once it was created, Wrigley’s Pleasure Planet and Argelius were completely forgotten. Risa got mentioned constantly in all the later series as if it were the only such planet in the galaxy.
Maybe Wrigley’s Pleasure Planet was driven out of business by Risa… ;)
First off, I’m glad this was delayed for a week. Happened to be the same week I spent on a writing seminar. Didn’t really have the time to browse Tor articles and rewatches.
And also, I really hate this episode. Sturgeon may be a qualified sci-fi writer, but to me this is pretty much a non-sensical plot devoid of meaning, with a pretty stupid ending. At least Buñuel and David Lynch show a thematic coherence to their visuals. Then again, this was a budget-conscious rewritten TV episode from the 1960’s.
To me, this is definitely a 3. I really can’t overlook the sexism or the stereotyping.
Ironically, I don’t have much of a problem with the Kirk/Finnegan fight. At least it provides some catharsis (that’s me being partial, given some of the bullying I endured under jerks like Finnegan). And I thought the Lawrence/Blish adapation did a better job of conveying the story’s emotional overtones than the finished episode ultimately did.
Going a bit off-topic, having read 17 TOS rewatches or so, I’m intrigued by the pattern of good-to-rotten episodes we’re getting. Clearly, this first season was as chaotic in finding coherent episodic quality as TNG’s first season. I haven’t reviewed the TNG rewatch in a while, but that’s how it feels. For every outstanding 11001001/Balance of Terror, you get the equivalent of a few Justice/Shore Leave disasters.
@18/Christopher: I’m with you. Having only one holiday planet is even worse than having only two (well, twice as bad). There really should be lots of those. And it would have been a nice kind of continuity to go back to some of the places from one hundred years ago every now and then.
There would have been very little point in returning to this planet in TNG since this is basically a holodeck. However, syndicated TNG could have shown us the hedonistic Argelians in ways that ’60s Trek could only hint at.
First, I have to vote with the people who say the planet did something to people’s brains. They’re way too slow to start realizing there’s something really wrong going on.
Although, as a kid watching this, I could understand the temptation to stop worrying and take the princess dress. I knew better, but I could understand the temptation.
I’m going to assume Ruth was how Kirk imagined her being years later.
Having seen plenty of abusive anti-heroes become best-sellers thousands of women seem to think are romantic instead of dramatized versions of abusers, I’m going to guess that Don Juan is the male lead in a 23rd century romance novel with a title like “50 Shades of Juan” or maybe “Interview with the Don-pire.” The aliens downloaded the story from her mind and didn’t get why no one really wants to meet one of those guys.
Finnegan makes sense if Kirk assumes he’s a leprechaun in charge of all these “magical” events and doing it for the sole purpose of getting to Kirk
I’m betting the aliens erased the memory of their meeting with the crew. All anybody in the Federation can really remember is that it’s a great place to go on shore leave. The aliens probably feed off emotions or something, which is why they have the place and don’t seem to care if people are enjoying themselves or freaking out.
Quoth Ellynne: “I’m going to assume Ruth was how Kirk imagined her being years later.”
Nope. Kirk specifically says to her, “You haven’t aged. It’s been fifteen years.“
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
RE: the ages of Ruth and Finnegan,
I think that we’ll just have ignore the age/appearance of the actors playing them.Now, I know that that’s tough, especially in the case of Finnegan, who makes a big point of calling Kirk an old man*, but the dialogue clearly indicates that Finnegan is 20 years old.I guess that it’s just ’60s casting at work.
*”You stupid underclassman! I’ve got the edge! I’m still twenty years old. Look at you! You’re an old man!“
@23/Ellynne: “Finnegan makes sense if Kirk assumes he’s a leprechaun”
This is the best interpretation of Finnegan ever.
Faire enough KRAD. And if they’re so smart…why not just effing TELL the crew what the planet is all about!
@23/Ellynne: We’ll see in the animated sequel, “Once Upon a Planet,” that the crew retains their full memory of the Keeper. It will also reveal… well, let’s just say that the Keeper may not be in the best of health at this point, which may be why it took him so long to notice that his planet had visitors.
