“Journey to Babel”
Written by D.C. Fontana
Directed by Joseph Pevney
Season 2, Episode 15
Production episode 60344
Original air date: November 17, 1967
Stardate: 3842.3
Captain’s log. Kirk, Spock, and McCoy, in full dress uniforms and alongside an honor guard, meet the last of the one hundred-plus delegates the Enterprise is escorting to a conference on a planetoid codenamed Babel to discuss the issue of Coridan’s admission to the Federation: Ambassador Sarek of Vulcan, along with two aides, and his wife Amanda Grayson. Sarek treats Spock with obvious contempt, which makes it an even bigger surprise when Spock reveals that Sarek and Amanda are his parents.
Kirk conducts Sarek and Amanda on a tour. When they reach engineering, they see Spock, and while Sarek ignores him, Amanda does not, expressing disappointment (a) that Spock still hasn’t learned to smile (obviously she’s unaware of how he responds to vibrating Talosian flowers) and (b) that he hasn’t visited home in four years.
Deciding to play diplomat, Kirk asks Spock to explain the computer components in engineering, but Sarek tartly says that he gave Spock his first instruction in computer science, and dismissively adds that he is now wasting those skills in Starfleet rather than for Vulcan. Kirk apologizes for giving offense after Spock excuses himself, and Sarek says that offense is a human emotion. Right.
Sarek heads to his quarters to rest, leaving Amanda to finish the tour. She reveals that father and son have not spoken for eighteen years. Sarek wished Spock to follow in his footsteps, as Sarek followed in his father’s. Amanda describes the Vulcan way as better than the human way, but it’s also much harder.
Uhura reports a signal she picked up—a strong signal, with no obvious language, and with no traceable source.
That night, there’s a reception for the delegates. McCoy mentions that Sarek had retired prior to this mission, and he asks why he retired so young, as he’s only 102.437 years old. Sarek’s answer is evasive. Then the Tellarite ambassador, Gav, asks Sarek what his vote will be on Coridan, and Sarek is equally evasive. The Andorian ambassador, Shras, gets into it as well before Kirk manages to defuse the discussion. Shras and Sarek apologize while Gav just storms off in a huff.
Amanda reveals that Sarek and Gav have debated before, and Gav lost. She also reveals to an amused McCoy that Spock had a teddy bear growing up, though Spock adds that the “teddy bear” in question was alive and had six-inch fangs.
Chekov reports that there’s a ship shadowing them at extreme sensor range. Kirk calls yellow alert and he and Spock report to the bridge. The configuration is unknown, and the ship refuses to answer hails. Kirk moves to intercept, but the ship stays away, moving at warp 10. When Kirk orders Chekov to resume original course, the ship parallels them again.
Back in their quarters, Sarek rebukes Amanda for embarrassing Spock. Amanda tweaks Sarek, saying he takes pride in Spock’s accomplishments, but Sarek doesn’t take the bait, saying only that he deserves respect as an officer.
Sarek returns to the reception, and takes medication with his drink. Gav then confronts him, and Sarek admits that Vulcan favors admission of Coridan to the Federation. He also mentions that Tellarite ships have been known to use Coridan dilithium crystals and makes noises about illegal mining operations. Resentful at being accused of thievery, Gav attacks Sarek, which the Vulcan ambassador effortlessly parries. Kirk arrives just in time and breaks it up.
Later that night, Josephs, a security guard, finds Gav murdered in a Jefferies Tube. McCoy examines the body and explains that Gav’s neck was broken by an expert. Spock recognizes the Vulcan technique of tal-shaya, considered a merciful form of execution in ancient times.
Kirk, Spock, and McCoy go to the ambassador’s quarters to question Sarek, who has been meditating.
Before the questioning can continue, Sarek collapses. McCoy’s preliminary exam reveals that it has something to do with his cardiovascular system.
Spock can’t get any solid readings on the ship shadowing them—it appears to be shielded against sensors in some way. There is a crew, but he can’t make out specific life-form readings. Meanwhile, Uhura picks up the weird transmission again, and this time she determines that the signal came from the other ship, and was directed at the Enterprise. The transmission is encrypted, but it matches no known code, so Spock can’t do anything with it.
McCoy reports that Sarek has a heart condition, and it turns out that he’s had three attacks like this before (without telling Amanda) and been prescribed meds for it. He also admits that he had such an attack when Gav was being murdered—but there are no witnesses.
Surgery is required to fix the heart condition, but it requires large quantities of blood, more than they have on board. Sarek’s blood type is rare. Spock has the same type, but it’s diluted by human elements, so he would have to give a boatload to make the operation work. McCoy and Spock find an experimental drug that would speed up replacement of blood. It works on Rigellians, who are similar to Vulcans. McCoy doesn’t think it’s safe, plus the side effects could kill Sarek in his condition. However, Spock is healthy enough that it’s less risky for him to take the drug, and it would enable him to transfuse Sarek with less risk.
There are still a lot of things that can go wrong, but Sarek will die if they do nothing—at least with the operation, he’ll have a chance.
Thelev, one of Shras’s aides, jumps Kirk in the corridor. Kirk takes him down, but not before he’s stabbed in the side. McCoy is able to save Kirk, though he did get a punctured lung.
Unfortunately, with Kirk out of action, Spock can no longer aid in the operation, as he is now in command. He interrogates Thelev, but he reveals nothing, and Shras knows only that he has been an adequate aide, but knows nothing of him beyond that.
Amanda visits Spock in his quarters and begs him to relinquish command. Spock insists that the oath he took when he was commissioned requires him to be in command, especially given the one hundred delegates, not to mention the murder of one of those delegates, and the attempted murder of the captain. Amanda begs him to be human for a minute and think of his father. But Spock can’t risk interplanetary war to save the life of one person.
Kirk wakes up, and won’t let Sarek die, so he pretends to be better than he is long enough to relieve Spock and send him to sickbay. Once Spock’s gone, he’ll put Scotty in command and report to his quarters.
The plan works up until the last part, as once Spock leaves the bridge, the alien ship starts to move closer, and so Kirk stays in the center seat. Uhura picks up the transmission again, and it’s coming from the brig. Kirk has security search the prisoner, and Thelev attacks Josephs, but the other guard stuns him, and one antenna falls off, revealing a transmitter.
Kirk goes to red alert as the ship approaches, and has Thelev brought to the bridge, but the spy has no answers for him, just smug assurances that they’re all going to die. The alien ship fires on the Enterprise, which doesn’t make McCoy’s job any easier. The smaller ship is able to score plenty of direct hits, but it’s too small and maneuverable for the Enterprise to get a hit.
Kirk orders power cut to the port side, and then a few seconds later, orders the same to starboard side. They play dead until the ship comes into weapons range to check them out, and they score a direct hit, disabling the ship. However, the ship explodes before Uhura can make a surrender request. Thelev says their orders were to self-destruct rather than be captured; and then Thelev collapses, revealing that he had the same orders, as the poison he took kills him.
Kirk goes to sickbay, where McCoy decides to give Kirk shit about shaking the ship around while he was trying to operate. Amanda rescues him and invites him to see Spock and Sarek, who are recovering nicely. Spock reveals what he figured out during the operation: it was probably an Orion ship, deliberately overpowered as it was a suicide mission. Orion smugglers have raided Coridan, and disrupting the conference, and possibly starting a war, would benefit them.
Amanda asks if Sarek wishes to thank Spock for saving his life. Sarek doesn’t believe one should thank logical behavior, and Amanda expresses her great frustration with logic, prompting Sarek and Spock to tease her on the subject.
Kirk then collapses, and McCoy puts him to bed, and won’t let Spock leave sickbay, either, until they’re both recovered. Kirk and Spock try to then tease him about how much he’s enjoying bossing everyone around, but he shuts them both up, and then takes great glee in finally getting the last word.
Can’t we just reverse the polarity? The Orion ship operates at 100% power, making it appear to be more powerful than it actually is, which both serves to disguise its origins, and also allows the ship to do more cool stuff. It could afford to waste power that way because it was a suicide mission anyhow…
Fascinating. Spock chose a Starfleet career over the Vulcan Science Academy. That decision estranged him from his father until this episode. According to Amanda, Vulcans find the use of force to be distasteful, and she implies that Vulcans serving in Starfleet are rare. (We’ll later learn that this isn’t the truth; then again, it’s probably more Sarek’s bias than the entire culture’s…)
I’m a doctor not an escalator. McCoy hates dress uniforms and loves when he gets the last word. He also insists that he’s studied Vulcan anatomy thoroughly, yet he doesn’t know whether or not Sarek’s blood pressure is good or not. (The very next episode will add Vulcan expert Dr. M’Benga to the cast, and you have to think it’s because McCoy was so totally out of his depth in operating on Sarek—a Federation diplomat of high standing whose life was in McCoy’s hands—that Starfleet insisted that someone actually competent to work on Vulcans serve on the ship.)
Hailing frequencies open. Uhura is the one who traces the signal Thelev was using to keep in touch with his bosses, which proves quite useful.
I cannot change the laws of physics! Scotty doesn’t actually appear in the episode, though he is referenced numerous times as one who can take command of the ship while Spock transfuses Sarek.
It’s a Russian invention. With Spock out of commission, Chekov does double duty as navigator (which includes firing weapons) and science officer, as he staffs Spock’s station as well.
No sex, please, we’re Starfleet. Sarek and Amanda show affection for each other by a very simple touching of the first two fingers to each other.
Go put on a red shirt. Security actually does their job this week, starting simply by providing an honor guard for Sarek, then finding Gav’s body and reporting it, then finding the transmitter on Thelev and revealing that he’s not a real Andorian.
Channel open.
“Emotional, isn’t she?”
“She has always been that way.”
“Indeed? Why did you marry her?”
“At the time, it seemed the logical thing to do.”
–Spock and Sarek making fun of Amanda.
Welcome aboard. Reggie Nadler brings a quiet dignity to the role of Shras, while John Wheeler brings a haughty arrogance to the role of Gav (aided by his makeup, which forced him to raise his head in order to be able to see, which wound up selling the notion of arrogance). William O’Connell plays Thelev, James X. Mitchell plays Josephs, and we have recurring regulars Nichelle Nichols, Walter Koenig, and Majel Barrett.
