Synopsis: Spock is on trial for the commandeering of the Enterprise. He is also facing the death penalty for taking the ship to the forbidden world of Talos 4. His evidence is a recording of events 14 years prior while under the Command of Captain Christopher Pike. Pike has been captured by the Talosians who possess the power of making any illusion seem like reality. What is their purpose and will Spock lose his life for his former Captain.
Great episode. The best so far IMHO.
Some thoughts:
This was really heavily weighted towards the recording. The picture would only break a few times for exposition, I guess for those who tuned in late.
I think I have a new appreciation for the colour green.
The Talosian’s bum heads were pulsing ewwwww
I liked Young Spock’s assessment where he says that there was no way to tell if they were operating the proper controls or not and the Talosians could swat them like flies. (Didn’t Garry Mitchell threaten to do this to the Crew when he became godlike) It shows how powerful their reach was… of course the end of teh episode shows that the Talosian’s are really fricken powerful, look how far they act.
You know Pike was an angry, angry man. He can never be satisfied to simply sit back and enjoy an illusion…… You know like the green slave chick. I guess Captains are not allowed to have any fun whatsoever. That’ll teach him for wanting to retire.
Vina… One moment a hottie the next my great aunt… ewwwww
I like the resolution Pike winds up in a world where he can be the man he was, Vina gets to have a man and look beautiful (say is this a theme? That’s twice we’ve been told a woman is only truly happy when she’s beautiful… See Mudds women)
So there was no Commodore Mendez? Once again I have to say wow… those Talosian’s have wicked scary reach with their minds
When I first saw the episode, it struck me as a bit odd that the higher-ups were suddenly willing to let Spock off the hook right after they were set to give him the freaking death penalty!
Thinking about that point, it makes sense. This incident showed that quarantining Talos IV wasn’t doing any good – if the Talosians wanted to give out their dangerous knowledge, they would do so, quarantine or no quarantine – so there was no point in killing off one of their officers to enforce it.
If the Talosians were powerful enough to create an artificial Mendez, wouldn’t they be powerful enough to create the illusions for Pike without having to get him back to Talos?
Vina – Wow! How’d they get that dance by the censors?
Well, maybe they’re not so selfless, maybe they want Pike for his (what is that abbreviation that means all the building codes inside your body – the NRA?) NRA to make babies with Vina’s PMS (or whatever the female version of NRA is called), so they can breed earthlings for slaves.
Great episode, but one thing was so cheesy that it really bugged me. When the Talosians show Pike how Vina really looks, they say, “We had never seen a human before, so we didn’t know how to put her back together” or something to that effect. C’mon, it wouldn’t be that much of a stretch to figure out that humans are reasonably symmetrical, and don’t have giant humps on one side of their backs.
Blowero
Yeah that struck me funny too. Even the Talosians were more symetrical than Vina. Also even if she were unconcious, couldn’t the Talosians have probed her mind after she crash-landed and got a vague idea of what humans look like?
Another strange thing about that episode - they mention visiting Talos 4 is the ONLY crime punishable by death in the Star Trek future. Wow, so somebody could blow up 17 solar systems and get life in prison? (Provided he didn’t visit Talos 4 huh?)
Hey, and how about that cute ensign or whatever she was. (The ones the Talosians said had “strong feminine drives”) That’s Laurel Goodwin by the way. She’s made some Elvis movies. I wish they made her a part of the present day crew. (Then again Jeffrey Hunter would have been a Hell of a lot better as Captain of the Enterprise but now that Captain Pike is disabled, that pretty much rules him out as ever becoming Captain. Hey did Shatner write that episode to ensure his job security ?)
kingpengvin
That episode “Mudd’s Women” ? I must have missed it.
Oh yeah, about the no capital punishment for other crimes… that episode Dagger of the Mind seemed to imply that anyone who commits a criminal act (in the Star Trek version of our future) is insane and will be rehabilitated somehow or another.
I wonder if they might consider showing us what would happen to those for whom rehabilititation didn’t work. Someone so criminally insane that they are a danger to themselves and society. Might make an interesting ep.
Sorry I’m late to this thread… I saw the show but had other things crop up that prevented me from chiming in…
This episode was great. Interesting story, neat effects, fantastic ideas about the nature of perception and reality, I loved it.
The sheer power of the Talosians illusion/mind control powers was pretty impressive. They seem able to reach across space, right into individual minds.
A question on the logistics of a mental illusion such as the one Pike succumbed to: If I am, in reality, trapped in a chair, but in my mind I get up walk across the room and pour myself a drink… can I then really benifit from drinking it? I mean, do Pike and Vina have to take a ‘reality’ hour once a day to eat real food or whatever, or can the Talosians somehow sustain them from within the illusion?
My presumption was that the Talosian sneaking into Pike’s cell, that Pike was able to capture, was going in there for precisely that reason - to take care of some physical need that couldn’t be addressed via telepathy. But maybe they gave an explanation and I missed it. And they did provide physical food to Pike, in the form of a liquid, which they told Pike could appear to him to be any food he desired.
Oh wait - I missed that you were talking about the crippled Pike, after he returns. I would think they’d have to feed the guy and drain the waste out of that wheelchair contraption, however that works, don’t you think?
Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. I was just wondering if he was aware of them taking care of him, or if the illusion of health continued even while they were seeing to his physical well being.
I don’t know, I’d like to think he remains in a perpetual illusion without the nastiness of his reality intruding in every so often. I’m even guessing he is not in a cell but in a nice comfy room with people tending to his needs.
Mind you maybe they designed the chair to use transporter technology to eliminate the nasty waste.
Well, phasers can reduce matter to nonexistence (and I’d love to know how they pull that stunt without a lot of e=mc[sup]2[/sup] all over the place), so why even bother with a transporter?
Also, having just seen the next ep (Conscience of the King), didn’t I hear a reference to “disintegration chambers”? There’s your clean, tidy waste disposal.
My favorite part about this episode was the Talosian’s changing to many forms while Pike was choking him/her. A classical fairy tale / Ring of the Neibelungen moment, and very well done.
Vina refers to the Keeper as “he”. Although, come to think of it, they do look and sound androgynous. That could be a subtle point — that their race had become sexless.