@24 krad, you’re probably right. But, let me point out this is Kirk talking. He probably says that to all his old girlfriends, even when they’re not imaginary.
@20/Eduardo: It doesn’t get any better in the second season.
@29/Ellynne: Could be, but he sounds bewildered rather than flirtatious here, so it’s probably what he really thinks.
Keith R.A. DeCandido “Plus it wasperfectly okay to do horrific ethnic stereotypes, so it never occurred to anybody that the portrayal of Finnegan as a giggling goon with an Irish folk music motif playing every time he’s on screen would be spectacularly offensive.”
Don’t want to jump too far ahead, but it is interesting that this episode (with it’s “stage-Irish” Finnegan) is directly followed in production order by “The Squire of Gothos,” where Trelane gets called out for attempting to reduce Jaeger, DeSalle, and Sulu to ethnic stereotypes.
@30: Oh, I’m aware of it. Though oddly I have better memories of the second season thanks to standout episodes like Tribbles and Doomsday Machine.
Just pointing out that for all that’s been said about early TNG’s episodic inconsistency, TOS really wasn’t much better at it, which means to me that there are fans out there who still look back at the original show with rose-tinted glasses.
I enjoyed Howard Weinstein’s parody of this episode, “Sure, Leave!”
@32/Eduardo: That’s true. TOS was inconsistent throughout. I admit that I prefer it to TNG, too (which does not mean that I don’t like TNG), but not because of the quality of the episodes.
@@@@@ 20 To compare the first season of TOS and TNG is absurd. I’ve never heard anyone seriously defending the first TNG season not even the makers or actors themselves. When I rewatched it recently I cringed during each episode, it’s so stilted, It’s the worst season of the whole Star Trek franchise. Only Heart of Glory is really good.
While Shore Leave is indeed a lightweight entry without any ambitions, The first season of TOS is arguably the qualitatively most consistent of all Star Trek. There are two outright failures (Mudd’s Women, Court Martial), some interesting but quite problematic episodes (The Man Trap, Miri, Shore Leave, The Alternative Factor, Operation Annihilate) and then a bunch of very good episodes (Where no Man has gone before, The Corbomite Maneuver, The Naked Time, What are little Girls made of, Dagger of the Mind, The Galileo Seven, The Menagerie, The Squire of Gothos, Arena, Tomorrow is Yesterday, The Return of the Archons, A Taste of Armageddon, The Devil in the Dark, Errand of Mercy) finally topped by Charlie X, The Enemy Within, The Conscience of the King, Balance of Terror, Space Seed, This Side of Paradise, The Ciity on the Edge of Forever.
Even if you downgrade some episodes in my ranking the average quality is very high and this evaluation is shared by virtually every Star Trek Episode Guide on the net. TOS immediately clicked and immediately produced classics, while TNG and DS9 had a bumpy start with mediocre scripts and actors not finding the right approach.
Finnegan… Yeah. As someone from Ireland, the less said about Trek’s portrayals of Irishness, from Riley to Fairhaven, the better.
Thank goodness for Colm Meaney who managed to steer the writers away from stereotypes on DS9 (Rumpelstiltskin instead of a leprechaun in ‘Move Along Home’ (?) for example.
Lubitsch: I don’t know that I’d go as far as you with how bad TNG season 1 is — you can read my rewatch of TNG on this very site here — and it certainly isn’t the weakest season in all of Star Trek in a world that has almost any season of Voyager or Enterprise in it. Also “Heart of Glory” was hardly a high point……
I’m not going to speak to your episode rankings because I’ve already surprised myself a few times in this rewatch — I expected to think more highly of several episodes than I did — but we can go on that journey together. :)
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@21 Re “continuity” in TOS, I think there were a few factors of the 1960s US TV industry that made it difficult to do so. As I understand it, at that time TV series were only renewed for one season at a time, so it would have been hard to develop long-running story-arcs or significant character development. Also, as I understand it, TV networks had more control over which episodes aired in what order, which was often different than the order in which they were produced, so having references to other episodes’ events or characters could have been confusing if those episodes hadn’t actually aired yet.