But, of course, the big guests are Mark Lenard and Jane Wyatt (who was credited as “Miss Jane Wyatt” out of respect for her lengthy and impressive career) as, respectively, Sarek and Amanda. Lenard previously appeared as the Romulan commander in “Balance of Terror,” and will also play a Klingon in The Motion Picture. He’ll return to the role of Sarek in “Yesteryear” on the animated series, in “Sarek” and “Unification I” on TNG, and in the movies The Search for Spock, The Voyage Home, and The Undiscovered Country. The character of Sarek will also be played by Jonathan Simpson in flashback in The Final Frontier and by Ben Cross in the 2009 Star Trek. Wyatt will return to the role of Amanda in The Voyage Home; Majel Barrett voiced her in “Yesteryear,” and she’s played by Cynthia Blaise in flashback in The Final Frontier and by Winona Ryder in the 2009 film.
Trivial matters: This episode introduces many elements to the Star Trek universe that will remain major parts of the milieu: Spock’s parents, Andorians, Tellarites, and Coridan. It also shows the Orions as antagonists, where previously all we knew about them was that their women dance well.
Spock’s parents were established as being an ambassador and a teacher in “This Side of Paradise,” also written by D.C. Fontana. Fontana chose the name “Amanda” for Spock’s mother because it means “worthy of being loved.”
Mark Lenard was cast as Spock’s father despite being only seven years older than Leonard Nimoy.
Andorians and Tellarites will be seen again in “Whom Gods Destroy” and in background roles in several of the TOS movies. Many tie-in works stated that those two species, as well as Vulcans and humans, were the founding members of the Federation, which was established onscreen and fleshed out in the series Enterprise, which also did quite a bit to develop the Tellarites and especially the Andorians (Shran, an Andorian played by Jeffrey Combs, was a major recurring character in Enterprise).
It won’t be established until “Sarek” on TNG what the result of the conference was: Coridan was admitted to the Federation. Coridan was also seen quite a bit on Enterprise, starting with “Shadows of P’Jem.”
Spock being tormented by Vulcan children for being a halfbreed and his pet sehlat will both be seen in the animated “Yesteryear.” More such tormenting as well as his decision to go to Starfleet Academy rather than the Vulcan Science Academy will be dramatized in the 2009 Star Trek.
The 2007 remastering of this episode included an actual design for the Orion ship, which was originally just seen as a blob of light because NBC really liked the look of the various aliens in the episode and asked that it be rushed through post-production so it could be aired sooner.
The number of tie-in novels that feature Sarek and Amanda are too numerous to list here, but some of them include Sarek by A.C. Crispin, The Vulcan Academy Murders and The IDIC Epidemic by Jean Lorrah, Ishmael by Barbara Hambly, Demons by J.M. Dillard, Crucible: Spock: The Fire and the Rose by David R. George III, and Spock’s World by Diane Duane.
DS9‘s “Favor the Bold” will establish that Starfleet named a vessel the U.S.S. Sarek.
To boldly go. “Threats are illogical, and payment is usually expensive.” I’ve said this before, in my review of TNG‘s “Sarek,” and I stand by what I said four years ago: this episode is awful.
Yes, it’s important in the grand scheme of things, in that it gives us Sarek and Amanda, and Spock’s parents are critically important parts of the franchise going forward. From just this one appearance in 1967, the Andorians and Tellarites captured the imaginations of tie-in writers and game writers even though the species themselves barely appeared again as anything other than walk-ons until 2001 when Enterprise debuted and took them on. And the closing scene with Spock and Sarek reconnecting over making fun of Amanda and McCoy getting the last word is truly a classic.
But the actual story just is wretched. First of all, the dynamic between Sarek and Amanda is cringe-inducing. After giving us two powerful, influential Vulcan women in “Amok Time” in T’Pring and T’Pau, we get this sexist drivel with Sarek and Amanda where the latter responds to Sarek commanding her to finish the tour with, “He’s a Vulcan, I’m his wife,” as if that explains why he treats her like an employee rather than a spouse. “This Side of Paradise” established both of Spock’s parents’ vocations, but while Sarek’s ambassadorial career is front and center, you’d never know that Amanda was a teacher from this episode. In fact, you’d never know she did anything but say “how high?” when Sarek says “jump.”
My biggest issue with the episode, though, is that the core conflict involving whether or not Spock will transfuse his father is presented as a dichotomy between Vulcan logic and human emotion and it so totally isn’t. Every single argument Spock makes has nothing to do with Vulcan philosophy and everything to do with the oath he took as a Starfleet officer and the duties he is forced to perform as first officer of the ship. Yes, the script casts it as Spock choosing the logical course of action, but that logic just gives him a clearer path to duty that has nothing to do with what planet he was raised on and everything to do with the braid on his cuff. And he’s right: there are a hundred high-ranking Federation delegates on board, there’s been a murder and an assault on the captain, and there’s a hostile ship trailing them. Yes, Sarek’s life is in danger, but there are more than five hundred people on board whose lives are also in danger just from the situation, and that’s not something he can fob off on the chief engineer.
On top of that, apparently being in command is so important that Spock can’t go off to sickbay, but it’s not so important that he can’t ass about in his quarters having a very lengthy argument with his mother on the subject.
I am abject in my love for Mark Lenard, and he infuses Sarek with dignity and experience, but he’s also, to be blunt, an asshole. Where’s the logic in not talking to your son because he made his own choice? Being brought up to do what your daddy done is a notion based in sentiment, not logic. And I’m less than impressed by his dismissal of human emotions given how thoroughly he’s grasped disapproval, contempt, and arrogance. Oh, and racial prejudice: “Tellarites do not argue for reasons, they just argue.” Yeah.
I know everyone talks about what a great episode this is, and I know that my take on it is not the popular one. But I’ve never liked this episode. I’ve never liked Sarek and Amanda’s “traditional” marriage that’s more at home with Jane Wyatt’s prior role on Father Knows Best than it is an alien species that has previously been shown to be logical and to appear possibly matriarchal or at the very least comfortable with strong women. I’ve never liked the plot contrivances.
Warp factor rating: 4
Next week: “A Private Little War”
Keith R.A. DeCandido‘s latest work of fiction is “Streets of Fire” in the anthology V-Wars: Night Terrors, the third volume in the shared-world vampire series created and edited by Jonathan Maberry and published in print by IDW and audio by Blackstone.
I don’t know what you are talking about in this paragraph, clearly neither cut rate animation nor a Trek movie after Nemesis exist. You must have popped in from another universe where goatees are strangely common.
Other than that… I’m sorry, but I love this episode and all the books that spring from it so much that it is granted a mark of perfect in perpetuity. It is magically protected from any sort of criticism as far as I am concerned. The episodes and movies were only rarely available when I grew up (a lot of the time the tv was not available at all to watch anything) so the books were my intro and this episode has such a huge literary impact in both the officially licensed books and the fanzines and convention works that it is just too covered in that kind of weird nostalgia to judge it.
I’m usually right there with you when you cry sexism, Keith; usually it is well deserved. But I don’t see it in Sarek and Amanda’s relationship. Yes, Amanda is publicly deferential to Sarek — but the way Jane Wyatt plays it convinces me that she is indeed a strong woman. She challenges Sarek in private — gently, yes, but challenges him all the same — and, when his back is turned, she talks with Kirk in such a way that, to me, makes clear she is “indulging” (maybe not the right word) her husband because of both his public position and his stubborn male Vulcan ego. She loves this man; I don’t get the sense that he does ever tell her to “jump”… This seems a marriage of equals, within some very traditional boundaries. When Sarek says, “My wife, attend,” he isn’t calling a dog to heel — at least, judging from her reactions, that’s not how Amanda takes it. She doesn’t go over to him with head hanging down, groveling for having wandered off; she simply goes. This is IDIC – she’s chosen, freely, to live within this relationship with this man that they’ve made work as they see best.
You don’t like their marriage, but you’re okay with Sarek and Spock openly mocking her at the end? (Your characterization, not mine – I see it as affectionate teasing that only folks who really care about each other dare try, let alone get away with.)
The only bits I’ve never liked about this one are those square globs of colored Play-Doh the alien ambassadors are eating at the reception.
Yeah, I don’t see the blatant sexism in their relationship either.
Everything you say is true, but I still love this episode – so much that I selected it as the third or fourth episode to show to my daughters last year. One main reason are the aliens, who for once don’t look like humans, but are blue and have antennae, or look a little bit like pigs, or are small and golden (we never get to see those again, do we?), and all those weird-looking people are ambassadors and are treated with great respect. I love the reception scene, and so did my fifteen-year-old when I showed her the episode.
Another reason is that there is so much stuff going on, and all the time the main characters try to do the right thing and find solutions for a difficult situation that is constantly changing (and getting more difficult).
A Vulcan acting in what we’d see as a sexist manner? Where could they have possibly gotten that idea?
T’PAU: He will have to fight for her. It is her right. T’Pring, thee has chosen the kal-if-fee, the challenge. Thee are prepared to become the property of the victor?
T’PRING: I am prepared.
Never liked this episode too, though mostly not for reasons Keith mentioned.
It’s one of those that inspire a lot of tie-in fiction and there is a lot of fanfiction on the net centered on it as well, with authors trying to make sense of characters’ motivations, and it’s because the episode totally fails in this regard. All this story about Spock, his childhood and his relationship with his parents was obviously intended to be dramatic but comes off as contradictory instead. I get that the concept of IDIC was invented later in the series, but still Vulcans who are said to be logical and unemotional are coming off here as arrogant, intolerant and racist in general. And Sarek and Amanda both are rather unpleasant characters based on this episode alone. Political intrigue is badly done, and save for the spacefight scene it’s rather boring 50 minutes.
Also here’s another instant of Spock withholding relevant information and getting away with it, though thankfully this time it doesn’t result in any danger, only embarrasment all around. Are there no regulations against officers knowingly misleading the captain, for God’s sake?
As for the final scene, I find in cringeworthy and, even worse, extremely unbelievable. It’s like they thought “oh, we have only 3 minutes left and we need a happy ending, what to do?!” and slapped this scene on just for the sake of it.
I’d give it 4 for the impact and plotlines it generated, but it wasn’t good at all, IMHO.
Have to disagree about McCoy. He says a lot of things, but when it comes to it he is able to perform a very complicated surgery where he had to know exactly what blood pressure, heart rate etc is normal and what not for Vulcan and for half-Vulcan not to mention anatomy and everything. Judging by result, he clearly knew what he was doing – you don’t get everyone alive and well and without lingering complications on guesswork alone. But then again, I myself said that I fimd the last scene unbelievable…
Afraid I have to disagree with you as well,Keith…I adore this episode.
