After last week’s great episode we have Shore Leave
Synopsis: Kirk and crew need a much needed rest and have found a planet that is a virtual garden of Eden. Unfortunately soon strange things begin to happen. McCoy sees a Giant rabbit and little girl from Alice in Wonderland. Sulu finds a 20th Century police pistol and is attacked by a Samurai. Kirk finds an old flame and former Nemesis. What secrets does this planet hold and will they be discovered before the crew is forever trapped on the planet?
This is a good episode but after last week it feels a little bit of a let down.
Things I liked:
Finnegan. Man that guy is manic. Can you believe he made it through the Academy? I can see why Kirk wanted to bust his chops.
The freaky looking knight: When they showed his face it was hard to tell if it was a man or mannequin… creepy.
The outdoor setting: For once a planet doesn’t look like a sound stage. Very nice looking local too.
Things that bugged me
Spock’s early deduction: He seems to figure it out but Kirk is too busy trying to get into a brawl to listen.
The Don Juan scenes: So her fantasy is to be attacked by this guy? Seems wrong to me
McCoy the Lover: He acts so goofy and she must be 1/3 his age… It doesn’t seem to ring true for the good doctor.
The Tiger: I can see the chain on its neck….That is not threatening.
“Someone is beaming down from the Bridge”: Sulu says this line and it sounds wrong. Do they beam from the bridge? Last few episodes have shown everyone having to go to the transporter room. And how can he tell anyway?
No Rand… Where is she. One week she’s there the next few poof. Mind you I’m sure she’d get jealous if she saw Kirk prancing through the woods with Ruth.
Yeah, what happened to Rand? I mean, the new Yoeman is cute, but…
It was clear before the opening credits that we were in for something of a comedic break here. Kirk’s back rub and McCoy’s white rabbit (with the dumbfounded “he went that-a-way” bit) set the tone early.
Mr. Sulu seems to have an ancient weapon facination. First the rapier or foil or whatever in “The Naked Time”, and now the old gun and the samurai encounter. Maybe he should be some kind of weapons or combat officer.
We’re back to “stupid crew” problems here, at least a bit. Even after they acknowledge that the happenings on the planet are strange, and at least possibly dangerous (Kirk does prevent the rest of the crew from beaming down) they still wander around, with none of the security teams we’ve seen in previous episodes, and play along with the weirdness to a degree. Barrows plays dress-up, Sulu has target practice, Kirk makes time with Ruth… how about a little caution, people? Kirk even refuses an armed party when Spock suggests it. Eventually, of course, they get down to business, but it takes the (apparent) death of a crew member to smarten them up.
All in all, a fun episode. Not on par with last week’s brilliance, but fun.
[2005]I assume those of us that are actually bothering to re-watch these things are doing so on DVD. Anyone else have audio problems with this episode? I first noticed during Finnigan and Kirk’s first fight, when Yoeman Barrow’s scream was barely audible. After that I paid attention, and noticed that a lot of rear-channel audio was inexplicably low.[/2005]
That bit with the rabbit was way too cheesy and over the top for me.
But, I liked the idea of a theme park that realy gives you what you want. As long as there are safety protocols,that is. When Sulu found that revolver, first thing I thought was “Hey, you could put an eye out with that!” But thenI fiured there must be some safeties. And then we get a plane strafing people with real looking bullets and the Doctor gets killed by the Black Knight?
However, it all turns out good in the end, esp after the Keeper reprograms the place to be more fitting for Humans. And the good Doctor gets to have wild sex, apparantly. Well, it did seem implied…
What’s with the Irish music? We’ve had it before with Riley and the water molecule problem, now we get it with Kirk’s old dorm mate? Is someone on the staff obsessed with Irish stereotypes?
I liked the episode. It was almost like a mystery, show us a problem and then let it get figured out in the end. It was also nice to see a greater spread of characters and roles. Still Kirk-centric, but with a lot of extras.
Kirk’s old GF doesn’t look at all like the kind of girl I would see him falling for.
I always look for writer credits, and this one was written by the great Theodore Sturgeon. I wish he’d write more. This makes me wonder if there is more going on in this episode than we were allowed to see by the NBC censors. This show is all about fantasy fulfillment, and I got the sense a lot of the fantasies of the crew were shoved out of view. McCoy didn’t reappear with those two honies for nothing. Kirk both gets revenge and gets the girl he lost.
After the last episode spent on the edge of death, this was a nice change.
While Sturgeon was listed as the writer, I understand that there really was no writer. A huge part of this episode was improvised, and they had no idea where the story was going while they were filming it. And in fact, it was sort of a real-life shore leave for the cast – it was sort of a vacation for them while they were filming.
Don’t ask me for a cite on this. It’s been years since I read about it, and I don’t recall the source.
And I don’t want to sound petty, but she seemed too old for him. I mean, Kirk said she hadn’t aged a day, and he was 15 years older, and she STILL looked too old for him.
Same applies for Finnigan. He actually has a line about still being 20 years old, and he looked much older than that.
It was a fun but forgettable episode, though IMO the revelation at the end was too deus ex machina. I think it’d have been better if everyone knew it was a “theme park” in the beginning and went down for shore leave, but then something goes wrong, and the crew is left to wonder if they’re still “playing” or seriously endangered.
[2005]Sturgeon’s draft was a great deal more complex (a circus, elephants on the loose, machine-like hydraulic arms coming up out of the ground via trapdoor to pull the “dead” bodies down, a calliope, a dance, and a computer brain that controlled the planet and sent telepathic messages to Kirk, et al, to explain what what going on at the end instead of the Controller we saw in the flesh, etc.) Gene Roddenberry sat under a tree on location and rewrote the script on a legal pad, had it typed and filmed it then. So, the actors never really did improvise, though they may have well wandered by and offered GR suggestions. Shatner famously wanted to wrestle the tiger until he got close to it and saw that his lims, looks and testicles might not survive the encounter. Also, for the record, Sulu’s line in the script is “Someone beaming down from the ship.” Takei must have misspoken and said “bridge,” and it was either never noticed or they didn’t feel like looping it.[/2005]