@38/Russell H: Yes, but that’s not what I meant. I meant that it would have been nice if TNG had revisited some of the places from TOS. I would have preferred that to presenting one TOS character after the other in the new series (although I liked Unification).
Actually, I tend to prefer stand-alone episodes to long-running story arcs and I think there is sometimes too much character development in modern shows – after all, in real life people usually don’t change very much within a few years, either. So no complaints there.
I find the second season of TNG almost as uneven as the first. It doesn’t really pick up until the third season, for me. And when you consider that TOS only got three seasons, and there were staff upheavals after the second, is it any wonder that the whole of TOS comes out uneven? It’s going to pale in comparison to TNG, which had more than twice as many seasons, and far fewer issues like, say, most of the production staff leaving.
“Finnegan also shows up in the final two issues of the Who Killed Captain Kirk? story arc in DC’s second Star Trek run from issues 49-55 by David, Tom Sutton, & Ricardo Villagran”
It was actually DC’s FIRST Star Trek run. :-)
Oh–and Yeoman Barrows reappears in the final issue of DC’s first Star Trek run, issue #56, written by Martin Pasko and beautifully illustrated by Gray Morrow. At the beginning of the story, she is dying from radiation poisoning.
@32/Eduardo Jencarelli: “there are fans out there who still look back at the original show with rose-tinted glasses.”
Aaaaaand–loving it! ;-)
@38/Russell H: Shows today are only renewed one season at a time, so that’s not an issue. Plenty of modern shows develop ongoing mythology arcs and end on cliffhangers, but then get cancelled and never get to pay them off.
The difference between the ’60s and now is that back then, they didn’t have home video or the Internet, and hardly even had reruns, so it was much harder to experience a series as an overall whole rather than a succession of individual episodes. They didn’t even have VCRs yet, so if you missed an episode, you might never see it, ever. So it was necessary to make each episode self-contained and not dependent on anything else. Also, it was seen as more desirable to do so, since the classiest shows of the era were anthologies, while serialization was associated with cheesy daytime soap operas. So even ’60s shows with continuing casts aspired to be as anthology-like as possible.
@40/MeredithP: TNG had huge problems with the staff leaving. In its first two seasons, it was infamous for the “revolving door” in its writing staff. All its developers except Roddenberry were gone by the latter half of the first season, and nearly two dozen writer-producers came and went over the course of three years. The staff didn’t begin to stabilize until Michael Piller took over as showrunner in season 3, and it still continued to evolve after that.
Glenn: thanks for the corrections and the addendum — I’ve updated the trivial matters section accordingly. :)
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@35: Heart of Glory’s decent, at best.
11001001, on the other hand, is one of the best character pieces ever written on TNG. It did as much for Riker as The Best of Both Worlds eventually would. And it had a pretty original and inspired sci-fi plot to drive the action.
The Battle’s also worth mentioning, given what it did for Picard, establishing his backstory as well as showing his first real vulnerable moment as he pours his Stargazer memories to Beverly.
DS9’s first season, although packed with a bunch of unintersting shows, also has three of the show’s best hours ever made: Progress, Duet and In the Hands of the Prophets.
@46/Eduardo: “The Battle” has a good premise, but the script is awful. I had to draw on it when I depicted the “Battle of Maxia” at the start of my novel The Buried Age, and when you really try to analyze the specifics of what we were told, it’s pretty incoherent. It was quite an effort to rationalize it all (e.g. why would they abandon a ship and assume it was destroyed when it was actually still intact?). The dialogue is pretty bad too, there and in many other first-season episodes. The problem, apparently, is that Roddenberry’s lawyer Leonard Maizlish was rewriting the scripts himself on the ailing Roddenberry’s behalf, even though he wasn’t a writer.
Folks, I’m under a deadline gun, so the rewatch for “The Squire of Gothos” won’t be going up until Wednesday.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Yeah, I’m with Eduardo Jencarelli: I can’t stand this episode. I endure it so I can get to “The Squire of Gothos.” The whole thing is just a waste of time. But it was good to see Angela Martine again, and Tonia Barrows is hot hot hot. Sadly though, once again Uhura is left on the ship; talk about a missed opportunity for storytelling. It’s no mystery why Nichelle Nichols was frustrated and contemplated leaving.