Ironically, today I watched this episode with some of my grade 11 history students, who are only beginning their Star Trek education, and didn’t care much for the JJ Abrams Treks. They all thoroughly enjoyed “Babel”, and the final exchange between Spock & Sarek regarding Amanda brought the house down. They also applauded Kirk’s awesomeness at bluffing Spock to resume command…with a stab wound in his back. As you’ve said before, because he’s just that awesome. :)
Mind you, we debated Kirk’s dropkick to nothing in the corridor for what seemed like an age…
I’ve never been a huge fan of this episode. What I do like and was always impressed with was Sarek, and Mark Lenard’s portrayal of him. From the moment he appears Lenard just owns him, no one else can hold a candle to Mark’s Sarek. Just very regal, like he would be at home as a Ceasar of Rome. Also, the ending with Sarek and Spock teasing Amanda reminds me far too much of my father and I teasing my mother sometimes.
The episode itself was always ‘just okay’ to me.
Or, to pull from something that hasn’t happened yet as of this episode: “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.”
I always took McCoy’s statements in this episode about Vulcan anatomy as being his little joke to rib the Vulcans. Ooooh, Vulcans are sooooo strange and I don’t know anything about them, but I’ll cut the Ambassador open and save his bacon. In other words, he’s screwing with everyone.
When Sarek said “Tellarites do not argue for reasons, they just argue”, he wasn’t being racist. He was simply reminding Shras of Tellarite custom (which was both mentioned and dramatized in the Enterprise episode “Babel One”).
For those who never seen the Enterprise episode: Tellarites regard argumentiveness as a form of courtesy. And it goes both ways: they actually become offended if you don’t respond in a similar way.
I don’t understand how it’s perfectly reasonable for Sulu to command the ship in “The Deadly Years” but it’s completely unreasonable for him to command the ship in this episode, Keith. Why are his skills good enough to get the Enterprise through a potentially deadly confrontation in one episode but not in another? It’s not a choice between saving 1 vs. saving 500, it’s a choice between saving 501 vs. 500.
Keith, you criticize the episode on the grounds that what Spock and Sarek claim to be logical, Vulcan motivations are actually nothing of the sort, but I think that’s the entire point. Fontana was not trying to write characters who truly acted logically — she was writing characters who acted out of stubbornness and pride and who used logic as their excuse. Spock was driven by neither logic nor duty but his underlying resentment toward his father, and Sarek was just using logic and “the Vulcan way” as an excuse for being a judgmental jerk. (As I had the post-V’Ger Spock express it in his inner thoughts in my novel Ex Machina, Vulcan thought is not so much wholly rational as wholly rationalized.) So the illogic of their allegedly logical behavior is a feature, not a bug. It’s exactly what Fontana was going for. After all, a story about characters behaving rationally and unemotionally wouldn’t be all that dramatically interesting. The best Vulcan stories are those where their logic is a mask or an excuse for what’s really going on beneath the surface, perhaps without them consciously realizing what really motivates them. How many human fathers and sons concoct equally elaborate rationalizations for the rifts between them?
I have more of a problem with the idea that Kirk and McCoy have known Spock for years without knowing that his father was a galactically famous ambassador. Wouldn’t that be on his service record? Also, why are all these delegates coming to Babel on a single starship? Isn’t there other transport available?
The first onscreen appearance of undisguised Orion males would be in the animated episode “The Pirates of Orion” by Howard Weinstein (though the actors would pronounce it “Oar-ee-yon” for some reason). Interestingly, they were rendered as blue-skinned instead of green. Granted, TAS’s director Hal Sutherland had a kind of colorblindness that led to some odd coloring choices — like pink Kzinti spacesuits — but could it be that they were assuming that Thelev was naturally blue-skinned and that’s why he chose to impersonate an Andorian? TAS also featured an Orion woman in “The Time Trap,” and her skin was pale green. Maybe they thought the men were blue and the women were green. Although Enterprise disproved that much later on.
@1/Random22: “cut rate animation”: Actually TAS had a high budget for a ’70s Saturday morning animated show, although a lot of that went to the actors. Compared to the state of the art for TV animation in the day, TAS looked quite good. I was a child in the ’70s, and I preferred Filmation’s shows to Hanna-Barbera’s (their main competitor) because I found Filmation’s to be better-looking and better-written.
@4/Jana: “aliens, who… are small and golden (we never get to see those again, do we?)”
We almost did. They were going to appear in Enterprise‘s “Terra Prime” and be named as Ithenites (a species mentioned earlier in “Azati Prime”), but the scene went unfilmed. They have appeared under that name in prose fiction, including my first Rise of the Federation novel.
@8/Loungeshep: Interesting that you compare Mark Lenard to a Caesar. In high school English class, when my teacher had me recite the “Friends, Romans, countrymen” speech from Julius Caesar to the class, I modeled my delivery on Lenard, because I thought the bust of Mark Antony in the book resembled him. (I’d also been playing Brutus in the class read-throughs of the play — most of the class just read, but I acted — and I modeled him on Shatner.)
@12/Idran: I think the difference is that in “The Deadly Years,” Kirk, Spock, and Scott were all incapacitated, so Sulu was the most qualified officer available. In this case, Spock was the most qualified officer available.
@11/OmicronThetaDeltaPhi: But Gav does have a reason here.
I think that Sarek’s comment was supposed to be insulting. Later it was taken as a factual statement about Tellarites, but that’s a retcon.
You’re right about Gav having a reason, of-course. But acknowledging this in front of Shras wouldn’t have been such a bright idea…
And I realize it’s a retcon, but in my opinion it is a good retcon that makes sense.
Actually, given what we know about Vulcans, this retcon doesn’t even contradict your interpertation of the scene. I think Sarek was somewhat disdainful towards this Tellarite quirk, because Vulcans have always been portrayed as a somewhat arrogant people (although no Vulcan would ever admit this, of-course, ’cause arrogance is an emotion).
Sexism is obviously in the eye of the beholder. *wry grin* I’m willing to accept that not everyone sees this as I do. But I stand by how I view Sarek and Amanda’s relationship. Nyah!
kkozoriz: And that line stood out like a sore thumb, as I mentioned in the rewatch of same.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Two thing that bugs me about this episode is the Vulcan chauvinism in Amanda’s little speech near the beginning that “the Vulcan Way is better” and as soon the “Vulcan Way” hands a likely result she does not like, she pleads with Spock to be more human. She either does not really believe or she is willing to make excepions when it affects her negatively.
And then there is the cognitive dissonance from Sarek who apparently has a thing for human women (he marries at least two during his lifetime) but also manages to be Vulcan traditionalist who practically disowns his hybrid son for not devoting himself to Vulcan. Your logic is flawed, Ambassador!
“First of all, the dynamic between Sarek and Amanda is cringe-inducing.”
Preach it. I love both of them, but this just screams mid-1960s (or 1950s). He treats her as if she’s a moron and to add insult to injury, his almost grin during the two-finger touching is – well, yuck. I pretend that scene doesn’t exist.
But that’s not uncommon in Star Trek – the original, I mean. Women are often treated as if they’re children or stupid. How many times did poor Uhura have to say “I’m frightened” or did some close by woman hold on to Kirk when the ship was being attacked?
We had come a long way baby, as the commercial back then claimed, but we hadn’t come *quite* far enough. Sometimes in rewatching this (and other 1960s shows – had the same thing happen last week when I watched Bonanza, the woman’s role was just cringe-worthy), I just shudder. I can’t quite remember if it was really like this (I was a kid and “women as second class citizens” was still the order of the day) or if TV exaggerated it.
Even so, the ep gave us Sarek and Amanda, and the Andorians, etc. And I loved McCoy having the last word. The scene where Spock and Sarek were teasing Amanda wasn’t sexist; it actually was realistic and quite funny.
krad: The line may have stood out like a sore thumb but it was there after all. Vulcans can be just as sexist as humans are (or is that will be?). Should they be re-writing what we learned about the various aliens each time they’re brought back? Maybe Vulcan wedding combat isn’t really to the death after all. I’ve seen a number of people objecting to that part of Vulcan culture so let’s ignore it going forward. Same with people not knowing about Pon Farr. Make it common knowledge. Makes the Vulcans less prudish after all.
These are supposed to be aliens after all, not Bob and Betty from suburbia. Their having customs that we find strange or even offensive should be the norm, not the exception. The interesting story here is why would a woman so obviously in touch with her feelings be willing to put up with what we see as Sarek’s (and Vulcan’s) sexism in the first place?
@18/T’Bonz: “or did some close by woman hold on to Kirk when the ship was being attacked?”
That only happened in “Balance of Terror” with Yeoman Rand, and the second-season version of the writers’ guide actually opened with a critique of that exact scene as the sort of unrealistic thing they didn’t want in the show. So even they found it an embarrassment in retrospect. Although it was more for matters of realism than gender equality.
Count me as one who likes this episode, though I’d put it in the lower half of my top ten.
You mentioned the racial prejudice, about how Tellarites like to argue. True, it is prejudice on display there, but hasn’t that always been a problem with Star Trek and alien races? For all the well-deserved points it gets for its diverse human cast, there’s been a common shorthand it’s used with mono-cultures — Klingons are warriors, Romulans are paranoid, Ferengi are greedy, Vulcans are stoic and completely logical (a trap you seem to have fallen into with this review) — with very few exceptions. That dull Next Gen episode with a Ferengi scientist comes to mind. And then there’s Spock’s long lost brother.
With the new series due next year, I hope we see a greater variety of aliens. I don’t remember every single episode, so I wonder: have we ever seen a pacifist Klingon?
Did anyone else find it odd that Uhura openly screwed up in this episode? She had determined that the signal was being received by someone on board the Enterprise but neglected to adjust the signal locator and Kirk had to call her out on it. I suppose anyone can make a mistake like that, but I think it came off looking like a minor contrivance in an attempt to explain the delay in finding the spy before he can do more damage (like attack Kirk).
@21/Sketchy: “have we ever seen a pacifist Klingon?”
Well, not exactly, but there was Kolos in Enterprise‘s “Judgment.” He was an elderly Klingon lawyer who revealed that the warrior class had only risen to dominance within his lifetime, that before then, Klingons in other walks of life were more respected. “We were a great society not so long ago, when honor was earned through integrity and acts of true courage, not senseless bloodshed.” People tend to dismiss ENT, but that episode was pretty much the only time the Klingons were ever treated onscreen like a realistic civilization with diverse social roles and attitudes, rather than just a uniform bunch of samurai space Vikings (or fascist space Mongols in TOS).
@23 — Thanks for answering my question. I’d forgotten all about that episode. I need to rewatch Enterprise. Like you said, people tend to dismiss it, but there’s some real jewels here and there.
