“Conscience of the King”
Wooo! What’s that smell? It’s this episode! Most of the first season eps of TOS (The Original Series) are pretty good, many among the best, but not this one.
Kirk gets the hots for blond, 19 year old Lenore Kardashian, oops, Karidian. 19 YEARS OLD! And he's 36! We all know Kirk will shag anything in a skirt, or tight slacks, a mu mu, suit of armor….But a 19 year old girl that he’s just met seems very, very wrong (well, this is the same dude who fell head over transistors for blond robot chick Reyna after literally one game of billiards in a three hour time frame!). Turns out her Pops - Lenore's not robot girl's - is not only the head of a traveling Shakespeare Acting Company, but a mass murderer - dude slaughtered half of a planetary colony (nice stats!). Now his little chica is following in papi’s footsteps.
There’s one cool set full of funky angles shown in this episode that is never seen again – the shuttlecraft hangar observation deck. This location was the scene of the most blatant sexual innuendo of any Star Trek episode. I am seriously baffled as to how it got past network censors of the day. After some mindless chitchat, Lenore turns to Kirk and says, ostensibly regarding the ship’s engines, “All this power surging and throbbing, yet under control. Are you like that, Captain?” Kirk just responds with a sly smile. "Surging and throbbing?" "SURGING AND THROBBING?" And is the captain like THAT? I need a cigarette just for transcribing it! Maybe they trashed the set 'cuz they couldn't get scrape all the smut off the walls.
This was the last time we also saw Bruce Hyde’s character Lt. Kevin Riley (the first being "The Nekkid Time"). He was a fun character, too bad they couldn’t keep him around. (If he was kept, I guess there wouldn't have been a Mr. Chekov. Is that such a bad thing?)
Disclaimer: Star Trek is Copyright 2009 and a Registered Trademark of CBS Studios, Inc. No infringement of those rights is implied.
ALF and The Twilight Zone are Copyright 2009 by their respective rights holders. Lyrics from “The Sound of Music” and quotes from “Mel Brooks’ History of the World: Part I” parodied here are Copyright 2009 their respective rights holders. Twilight Zone image from www.horroretc.com.
Thanks to Trekcore.com for the Star Trek screencaps.
Hooray, more fumetti!! They don't have "personal space" on Vulcan I guess--lol.
ReplyDeleteDidn't Alf host a talk show?? The Gorn should have been his side-man.
Spock deflates the crew! Then he can store them conveniently under his bed like "space bags".
Much Ado about Maab! It's on a double bill with A Midsummer Night's Maab (or The Merchant of Maab, or the Merry Wives of Maab)
Anywho, onto the "episode" in question. This is one of those that I've never liked (ironically it's the only episode so far that I've had time to watch out of the new Blu-Ray set). When I was a kid it had too much mushy stuff and waaaaay too much torpid melodrama. As an adult I find there are two more things about it that drive me up the wall:
First--the story is a thinly veiled rip-off of Agatha Christie's "10 Little Indians". I guess this really isn't that big a deal writers do this sort of thing all the time. And I guess if you're going to steal from someone why not steal from the best? Still.
Secondly, the premise is just plain stupid--even for the 1960's: There are only X number of people who ever saw this guy and lived. I guess they never had any cameras on the colony planet, or any records of any kind of the people that went to the planet in the first place, or no one from the colony ever contacted or communicated with anyone or sent any reports, or requested any assistance or help once the crisis arose. This makes no sense whatsoever, in any way shape or form, at all. Fast forward to today and how easy it is to confirm, capture an image, or even steal anyone's identity. Then extrapolate that out 300 years and it just makes it worse.
To add insult to injury I am forced to endure portions of this schlockisode because they include some great shots of the "hero" phaser prop.
No sooner did I hit "submit" that I had some further thoughts on this episode. I guess back in 1966 with Nazi War criminals hiding out all over the place this must have seemed like a much more realistic idea. The Galaxy is a pretty big place to hide too (so Coridian hides in plain site). If Joseph Mengele can avoid the authorities for forty years it isn't entirely outside the realm of possibility for this conceit to work, though Mengele really went out of his way to cover his tracks and had a small network of people helping. But that doesn't mean the episode sucks any less.
ReplyDelete"Space bags." LOL!
ReplyDeleteI like your suggestions for "Maab" plays. On a similar tangent, our motto at BNFOS Radio is "Less talk, more Maab!"
I didnt know about the Ten Little Indians connection. I just knew I never liked this ep. The guy who plays Kodos is pretty bland, sort of the standard version of what everyone thinks a stage ack-tor should be.
I would KILL to see an a "Late, Late, Late, Late Show with ALF" with the Gorn as announcer/side-kick, and the Balok puppet leading the band (which would just be a Casio keyboard). Of course the set would resemble Vaal the giant serpent head-thing! One of the recurring bits could be "Guess Tonight's Offering to Vaal."