A real stinker of an episode, and I’d say a 3 is very generous.
The Barrows character baffled me in that the amount of development she was given in that Episode makes.me think the producers in ended to make more.of her character in subsequent episodes. But poof, she’s gone and even the actor, Emily Banks, is not much on the radar afterwards, as far as I was able to find.
@50/DSL: Well, one, Barrows was originally going to be Rand, as stated above. And two, lots of ’60s TV episodes were written to focus heavily on guest characters who weren’t meant to be seen again afterward — see also Gary Mitchell, Dave Bailey, Charlie Evans, etc. The classiest dramas at the time were anthologies, and so even series with continuing casts aspired to be anthology-like. And reruns were less frequent and home video didn’t exist, so there was no guarantee you’d see every episode of a series or remember older episodes. So the focus of any given episode was strictly on the episode itself, not on what might be developed subsequently.
This is one of the TOS episodes I specifically recollect watching as a youth. I was mesmerized by the Finnegan character. I thought the actor did a great job of straddling the line and effectively portraying both a character we know to be a facsimile, yet with the exaggerated mannerisms that Kirk would naturally assign to him (it?) when remembering. The best delivery of a line here is when Finnegan wipes his mouth during a break in that long fight and says begrudgingly… “not bad”. The blossoming smile on Kirk’s face is perfect. That’s what Kirk wanted for all those years. Finnegan the annoying upperclassman, acknowledging that the plebe had balls.
I agree with trajan23, people do not react quite normally to the goings on the Shore Leave planet. I suspect there’s something in the air that makes one free associate a lot and be constantly distracted by the shiny objects because everybody’s focus is just shot.
Well I liked this episode a LOT more than everyone else did. I even bought the song RUTH from the soundtrack to listen to. Head canon time: I think both Ruth and Finnegan died in the line of duty. Kirk regrets not pursuing Ruth as a cadet and never getting back at Finnegan. I like the fight myself, a hardwon victory Kirk could “enjoy.” I didn’t notice anyone else mention it so will say I love the music video made with STAR TREK and “White Rabbit” by Jefferson Airplane.
@54/Ron: Kirk is usually quite the forgiving type. If Finnegan had died in the line of duty, I’m sure he would have felt that his old grievance paled in comparison. So I think Finnegan, at least, is still alive.
I too love this episode. I love how quirky the galaxy is, and the Alice in Wonderland refence, and the glimpse into Kirk’s youth. I just checked my original comment #13 and found that I didn’t say this outright back then. I also like Barrows, only her remark that “all a girl needs is Don Juan” is a bit disturbing.
I must say for an amusement park episode, it feels awfully devoid of rollercoasters =P
I’m on the Barrows is Hotter than Rand bandwagon for sure!
Even though I’m sure I failed my grade 4 metaphysics class, I really liked the concept put forth of more advanced minds having a greater need for play.
This is a favorite of mine, and I just love Barrow’s fairytale princess dress.
McCoy, defensively,: Well I am on shore leave!
Barrows, razor edged,: So. Am. I.
BTW, as a woman I think I can say the attentions of a man who interests you is never creepy. It’s unwanted attentions that creep you out. I also think that Barrow’s comments on what a girl wants are flirting. She is basically telling McCoy what she would like in the way of a shore leave romance.
Having just rewatched this episode, I realized something about the “seventeen day fight” with Finnegan. I’m not going to argue that the fight dragged on too long, but it did have its purpose. Kirk’s memories spawned his academy rival, but it wasn’t the enjoyment of beating the tar out of him that was driving the fight. At that point, Kirk wanted answers after McCoy’s death, but Finnegan was not going to show what was up the magician’s sleeve so to speak. It was an amusement park, after all, and it needed to keep the subject engaged. The closest Finnegan came to providing answers was when he said to Kirk, “I’m being exactly what you expect me to be, Jimmy boy”. Only once Kirk realized what was really going on, was he finally able to win. That theory could explain why it took so long for the fight to be resolved.