Another cheer (or 3) for Mark Lenard. Sarek may be kind of a jerk in this episode — though not at the end — but in TNG he just about broke my heart in those wonderful episodes when he was dying and Picard came to see him. And Mark Lenard did break my heart when he passed away, far too young. An absolutely indelible character.
richf: I was peeved by that as well. She’s supposed to be a professional but comes across as incompetent in order to make Kirk look good. Sure she first noticed the signal but later Kirk had to basically tell her how to do her job.
I wonder how many ships were ferrying delegates to Babel. Surely the Enterprise wasn’t the only one. You wouldn’t want to subject all these high ranking diplomats to a milk run tour of the Federation. There were probably a minimum of three or four others with just as many delegates aboard coming from different parts of the Federation. I wonder what sort of trouble they had. Or was it just the ship with the Andorians and Tellarites aboard that the Orions targeted?
I have wondered for decades why “logical” Vulcan kids would torment Spock because of his birth. That always screamed “emotional” and “illogical” to me. And youth should be no excuse.
@21/Sketchy: “have we ever seen a pacifist Klingon?”
There was also Konom in the DC comic series.
“Konom was a pacifist Klingon defector who served as an honorary ensign on board the USS Enterprise, the USS Excelsior, and the USS Enterprise-A from 2285 to 2287. (DC Comics first series)”
Konom
sps49: Keep in mind that Vulcans suppress emotion and value logic by choice, not by biology. In fact, their biological urges are the opposite. “The Naked Time,” “Balance of Terror,” “All Our Yesterdays,” and “Sarek” in particular all make it clear that the default for Vulcans is not emotionless logic, but turbulent, violent emotions that they only tamp down through self-discipline. Youth is absolutely an excuse because they don’t have that discipline yet.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@13/Christopher: I read the Rise of the Federation novels a couple of months ago, and was delighted that you included them, so thank you for that! I didn’t know that they almost appeared in Enterprise. Pity!
@15/OmicronThetaDeltaPhi: I agree that it’s a good retcon. It allowed the writers to do a lot of fun stuff. It’s also older than Enterprise – I first encountered it in Garfield and Judith Reeves-Stevens’ novel Prime Directive. And yes, Sarek still insults Gav when he dismisses his complaints like that.
@17/Crusader75: The way I see Amanda, she isn’t really interested in the Vulcan way. She’s interested in her husband, her son, and in harmony, i.e. she wants everybody to get along. When she defends the Vulcan way, she does it to foster understanding for her husband’s behaviour. My grandmother was like that. So I have to agree with krad, she’s a very traditional, or old-fashioned, woman even from today’s point of view. On the other hand, I like it that the only two older women we get to see in TOS, T’Pau and Amanda, are diametrically opposed.
As to Sarek, I don’t see the contradiction. He doesn’t dislike humans, or aliens in general, or he wouldn’t have become an ambassador. He dislikes Starfleet. He thinks the Vulcan way is best. So introducing the Vulcan way to his human wife is a good thing; his son running off to spend his life among humans, and in the military, is a bad thing.
@21/Sketchy: It’s really really difficult to do aliens right. Many aliens we see in SF (not just Star Trek) are not even as different from us westerners as people from other Earth cultures are, when really they should be more different. Taking one trait as a starting point and then expanding upon it frequently leads to stereotyping, but I prefer it to making them all just like us.
I think they succeeded with the Vulcans, by first giving them one characteristic (“logical”) and then adding a certain arrogance, a violent past, and some ancient rituals. I also like what TNG did with the Klingons in A Matter of Honor, but later they got boring.
First and foremost, there aren’t enough words to praise Mark Lenard. The only actor playing a Vulcan who’s as good as Nimoy.
The main problems I have with Journey to Babel is that there’s too much material crammed into 45-50 minutes of story, and the Spock/Amanda/Sarek thread occasionally gives off a bad soap opera vibe, but much of that is balanced by a terrific use of McCoy’s and his sense of humor.
Here’s why I don’t see Sarek and Amanda as sexist. They could have easily made her the ambassador and him the deferential part of the marriage. It’s not about sexual politics, it’s about marriage, and people compromise in a relationship, choosing their rules and the way they present themselves, the way they relate to one another, I could go on and on. I have no doubts Amanda is a every bit a strong, confident woman as the likes of T’Pau or T’Pring (so’s the Winona Ryder version, for that matter). She chose to be the quiet, reserved person in the relationship. Even his subsequent marriage to Perrin plays out exactly the same. He’s the big shot ambassador, and she defends him to her last breath (remember, she alienated Spock for disagreeing with his father). And she wouldn’t allow anyone but Picard to see Sarek in his dying condition.
Part of me feels sad over how things will end between Sarek and Spock. Journey to Babel tries to give us a hopeful ending mixed with humor and sarcasm, but we all know where they’re headed. Spock dies, and thanks to a rare moment of illogic hope from Sarek (plus the Genesis miracle) gets resurrected in an unorthodox ritual. And even after another hopeful moment between father and son on ST4, we all know how it ends. 80 years later, they’re still fighting, disagreeing, not speaking to each other all the way to the TNG era, and it ends with Sarek’s death and a lot of open wounds that only get rectified thanks to Spock’s final mind-meld with Picard. A sorrowful ending, if I’ve ever seen one. And yet very human.
As for the episode, while I don’t enjoy Gav and the Tellarites at all, I absolutely adore Shras and the Andorians. When I think about Shran on Enterprise, there’s no doubt they owe a lot to this show. It wasn’t just Jeffrey Combs’ performance that made the character work so well, but also how well Andorians were already established with this episode. A clear foundation. They really come across as a legitimate founding member of the Federation, as much as the Vulcans.
@28/sps49: Keith is right — logic is not an instinct for Vulcans, it’s a belief system they aspire to live by. It’s the equivalent of a human religion or moral code. And plenty of humans who claim to subscribe to a given belief system are very bad at living up to its teachings — like, say, political candidates who claim to be Christian but go directly against the Christian imperative to help the poor and needy. So by the same token, plenty of Vulcans are bad at living by the codes of logic they claim to revere. That’s true even of adults. Children would still only be starting to learn emotional control and logical thinking. Logic would just be a word to them; they wouldn’t yet fully understand what it meant or how to live by it. A lot of them would grow up never really understanding it beyond the surface forms. Which is why so many Vulcans are jerks.
@30/krad: “Keep in mind that Vulcans suppress emotion and value logic by choice, not by biology. In fact, their biological urges are the opposite.”
Which is why it annoys the hell out of me to see characters constantly blaming Spock’s emotional lapses on his human half. Surely that’s getting it backward. Vulcans need logical discipline because their natural emotions are even more intense than human emotions. To see Vulcans themselves speak of logic as if it were a genetic trait of their species rather than a learned behavior is ridiculous.
@32/Eduardo: Are you sure that Spock and Sarek are not speaking to each other in the TNG era? I thought that after this episode, they like and respect each other. They keep arguing and disagreeing, but it’s possible to do that and still get along fine. It’s Perrin who has a grudge against Spock, not Sarek.
@13/Christopher: You mentioned Sutherland’s color-blindness and the show’s coloring choices, but The Pirates of Orion was directed by Bill Reed.
@34: Granted, a lot of the Spock/Sarek issues are being described by a very biased third party, in this case the stepmother, Perrin. Nevertheless, even if they were still on talking terms, I assume he pretty much stopped talking to Sarek once the Cardassian war broke out. Reason for this? Two lines from Perrin.
PERRIN: He didn’t even say goodbye to his father before he left.
PICARD: Would it be inappropriate for me to ask what happened between you and Spock?
PERRIN: Not between us, between Spock and his father. Oh, they argued for years. That was family. But when debates over the Cardassian war began, he attacked Sarek’s position, publicly. He showed no loyalty for his father.
PICARD: I was not aware that Sarek was offended by Spock’s opposition.
PERRIN: I was offended. I made sure that Spock knew it. I’m very protective of my husband. I do not apologize for it.
Given Sarek’s age, and the awkward situation, I can see Spock backing away from his father over this. Even if Sarek didn’t feel shamed or hurt over Spock’s actions, I assume Spock kept his distance out of respect for Perrin. In a way, Spock’s disagreements with Picard come across as an unsubtle attempt to keep his remaining link to his father.
And Sarek, in his dying days, shows visible regret over how he related to Spock.
@36/Eduardo: I don’t read those lines the way you do. It’s clear that when Perrin says “before he left,” she’s talking about Spock’s recent departure for Romulus. You’ve left out four lines that make it clear that’s what Picard is asking about. “He wrapped up all his affairs carefully. He knew he was going.” So Perrin is explicitly not saying that Spock and Sarek haven’t been talking for years — if anything, it’s clear from her lines that they were speaking before then, otherwise it wouldn’t be so noteworthy that he failed to say goodbye when he left mere days earlier.
So this is clearly not a rehash of the pre-“Journey to Babel” situation. They were at odds as fellow diplomats, which Perrin chose to interpret as disloyalty, but there’s no indication that their political disagreement extended to personal alienation this time.
@36/Eduardo: That’s what I’m thinking – that they kept their distance, but still liked and respected each other. And that they had many good decades before that. But I don’t like the development of their relationship in TNG either, and not only because it’s sad. It also seems incongruous after what we’ve seen in the films.
@37: I still think all signs point to a very strained family relationship. Perrin also voices the line “he disappeared a long time ago“, implying that Spock had pretty much parted ways with the family, at least on an emotional level.
Same with Riker. He amicably parted ways with his father on Icarus Factor, but there’s nothing on the remainder of TNG’s run that indicates they ever really mended. And Riker is the first to recognize the gravity of the Spock/Sarek rift during Picard’s act one viewer explanation scene.
@39 — There’s a later episode, the one with his twin Tom Riker, where Will mentions their father and having patched things up between them in recent years. Tom still wants nothing to do with the old man.
But I think you may be onto something there with a strained relationship between Spock and his family. I seem to remember him saying after learning Sarek had died that their arguments were the only thing they had left. I was never crazy about this. I prefer the end of Voyage Home. It’s beautifully played by Lenard and Nimoy. Not overly sentimental, they seem to finally have respect and understanding for each other.
@39/Eduardo: Perrin doesn’t get along with Spock. I guess that qualifies as a strained family relationship. But the line you cite starts with “As far as I’m concerned…”, and I think that could mean several things. Maybe it means that Spock had distanced himself from the family, which may be true or merely Perrin’s interpretaton of his “disloyalty” towards Sarek. Or it means that she had distanced herself from Spock after he criticized Sarek in public.
@40/Sketchy: OK, I looked this up, and the exact words are: “I will miss the arguments. They were, finally, all that we had.”