You guys take the fun out of this episode. It’s lighthearted and amusing!! One of my favorite episodes of Star Trek. I’d hate to see what you think of The City on the Edge of Forever – my all time favorite! But I do like your synopsis of the episode before the comments.
@59/Denise Miller:
Haha, I think you would be hard pressed indeed to find many critics of “The City On the Edge of Forever”! Not saying there isn’t any haters, but it’s definitely overwhelmingly loved by Trek fans.
As for “Shore Leave”, I’m a huge fan of the episode; I think it’s great fun. However, I can definitely understand the people who prefer more substance out of their Trek. But once in a while I think it’s healthy to just turn our brains off and enjoy the lighter side.
I can see Kirk and Finnegan meeting up at a starbase and kirk telling him all about the ‘seventeen day fight’ over a drink while Finnegan laughs like a loon. Then apologizes for the hazing saying maybe he got a little too rough. And Kirk, sense of proportion firmly in place answering maybe he took it a little too hard, and both toasting the Academy.
What happened to Martine at the end? The aliens resurrected McCoy, but nobody seemed particularly concerned about resurrecting Martine. You’d think Kirk being responsible for the well being of his crew and all might have brought that up to the alien before wandering off to get a little action with his ex-girlfriend.
@62 Martine (Teller) entered in the background after McCoy. She’s visible in the screencap under “Fascinating,” gazing down behind Spock’s arm.
@62-63: The episode script contains a few additional lines after McCoy’s dancers move to Sulu and Spock:
I have a very soft spot in my heart for this episode: it was the first one I ever saw at the age of 7 (on Betamax no less! Back when the label on the tape read “Star Trek: The Television Series”). I still love it even though some parts have not aged well. And the music is killer. I have the soundtrack to the entire original series on CD. Oh and for everyone who thinks the fight between Kirk and Finnegan is too long, I have four words for you: John Carpenter’s They Live.
Shore Leave is one of my favorite episodes, as it has a ‘magical quality’ to it – and the warm light of the outdoor filming location added to that effect. However, yes, as the reviewer pointed out, the episode had many flaws. The fight sequences between Kirk and Finnegan went on far too long – at the expense of what could have been more compelling scenes and dialogues. The reviewer raised an interesting point that had not occurred to me before: all the things the crew thought about were from Earth’s distant past (Alice, the white rabbit, Don Juan, samurai warrior, tiger, etc.) But I think this was done so that the audience (us) would have familiar points of reference. If they were thinking of things from, say, the 21st or 22nd century, we would not know what they are. But I guess you could say that Finnegan and Ruth were manifestations of something more “recent.” Also Yeoman Barrows was a welcome addition – not only extraordinarily beautiful, but also highly intelligent. I wish we had seen her in other episodes.
@66/Palash Ghosh: “The reviewer raised an interesting point that had not occurred to me before: all the things the crew thought about were from Earth’s distant past (Alice, the white rabbit, Don Juan, samurai warrior, tiger, etc.) But I think this was done so that the audience (us) would have familiar points of reference.”
That, and to save money by recycling existing costumes, props, etc. from the studio warehouse. Same reason there were so many Earth-duplicate alien worlds and illusion-creating telepathic aliens out there.
The gun Sulu dreamed up is a revolver instead of a laser pistol so that Kirk can use it later to “kill” the knight; a laser weapon would have been drained of it’s power like their phasers. Not that that is a good enough reason.
The endless fight scene reminded me strongly of the fight at the end of The Quiet Man, which goes on for something like ten minutes like some kind of Family Guy joke.
@68/Michael Booth: More likely the gun was a revolver because it was cheaper to use one of the existing gun props Desilu had in storage than to design and build a futuristic weapon.
Having just watched ‘Shore Leave’ again, I must wonder – why would crewmen want to meet with artificially-manufactured replicas of people from their past? It was strongly implied that Kirk went to have sex with “Ruth” and perhaps McCoy dallied with those two showgirls. This raises all kinds of ethical questions and seems to be in poor taste. They’re not exactly “illusions” since they were “manufactured” by the planet’s inhabitants – and they are not real!