Phew. Is this the same thing as “the only thing we had left”? My English isn’t good enough for this.
Anyway, I agree about The Voyage Home.
On the whole, I don’t like the episode, but I value the characters and aliens it provided for future writers to make better use of. Mark Lenard is always great as Sarek. And after reading all the deep discussion here of the relationships between Sarek and Amanda or Sarek and Spock, I have to make a truly shallow observation: I regret that Jane Wyatt had to be saddled with that absolutely ridiculous hair. Anyone who can act with a straight face with that on her head deserves an Emmy. I can only think that Amanda had her hair done in Whoville.
@41/Jana: Yes, I’d say “all that we had” and “the only thing we had left” mean basically the same thing. Except that the latter phrase implies that there used to be more in the past, but I think the “finally” in Spock’s line conveys the same sense.
Sorry, I couldn’t remember the exact wording. “All that we had” is what I meant. My error.
krad @30, CLB @33- I expressed myself poorly; I have similar thoughts as y’all now. But I did think that for a long time, and what everyone on the show says is not demonstrated by how everyone usually acts. As CLB said.
@43/Christopher: Thank you!
@44/Sketchy: Don’t worry, it was no error, especially if it means the same thing. I didn’t remember it at all and had to look it up.
I love “Journey to Babel” for everything Sarek, Amanda that follows (plus backing up the idea that the Federation is more than just humans and Spock). I’ve read many of the fiction and fan fiction related to them, Spock, and Vulcans (and a lot of other 80s TOS fiction). In a recent rewatch, though, I was struck how awkwardly the story established what’s going on. For example Amanda’s excitement/shock that Sarek feels an almost human pride in his son was a weird scene in the context of all the later backstory created for them.. #1 – Vulcans and other races clearly have pride to so why is she considering it “human.” #2 – She’s been married to Sarek for years, this pride in his son should not be a shock to her. Basically if you watch it without the context all the canon/non-canon history, it makes sense (like it was when it originally aired). If you watch it with the canon/non-canon history in mind, these conversations establish things that should have been long established for a couple in a 40 year marriage bond.
@32/Eduardo Jencarelli: It’s sadly sexist. It could have been either of them deferring to the career of the other, but it was Amanda because this was written in the 60s when the woman always followed/never led. In later fiction and fan fiction, Amanda is often made to be a powerful unofficial ambassador or a linguist professor rather than a elementary school teacher which seemingly implied by Spock caller her a teacher. A throwaway line could have been thrown in to make it clear that Amanda had a career of her own, but it wasn’t.
I don’t see how a teacher must be an elementary teacher and even if she is (or was), how that diminishes Amanda in any way. Are only professors worthy of respect? Why couldn’t Sarek have been taken by the way Amanda dealt with small children? Or is it wrong because Sarek was marrying below his class? Is Amanda “only” a teacher and therefore should only marry someone of a similar professional level? Must everyone be someone who’s outstanding in their field, someone who is universally acknowledged as a leader in their profession?
kkozoriz: I would’ve settled for an acknowledgment anywhere in this episode that she ever was a teacher, or anything else other than an ambassador’s wife. The only reason we know she was a teacher is from a line of dialogue in another episode…..
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
krad: Agreed but her profession was not part of the plot. Sarek was the ambassador, not Amanda. The reason she was along for the ride was because she was married to the ambassador. If we’d switched genders and had Sarek be female, would we be more interested in what her husband’s profession was or would it detract from the fact that the ambassador is central to the Babel plot and their spouse was more connected to the family plot? Amanda was there to connect with Spock’s human half and to try to bridge the gulf between father and son. Her profession is irrelevant to the story.
Not everybody has to be someone who’s at the top of their profession. I’d actually prefer it if she were “just” a teacher. There’s a lot more teachers in the world than there are ambassadors.
@50/kkozoriz: “If we’d switched genders and had Sarek be female, would we be more interested in what her husband’s profession was or would it detract from the fact that the ambassador is central to the Babel plot and their spouse was more connected to the family plot?”
But that’s just the point — it wasn’t done that way, and it wouldn’t have been, because it went with the default assumption of the era that men were defined by their jobs and women were defined by their marriages. Remember how everyone assumed that Carolyn Palamas would leave Starfleet once she found the right man? In the sixties, it was assumed that only single women would be career women, and that a married woman’s only career would be wifehood and motherhood. That wasn’t actually true — there were married women who kept their careers — but it was the default cultural assumption. The episode embraced the stereotype unquestioningly, and that is what Keith has a problem with.
Any argument based on the pretense that the treatment of genders or races in society can be assumed to be symmetrical is false on the face of it, because it isn’t symmetrical. That’s the whole point. It should be symmetrical, but it isn’t, and it sure as hell wasn’t back then.
? ChristopherLBennett But we didn’t learn anything about her profession. You cannot jump to the conclusion that simply because Amanda is accompanying Sarek on this voyage that she has given up her own job. In This Side of Paradise, Spock says “My mother was a teacher. My father an ambassador.”, speaking of both professions in the past tense. Perhaps Amanda is retired from teaching after a long career. If we take your idea that women were expected to give up their careers when they married than the idea that there were no (or few) female starship captains must be taken at face value.
There is no indication in the episode, none, that Amanda doesn’t have a career of her own. It’s just that in the brief time that we see them that Sarek’s is important to the plot and Amanda’s isn’t. I don’t think that the Orions would be willing kill to disrupt a teachers convention.
However, we have seen how Vulcans differ in their thoughts of marriage.
“”T’Pring, thee has chosen the kal-if-fee, the challenge. Thee are prepared to become the property of the victor?”. However, since T’Pau mentions becoming property in connection with the kal-if-fee, perhaps they two are linked and a woman only becomes property if she choses the challenge. Sarek is also a bit of a renegade for choosing a Human wife in the first place. He may want his son to follow the Vulcan way and would like his wife to support him in that aim but he’s not shown to be ordering her what to do. Formally, perhaps when he says “Attend me” and such but I hardly think that he would have selected a human just so he could treat her like a doormat.
@52/kkozoriz: “But we didn’t learn anything about her profession.”
Yes, that is precisely the point — that the script did not address her profession, that it did not choose to portray her as anything other than an extension of her husband.
“You cannot jump to the conclusion that simply because Amanda is accompanying Sarek on this voyage that she has given up her own job.”
Nobody’s saying she has. We’re not talking about Amanda’s choices, because Amanda is an imaginary construct created by D.C. Fontana. We’re talking about Fontana’s choices as a writer, and those of whoever else worked on rewrites of the script. The issue is how the writers of a 1960s TV show chose to portray gender roles. My point about Palamas and assumptions about women’s careers was not meant to apply literally to Amanda in this episode; it was meant to illustrate the gender attitudes of 1960s television writers. It was meant to show that your hypothetical premise of a story where the woman had a career and her husband did not would never have happened in a 1960s TV show, so it was an invalid example.
“It’s just that in the brief time that we see them that Sarek’s is important to the plot and Amanda’s isn’t.”
Again, that’s the point — that the script fails to develop Amanda as anything more than a wife and mother. Of course there must be more to her than that, but the fact that the writer didn’t choose to explore it is the problem. Or so I interpret Keith’s position.
So we needed a third plot go to go along with the others? Something that would give Amanda equal billing with the Sarek/Coridan plot? Because, otherwise, we’d be talking about how Amanda got shortchanged when compared to Sarek. Still. We didn’t need to know more about Amanda because her plot involved her husband and her son. She needed to be there to make the human appeal for Spock to save Sarek. Switch things around and have Amanda be the one who needed Spock to step down from command to save her life and Amanda would be dead since Sarek would agree with Spock’s logic that it was more important to save the ship than one person.
Her profession was not necessary to the story. The fact that she was Spock’s mother was. The show only has so much time to cover the story. There’s lots of cases of interesting buts being left on the cutting room floor. That doesn’t mean that those people aren’t important. It’s that that part of the story isn’t necessary at this time.
Amanda would hardly have before the beloved figure that she is if people had seen ger simply as a hausfrau. If someone came up with a compelling story that required we learn more of her background, I’m sure we would have seen it. Or are you suggesting that JtoB writer Dorothy Fontana deliberately ignored Amanda’s background simply because she’s a woman?
Spock is mot often played as much more Vulcan than Human. Amanda was there to show us where he got his human side from, Just like Sarek’s stubborn devotion to duty also showed us part of Spock’s background. Diverting precious story time to giving Amanda a separate plot away from the one she had would weaken the entire story since you’d have to cut some of what we’ve seen. What would you cut in order to make room for something that would give her “equal” treatment with Sarek?
Many things would have never happened on a 1960’s TV show until they did happen. Julia would haver have starred an African American woman who was not a maid but a nurse. I Spy would not have given the co-stars equal billing, despite the fact that that their skins were different colours. We could have had a second in command of the Enterprise if Roddenberry hadn’t stubbornly been tied to the idea that his mistress should play the part.
Thing don’t happen only until they do.
@54/kkozoriz: “So we needed a third plot go to go along with the others?”
Please don’t try to put words in other people’s mouths. There are plenty of ways that Amanda could’ve been written better. I’m not interested in playing straw-man games. Besides, it was Keith’s point anyway, and I shouldn’t speak for him.
The point is that her profession was not necessary to the story. If it were, D C Fontana would have written a backstory for her. They needed a reason to get Spock’s parents on the ship. Spcok was estranged from his father, a Vulcan. By making him an ambassador, DC managed to get a bunch of other aliens on board at the same time. If you add in a throwaway line about Amanda;s profession, you’s not giving it the same degree of importance as Sarek’s. Ny keeping her role as Sarek’s wife and Spock’s mother, she got to deal with two different plots. Simply adding a job for her would have been nothing more than window dressing.
Did she deserve more? Yup, she sure did. And it’s unfortunate that in all the various versions of trek, we never got one, except in the novels. But it should have been another story and not shoehorned into one that already had a family drama, political intrigue and a murder. Thee was a lot going on in JtoB and it would have either been lip service or at the expense of something else.
@56/kkozoriz: I don’t agree that a line about her job would have been window dressing. It’s actually my favourite way of presenting gender equality – not by making a big deal of it, but by showing women at work, by mentioning “this is so-and-so, she’s an engineer” and then moving on to other things, etc. TOS does that a lot, by having women in the background of the scenes, by having the occasional female engineer or navigator or mentioning that Chapel used to be a researcher before she took a job on a starship.
So let’s say when Kirk and Amanda talk in engineering, after Sarek has left them, and Kirk asks her if she can pronounce the Vulcan name, and she answers “After a fashion, and after many years of practice”, she would have added “My students keep telling me that my accent is improving all the time”, or something like that – that wouldn’t have taken anything away from the plot but it would have added a whole dimension to her character. For me, at least – feel free to disagree.
Well you opened a can of worms, but you saw that coming. I agree with everything you said about this episode. But I have come to accept Vulcans of this era to be sexist. Just based on some of the things Spock has said this season so far. But you missed parts of the episode that are even worse.
At first Spock wants to use the drug on himself and everybody is “No!”, “It could kill you!”, “We don’t know what it will do!”. But after the ship is attacked and an ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT ON THE CAPTAIN Spock changes his mind. Then everybody is all “But he’s your father!”, “You have to!”, *Slap*”How dare you!”. Geeze people, are you all trying to drive him insane with emotional whiplash? And what even worse, Spock is correct! This should have been a great creator of tension with the enormous decision on his Vulcan shoulders. But the show seems to go out of it’s way to portray Spock as being wrong.
So as you can tell…I love this episode! All that aside it has both Lenard’s going at each other, a great scene with lots of cool aliens (I was immediately smitten with the Andorians, and I read somewhere that Telarites see heat), an external threat that is both dangerous and unknown, Kirk being awesome (coolly bluffing the Vulcan with a stab wound then taking command when the fecal hits the ventilator) and McCoy putting everybody in their place. Definitely in my top 10, If it was just better written it would be in my top 3.
janajansen – But it would have just been a throwaway line and not played ip her profession to the same degree that Sarek’s was. The fact that she was a teacher (or an engineer or a candlestick maker) was not necessary to the plot. I’d rather not have women’s professions be limited to “Here, we said she’s a doctor or a lawyer or…” and think that it’s equal to what a man is presented as.
The part that I find most unsettling is this:
SPOCK: He has been subjected to questioning under verifier scan and truth drug. He reveals nothing. I suggest his mind has been so conditioned as part of a preconceived plan.
No lawyer? I hardly think that Thelev was the sort to give permission for a verifier scan or trurg drug injection. Nice criminal justice system you’ve got there Federation. Giving drugs to someone and you don’t even know what race he is? What if the truth drugs for Andorians was fatal to Orions? Is a verifier scan and truth drug standard procedure? Shades of the mind rape of Valaris. Verifier scan sounds dangerously close to mind-softer, perhaps with just a lower level of power/
Cleggster: Not quite. The initial thought was the use the drug on Sarek to replenish his blood, and McCoy rejected the notion because it would kill the ambassador, thanks to his dicky ticker. Then Spock suggested they instead use the drug on Spock as he transfuses Sarek so he could safely give up enough blood to help Sarek. McCoy reluctantly agreed, though he was still cranky about it because the drug was experimental.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
After reading kkoroziz rationalize why a throwaway line about Amanda being a teacher would not have gone a long way to make Amanda a complete person and not an extension of Sarek, I’m going to have to go with krad on this one. I would have love to have heard Amanda say something like what JanaJansen said about her students saying her accent is improving. That would have added a wonderful dimension to Amanda. But we didn’t get that. Amanda was just the traditional wife here, made worse by the fact the episode was written by a woman. It’s an entertaining hour, but Keith is absolutely right. Amanda deserved to be a person in her own right instead of just Sarek’s wife.
So Sarek gets to be the focal point of an episode (or two) and Amanda should be satisfied with a throwaway line? It would have been nice to see more of Amanda but there wasn’t room in JtoB. Perhaps a fourth season episode could have fleshed her out more but I hardly think you’re doing the character justice by having her mention her accent and being done with it.
Sorry but I can see why DC Fontana did it the way she did. It’s basically a story about gamily and how they come together. The Coridan plot is just he maguffin to enable the family plot to go ahed (Sarek and the ship in danger, Spock putting city before his father, etc.)
@33 CLB, You said “Which is why it annoys the hell out of me to see characters constantly blaming Spock’s emotional lapses on his human half. Surely that’s getting it backward. Vulcans need logical discipline because their natural emotions are even more intense than human emotions. To see Vulcans themselves speak of logic as if it were a genetic trait of their species rather than a learned behavior is ridiculous.”
If I might present a different way of looking at this. While we know, and I don’t believe that it is a secret in the Star Trek universe that Vulcans have strong feelings, I also believe that they don’t go around advertising it. Most of the universe believes they are emotionless and they like it that way. They see emotions as a weakness so they logically don’t go around tell others their weakness. I think a non-Vulcan has to be a trusted friend, such as a Kirk or McCoy, before a Vulcan will admit to their emotions.
If Spock really has any problems you would think it would because his human half makes it more difficult to achieve the kind of control over his emotions that the full blooded Vulcans have. The animated episode “Yesteryear” would tend to support this theory. If that is the case, maybe Spock still had some control issues after he grew up and just played along with it being due to his human emotions to keep the façade of Vulcans not having emotions intact.
On a related note. If Vulcan emotions are so intense, why do the Romulans seem no more emotional than the humans?
@63/Robert: The problem is that Vulcan characters, including Spock himself, tend to blame his emotionality on his human half. They, of all people, should know better.
And yes, sometimes writers accept the notion that half-Vulcans have more trouble controlling emotion than full Vulcans, but I consider that a writing mistake, because it’s inconsistent with the established fact that Vulcan control is learned rather than genetic. The writers of The Wrath of Khan nearly made this mistake, assuming that Saavik was more emotional because she was half-Romulan; but fortunately they realized how stupid this was (not only because Vulcan control is learned, but because Romulans are biologically Vulcan) and cut the reference to her dual heritage out of the film.
As for the Romulans, I tend to believe that they’ve developed their own form of emotional discipline, but it’s rooted more in a martial code and directed, regulated aggression than in logic and pacifism. They control their passions in order to focus and use them, rather than to repress and overcome them.
@64/CLB True, it is the Vulcan characters that say his emotions are due to his human half, but if my (admittedly speculative) proposition that Vulcans deliberatively work to keep up an image of no emotions/pure logic to non-Vulcans, then they would logically (pun intended) claim it was his human half causing the emotions just to maintain the fiction.
I know Vulcan mind controls are learned but there is no evidence that humans can learn them to the point that they show as little emotion as Vulcans do. Neither Amanda nor Perrin ever learned them (of course we don’t know if they even tried) and the one human we do know who studied Vulcan mental discipline, Miranda Jones, studied it for four years but still shows her emotions. So half Romulan I would definitely agree with you should make no difference, half human I believe could.
They left just enough of the half Romulan characterization for Saavik in to have her shed that tear at Spock’s funeral although somehow I did not notice it for many years.
Maybe Romulans don’t seem more emotional than humans because they didn’t stiffle their emotions like Vulcans did, but manage them in a way they can be harnessed, directed. What Chris said, actually.
Biologically Vulcans and Romulas are close but not the same. In The Enterprise Incident, Chekov said:
CHEKOV: Romulans and Vulcans appear to read almost exactly alike. There is just a slight difference which. Got him, sir.
So there is a difference but it’s quite close. Much like Vulcans and the Rigellian from Journey to Babel.
MCCOY: I see it, Spock, but that was a Rigelian.
SPOCK: Rigelians physiology is very similar to Vulcan.
As far as the idea that Saavik being half Romulan being dropped, we don’t know the reason why that line was dropped. It may have not worked out once it was filmed. At any rate, Saavik is hardly your stereotypical Vulcan. Her “damn” during the Kobayashi Maru tells us right from the start that there’s something different about her. In a world with interbreeding between iron and copper based life forms, I don’t have any trouble seeing Vulcan emotional control being both learned and biological. Perhaps emotional control is linked with psionic mastery, seeing as it’s used for healing trances, for example. That would also explain why the Romulans aren’t as controlled. They’ve lost their psionic abilities.
Re the 1960s Middle America gender stereotypes: I’ll repeat a tidbit I quoted when KRAD rewatched “Sarek.” In Cleveland Amory’s review of TOS for TV Guide, he mentioned that Spock’s Vulcan father married a human; “we’ve warned you men before about marrying below you,” Amory quipped. As another TV Guide writer acknowledged in 1995, Amory’s review makes you “realize how far ahead of its time [TOS] really was.”
One wishes that actual thinking people, let alone rocket scientists, would have looked at this script.
If the enemy vessel is traveling “at almost warp 10,” then it’s already way past them. Warp 8 and warp 10, even in these early calculations, are extremely fast. There’s no way that they’d be able to fire upon something traveling that quickly, as I assume the phasers and the torpedoes don’t move that much faster than light. And don’t even get me started on how it would impossible to “see” something moving that quickly.
Coming to this one several months late…
Am I correct in remembering that Coridan was being considered for admission when the UFP was nothing more than a Coalition (during the post-Enterprise Romulan War novels, I don’t remember which specific book in that series off the top of my head), but a precursor attack by the Romulans resulted in a planet-wide cataclysm that delayed their entry until (beyond) the events of this story? I’m pretty sure that was the name of the planet, and I know it was rich in dilithium (which magnified the level of the catastrophe). Is that this planet, or was it another with a similar name?
@69/JimP: What you describe was depicted in the novels, yes, but its version of events is only “true” within the novel continuity. I think that happened in the novels as an attempt to reconcile the large population figure given for Coridan in Enterprise‘s “Shadows of P’Jem” with the far smaller population cited in “Journey to Babe.”
That’s odd, there are two comments numbered 69 — and the first is brand new while the second is nearly 3 months old! Was that one stuck in the buffer all this time? Sometimes a comment will get stuck and won’t appear until a later comment is posted, because this board’s comment software is awful.
@other69/luc: It’s always been assumed that the Federation has faster-than-light sensors. As for the warp combat, the Enterprise itself was at warp as well, and presumably the two ships would both be unable to fire on each other except during a brief window. Kirk did order Chekov to “fire as he passes,” i.e. wait until the ship’s closest approach — and he still missed because the ship was going too fast. Which is why Kirk had the ship play dead to lure the enemy in, waiting until it dropped to sublight and closed in for the kill, then firing once it was slow enough and close enough to hit. So I don’t know what you’re complaining about. The difficulties of combat at high warp were acknowledged within the episode.
@CLB
Thanks for confirming. I understand the continuity disconnect between novels and canon, I just wanted to make sure I was remembering the correct planet name/incident. I didn’t mind, as much as others, the way Enterprise ended (I could have dealt with it not being about Riker, but what’reyagonnado?), but after reading that series (I started with Kobayashi Maru, being, at the time, more interested in an interpretation the incident that spawned the famous test; that, and it was on display at my local library), I liked that version of events much better than those shown on air.
And as for the other Comment #69, it was there when I loaded the page, and read the comments, before I wrote out my comment. I did find it rather bizarre that mine showed up above the earlier comment, and shared a number.
Krad, with the just announced casting of a new actor to take on the role of Sarek in the upcoming Star Trek: Discovery, perhaps you’ll want to update your mention of the character in the “Welcome Aboard” section of your review.
To me the thing that really stood outlaw a false note was Amanda bitchslapping Spock for insisting that his duty to Starfleet supersedes his desire to save his father. Yes, she’s human, but she married a Vulcan. She lives on Vulcan. And her son’s dominant traits are Vulcan. I get that she is desperate to save her husband, but I can’t imagine Sarek having a happy marriage with a woman who would act so impulsively. And it had to be impulse. No way could she have believed that slapping Spock would do anything to sway him one way or the other. That moment just didn’t fit.
GarretH: Nah. These rewatches are accurate at the time of writing. If I went back and updated every damn thing I’d never do anything else. *laughs*
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Amanda’s behavior after Sarek’s illness is revealed is irrational and self contradictory – first she won’t permit the operation than she’s pushing Spock to do it. She must be scared out of her mind and her usual self control and logic has gone out the window.
That said Spock isn’t behaving much better. Yeah, granted the ship is in a precarious position but Scotty has commanded tricky situations before and so has Sulu. Spock is not the irreplaceable man here. Note that KIRK has no problem with turning command over to Scotty. Possibly Amanda senses there is more than ‘duty’ motivating Spock’s sudden rule lawyer behavior – it’s not like he’s never broken rules or regs before now is it?
Is he still trying to prove himself to Sarek? The line in which he asks Amanda what his father would think of him putting private concerns over his officer’s duty suggests that.
Oh, and Vulcans ARE racist and sexist. Didn’t you know?
@75/Roxana: Amanda’s behaviour is self-contradictory, but I wouldn’t call it irrational. When Spock first makes his offer, her first impulse is to protect him. Later she gets used to the idea and starts believing that everything will work out, so she’s outraged at his sudden refusal. It makes sense to me.
As for Spock, this isn’t an ordinary tricky situation. They’re not on their own, they have a shipload of important politicians, and the destruction of the Enterprise could result in “mutual suspicion and interplanetary war”, in the words of Sarek. Those are high stakes, and Spock is more experienced than either Scotty or Sulu.
You could argue that Spock is wrong, and Scotty or Sulu would have been adequate to the task, but you could just as well argue that Kirk is irresponsibly placing Spock’s and Sarek’s needs above the ships’s safety. That’s one of the things that make this a good episode in my book – it’s a plausible dilemma, and it’s hard to say who’s right.
One of my top 10 Trek episodes. Mark Lenard was the only actor who held a candle to Leonard Nimoy playing a Vulcan. I also loved the Amanda/Spock scene where she tries to pull on his heart-strings, telling us about how the Vulcan kids tormented him for being a half-breed. You can see the anguish on Spock’s face even as he tries to remain stoic.
Wow, only a “4”? that’s way harsh. It’s not perfect, but it’s a SEMINAL episode, that sets up so many things about Spock and future episodes in future series (plus a ton of fan fic and novels).
First off, Mark Lenard is teh awesomeness…as perfect as anyone could be in a role. No wonder he was asked back time and again! (He’s a terrific Romulan commander too.) It’s hard to imagine anyone else (of that era) who could take this role and hold up against Leonard Nimoy, but he does. They both enhance one another. Despite the lack of age difference….they are absolutely convincing as father & son.
BTW: at the SAME TIME, Mark Lenard had a continuing (and very good) role on “Here Come The Brides” as Aaron Stempel….it defies credulity, but there are fans of both shows who COMBINE both storylines … Vulcans coming to 19th century Seattle or something. Wow. I haven’t read it, but I know it exists.
I don’t much care for Jane Wyatt as Amanda; I think she was picked as an “archetypal 50s mom” due to her role on “Father Knows Best”. She was a bit weak, but then she didn’t reprise this role the way Mark Lenard did.
The tension and interplay between Spock and Sarek is just perfect here, and I am sure that’s why it is a fan fic favorite, with countless permutations.
Oh, and all the aliens…this kind of predates the Star Wars bar scene by a decade. And it’s so much better than later Trek series, where “aliens” would be ordinary people with a wrinkle on their nose or a tattoo on their forehead.
So I’d have to give this an “8” and only isn’t higher, because as described here, there are some illogical bits, and I am not crazy about how subservient they make Amanda (this does not seem born out by what we saw earlier in Amok Time, with T’Pau and T’Pring).
Iolamontez, I believe you are thinking of ‘Ishmael’ by Barbara Hambley in which Spock goes back in time to 19th c. Seattle and is taken in by Aaron.
As for the contradictory gender conventions, or seeming contradiction between Amok Time and Journey to Babel unfamiliar societies always seem confusing and contradictory at first glance. Note that T’Pring’s only option for ending her failed ‘marriage’ is to issue challenge and accept the role of ‘chattel’ to the winner so is it that contradictory? Amanda seems to be conforming to the ritual deference expected of a Vulcan wife, it’s also possible that her behavior is influenced by the fact that Sarek is performing an official duty and she is a member of his entourage. In private she is not submissive at all and seems to enjoy tweaking her somber husband and son.
I’d put the walking several paces behind and public obedience down to manners, about as meaningful as giving the woman the wall, rising when she enters and opening doors for her.
There is some excuse for Amanda’s behavior, remember she’s been completely blindsided. She had no idea at all that her husband was suffering from a life threatening medical condition – if she had known there’s every likelihood they wouldn’t have been on the Enterprise at all. Sarek is in deep do-do and he is so going to get it next time he and Amanda are alone. And what the Ef was he thinking anyway? Vulcan denial? How logical!
lolamontez: I explained my rating in the review. :) And yes, roxana is correct, the story you’re thinking of is Ishmael by Barbara Hambly.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Kirk has no problem turning command over to Scotty until the Orion ship shows up. Then he stays on the bridge. Spock was looking ahead while Kirk was looking at the moment. It’s just that the situation changed when Kirk was ready to relinquish command to Scotty (however temporarily).
I wonder what those aides of Sarek’s are doing through all this? They don’t even seem to be at the reception.
I think that the exchange between Spock and his father regarding Amanda’s illogic is a practiced strategy for dealing with their mother and wife when she’s on a tear. They’ve learned that the best, possibly only, way to calm her down when she boils over is to make her laugh. She laughs, they live.
Maybe Amanda was frustrated with the emotional constraints she had to live under on Vulcan, but it seemed like she could only act more human on the Enterprise. Personally I found Kirk’s attitude-that she might be happier with “her own kind”-to be the most offensive part of this episode. Amanda was the equivalent of an American living in a foreign country & trying to follow their rules.
I loved the relationship-or lack thereof-between Spock and Sarek, but I also wondered how their relationship could be so bad that Kirk couldn’t know that Sarek was his father, although Spock is hardly the first person to want to distance or even cur themselves off from a famous family.
I think they were eating Jell-O at the banquet.
@21–yes, the Klingon Chancellor murdered in ST VI: TUC (played by David Warner) was a pacifist and one of the primary champions of the Peace Accord between the Klingons and the Federation.
Re: the finger caresses between Sarek and Amanda: honestly, that takes me out of the scene. If we think of these as the Vulcan version of kissing, how plausible is it that a stoic Vulcan, in a professional setting, would be constantly kissing his wife? It’s erotic as hell in The Enterprise Incident because that’s a private encounter but Sarek is in a professional, formal setting in this episode. I chalk it up to “the writers are trying to establish this a a Vulcan thing” but it’s still clumsy, IMO.
Cee: There’s no evidence to support the notion that Gorkon was a pacifist. He did sue for peace after Praxis exploded, yes, but that’s because he was a visionary who understood that an alliance with the Federation was better for the empire he was in charge of than being at war with them. And given what we know of Klingon politics in general and the specifics of the rites of succession seen on TNG (and which were described as very old rites going back centuries), I can’t imagine that he would have risen to the position of chancellor without a long history of victories in battle behind him.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@86/Cee: Analogies are rarely exact. Just because the Vulcan finger-touching gesture can be seen as an approximation for kissing in a certain context, that doesn’t mean it’s the same in every context. It just means they’re different things that have that one area of approximate overlap.
Besides, different human cultures do use kissing differently, e.g. Europeans greet each other by kissing each other’s cheeks, or pretending to. The difference between the casual/platonic and the erotic is in how it’s done and in what context, rather than whether it’s done.
@@@@@ 87 – Azetbur rose to chancellor and I don’t imagine she had a whole lot of battles behind her. She doesn’t come across as military in the least. The Chancellor was not wearing a military uniform but everyone else except Azetbur was.
@87/krad–interesting points (I haven’t seen much of TNG so I am unacquainted with those Klingon rituals). But how are we defining pacifism? As a philosophy to which one subscribes, while working within the system to bend it to that philosophy? Or complete and unmitigated adherence to said philosophy? If the only way the Chancellor could bring peace was to gain credibility as a honored warrior, thereby achieving political power, perhaps that was the pragmatic choice he made, if indeed he made it. Also his daughter later says something about how there was no scope for “his idealism” until just now.
@88/Christopher–okay, those are all good points. It still comes off to me as “we’re trying very hard to establish this” because they do it so much but you make a good point about European kissing.
Back in the 16th c. Erasmus wrote enthusiastically about the English custom of the ladies kissing a visitor in greeting and as a good-bye.
IMO as touch telepaths Vulcans are extremely restrained about public touching. The minimal two fingers touching is a ritual gesture sending the signal that this man/woman is MINE, you have been warned! In private it becomes a gesture of affection.
Also, even among humans, stroking and caressing someone’s fingers is a lot more erotically stimulating than just holding their hand.
As I recall in public Sarek and Amanda touch fingers lightly. In private they use more pressure in a caressing kind of way. Spock and the Romulan commander were all over each other’s fingers and hands. The difference between a we-are-a-couple signaling, an affectionate I-love-you kiss and a passionate kiss with tongues.
Coming to this quite late. I fully agree with CLB and Krad on the analysis of sexism in the episode – there are thousands of easy ways Amanda could be made into a more detailed independent character, but she isn’t because of the sexist production tendencies of the period. That doesn’t make the episode necessarily ruined, but it remains the case. Similarly, it’s clear that some of the problems in this episode derive from the writers’ inconsistency in how the Vulcans were conceptualised early on – e.g. the aforementioned point that Vulcans turned to logic as a way of controlling their raging emotions, yet label such emotions human. Similarly, this whole conceptualisation of Vulcans depends on a very mid-20th century misconception of the relationship of emotions to logic anyway, as if these are opposites. We now know that logic cannot generate decisions alone, since choices require emotional attachment (or some other pre-assigned valence, as in a computer’s programming) to outcomes for us to prefer one course over another. That should be true of Vulcans too. But, again, that reflects when this was written.
I’m interested by how contrasting people’s attitudes are to the episode, because surely it’s just very uneven? As well as the performance of Lenard and Nimoy, I think June Wyatt gives real depth to Amanda, despite the limits to how her character is written. When you take out the sexist roles they’re cast into, Lenard and Wyatt communicate their love for each other well. Seeing the broader Federation universe is great, and the mystery compelling. Yet there are a lot of holes in the episode’s plot, and in how well thought through the Vulcan disposition is, Spock’s weird reasoning, Uhura’s depiction, etc. I’d give it a 6.
@94/Jonathan LM: It’s Jane Wyatt. You may be mixing her up with another iconic ’60s TV mom, June Lockhart.
Sarek’s legendary career would be revisited in Sock’s World, the TNG episode Sarek and Unification, where he dies (sadly without a final reconciliation with Spock).
McCoy has some of the best moments of the series by getting in the last word, and Spock and Sarek pulling a fast one on Amanda (even if it might sound sexist by today’s standards).
The Andorians have always seemed odd choices for membership in the Federation. At times they are both allies and enemies, or frenemies.
I’m on the bandwagon of those who praise this episode. While I do acknowledge its sexist limitations, I think the worldbuilding and other character work makes up for its deficiencies.
@32/Eduardo Jencarelli: I agree that Nimoy and Lenard are the acting gold standard for Vulcans. However, I personally put Tim Russ very close to that pedestal.
@54/kkozoriz:
I don’t think it’s such a detriment to any story to sneak in character touches. It helps to make a universe more alive. If Star Trek were to strictly adhere to the needs of the script, it would have been far less interesting in my opinion. That being said, I do agree with many, that Star Trek was often blind to gender stereotypes of the time. Who knows what went through DC Fontana’s head when writing this script. Perhaps she thought as you did and wanted to keep strictly to the plot, or perhaps she was conforming to the norm; we’ll never know.
Someone forgot to give the fight coordinator the rest of the script. Kirk gets stabbed in what I believe would be the kidney? onthe lower right side of his body. And it’s punctures a lung and if LOWER would have punctured his heart. Holy Shit is Kirk a TimeLord!?!
I liked the scenes of the various aliens pouring drinks and chatting, and that’s about it. The sudden explanation for everything felt shoehorned in, there for the sake of a quick answer and then boom, ending. Add in the sexism and this makes for weak, irritating viewing.
I’m rewatching TOS on Netflix in Stardate order and because I just found out about the remastering done 15 years ago. I really like the CGI used in space scenes, etc. The plot holes and mistakes are numerous in all TOS episodes, and other trek series as well. I’m not really annoyed by much in this episode except when Kirk leaves the bridge and tells Chekov he’s in charge. There is clearly an officer who outranks him sitting next to him. I’m sure there are other more experienced officers on the bridge as well. Another weird thing about TOS is phasers are frequently fired from the navigation position and the helm position.
this is my first post ever so forgive me if I’m not getting it right.
Rank is not the only determining factor for chain of command. The other officer might outrank Chekov, but he might not be on the command track, or they might have a duty roster that includes rotating officers in command when the Captain leaves, etc.
@103/MaGnUs: Also there’s such a thing as a bridge watch officer, a crew member whose job it is to command the bridge when the captain is away, or to fill in for other personnel as needed. This was Worf’s job in season 1 before his promotion to security chief, and there were times when he held the conn despite being just a lieutenant JG at the time.
Yup yup.
Thanks for clearing that up it makes more sense now. Also did anyone else see the hard cut to Kirk fighting the Andorran in the corridor? It seemed weird, there was no lead up to it like Kirk walking along at first then getting attacked. The scene just cut right to Kirk engaging the attacker in hand to hand combat.
Those damn Andorrans.
That gets a mention here:
https://www.mezzacotta.net/planetofhats/episodes/0040.html
Ahh a typo. I meant “Andorian”. Maybe autocorrect got me
Interesting episode and discussion. I’m just wondering, however, how is it that the Enterprise can accommodate 100+ honored guests (and their respective entourages) all at once, besides the crew of already 400+? Does the ship have that many additional cabins that would ordinarily not be in use?
@110/Larsaf: Well, the Enterprise was roughly as big as an aircraft carrier, but it had less than a tenth as many crew members; the real-life USS Enterprise CVN-65 had a crew complement of 4,600. So it seems like there should be a ton of extra space available for visitors, evacuees, or whatever.
@110 – And yet Uhura gets booted out of her quarters so they can give them to the Dolhman in Elaan of Troyius.
I think Uhura voluntarily gave them up because of their decor being very much to Elasian taste.
It is also likely that Uhura, as a senior officer, has a larger cabin than most, even the regular diplomatic quarters. Elaan strikes me as the type of person who expects a modest apartment to be at least 5000 square feet. She would think that cozy; maybe.
@113 – There’s no reason that suitable furnishings could have been fabricated for guest quarters. After all, the Enterprise made a large number of UV satellites in Operation – Annihilate! and Nazi officer uniforms in Patterns of force. Some fairly simple decorations would be easy to do. As to the size of the quarters, Sarek and Amanda had similar quarters in Journey to Babel and Ensign Garrovick also had the same in Obsession.
The only reason to boot Uhura from her quarters is to give her a chance to be peeved with Elan.
115. kkozoriz
Sarek and Amanda had similar quarters in Journey to Babel and Ensign Garrovick also had the same in Obsession.
The only reason to boot Uhura from her quarters is to give her a chance to be peeved with Elan.
I’m not sure how that is relevant. Sarek and Amanda are not likely to protest typical guest quarters. Most of the ambassadors likely aren’t. While they are powerful, important people, none of them was portrayed as an entitled (insert expletive here). They would all understand what a Starship can provide and would be happy with it.
Elaan believed that everyone in existence was beneath her and their only purpose was to cater to and please her. She is exactly the type to demand an entire deck for her personal use.
The difference between these personalities seem completely obvious to me.
The quarters assigned to Elan are exactly the same as the quarters assigned to Sarek & Amanda or even Ensign Garrovick. The only difference was the decorations which would be easy to fabricate. You could even use Uhura’s decorations as a model.
They were no bigger or smaller than any other quarters we saw. Even the ensigns, as shown by Garrovick get the same quarters. The first time we see anything different is in The Undiscovered Country when the junior officers have apparently be moved to bunks for some reason.
@115, I thought of that too. Replicators should make it easy to customize quarters to taste. But I think the point was to show what an ungracious git Elaan was.
Exactly. There was no reason for Uhura to move from her quarters other than to let Elan moan and bitch bout it. If the Enterprise can carry over 100 delegates, there should be no problem putting Rlan someplace where she doesn’t have to remove someone from their quarters.
Just because all we see of the respective quarters doesn’t imply that is all there is. And there may be other issues.
It is also easy to imagine the fact that a crewmember gave up her quarters was part of the point to Elaan which would never occur to Sarek or the other ambassadors. Someone moved to accommodate Elaan! That would appeal to her pretentious personality.
(Now, in real life I will freely admit it is a continuity error. Not unusual)
In Journey to Babel, they accommodated over 100 delegates and their aides. In The Enterprise Incident, Kirk specifically mentions that the Roman commander be taken to guest quarters, thus proving that such quarters exist.
All they’d have to to do is decorate guest quarters and tell her that they’d booted someone to make space for her.
I liked this episode primarily because it featured an interesting story as well as a “crowded” Enterprise with many crewmen and diplomats (including many cool aliens, like the blue-skinned Andorians, the snout-faced Tellarites and those midgets). But I just didn’t buy the love and marriage of Sarek and Amanda. If Amanda truly embraced Vulcan’s custom of pure logic, would she not have understood the decisions and attitudes of Sarek and Spock by now? I mean, she’s been married to the Vulcan for 40 or 50 years!! Also, at the end, after Kirk defeated the Orion ship, did he leave bridge command to lowly ensign Chekov?? Chekov?? Was George Takei not available?
In fact, George Takei wasn’t available. Between “I, Mudd” and “Return to Tomorrow” he was filming The Green Berets.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Count me as another person who loved this episode. I loved meeting Spock’s parents, I loved the estrangement between father and son, Spock’s devotion to duty vs. the need to save his father’s life, and I loved the introduction of the Andorians and Tellarites. I loved the whole episode.
I can see how Sarek’s treatment of Amanda when they boarded the Enterprise could be viewed as secst but I never took it that way. It just seemed to me that was the formal, Vulcan way. Could Amanda have been flushed out more so we knew she had an identity other than Sarek’s wife and Spock’s mother? Sure, but I was never one of those viewers who had to be told everything. Just because there’s no mention of here being a teacher here, that doesn’t mean she wasn’t one. The story was about Spock’s relationship with his father and Amanda’s reaction to those events. The story wasn’t about her. Watching this episode, there was no doubt that Sarek loved his wife and she loved him. (BTW, I love how they showed affection to touching their fingertips. It’s subtle but sweet.
So, Sarak and Spock hasn’t spoken in 18 years? I forgot it’d been that long. Guess we won’t see him in Strange New Worlds. I’d love to be wrong though!
I read a while ago that Rick Berman never wanted to use the Andorians because he thought they looked silly. I don’t agree at all. Tellarites, yes, they looked realistic with their eyes all in set but I don’t see anything unrealistic about the Andorians.
@124/Mary: I don’t think it’s a question of realism, it’s just that aliens with antennae are a hoary old sci-fi cliche (see My Favorite Martian‘s Uncle Martin or The Flintstones‘ The Great Gazoo for just two examples of what was already a well-worn trope by then). Maybe it’s fallen so far out of use that society has forgotten how corny it was, but Berman’s generation would’ve been old enough to remember.
My great takeaway from this episode – besides Sarek behaving like the sort of Vulcan who explains so very, very much about that chip on Captain Archer’s shoulder – is that we should all hope, dream and pray for a moment of such sweet & simple joy in our lives as ‘Bones’ McCoy delights in when he learns of the indomitable Mr Spock’s ‘Vulcan Teddy Bear’.
Also, I really loved the Andorian ambassador’s accent – it had a wonderful sense of savoir faire and I’m sorry that future actors playing members of the species don’t really seem to have picked up on it.