tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12380553.post1694857289383846379..comments2024-03-29T04:57:26.162-04:00Comments on John Kenneth Muir's Reflections on Cult Movies and Classic TV: Star Trek 50th Anniversary Blogging: "Requiem for Methuselah" (February 14, 1969)John Kenneth Muirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15629979615332893780noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12380553.post-15816175233560800542018-10-26T19:49:20.435-04:002018-10-26T19:49:20.435-04:00One of the 3rd season shows that ranks near the bo...One of the 3rd season shows that ranks near the bottom of my list. Kirk is not Kirk. With 4 hours to save the crew, he spends the entire show making puppy eyes at Rayna. Ridiculous. The last season turned Shatner into some kind of Cosmic Casanova, making time with five women--correction: 4 women and an android-- in five shows (Wink of An Eye, Mark of Gideon, etc.) McCoy shows his utterly cruel, sadistic side, needling Spock at the end about love. The worst, most idiotic moment of the entire series is when Flint turns the Enterprise into a collectible. There's a Land of The Giants moment when we see Shatner's face in the main screen. If Flint could do something of that magnitude, he could surely cure his loss of immortality. The fight between Flint and Kirk is amateurishly blocked and filmed. The funniest ever write-up of this episode is by Fedor8 at IMDB.Elliot Jameshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17964519903027517480noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12380553.post-9811989964405398412017-09-02T09:22:13.414-04:002017-09-02T09:22:13.414-04:00"Requiem" has an almost dreamlike qualit..."Requiem" has an almost dreamlike quality that I like. James Daly is perfect as Flint. His line about being immortal, with his list of names from the past, is terrific and "believable".<br /><br />By the way, that's the Enterprise 3-footer we see sitting on the table, not an AMT kit.<br /><br />Good and fair review, John.Simon St. Laurenthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02948457860768548876noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12380553.post-33021788695023993912017-08-30T03:11:04.613-04:002017-08-30T03:11:04.613-04:00John,
I must admit that I was prepared for the wo...John,<br /><br />I must admit that I was prepared for the worst. You've been singling out "Requiem for Methuselah" for the past several weeks as one of the lesser efforts of the Third Season, but I have to say, you are fair in your assessments and your comments have validity. I'm glad of this, because, when I was compiling my list of top 20 Star Trek episodes, I wrote down all of my favorite ones, 25 in all, and "Requiem" was on it. It didn't make the cut, but I appreciate it no less.<br /><br />In fact, I watched the episode again, before reading your review, so it would be fresh in my mind, and something occurred to me that I'd never thought of during this viewing. Nobody reading this has to agree with me, but it is strongly implied that Kirk is, himself, suffering from the early stages of Rigellian Fever! At one point, Scotty tells us that "everyone's got it," and it is known that they will all succumb if the Ryetalan isn't processed in time. Kirk is responsible for all of those lives, driven to desperation, and acting out of sorts, as if he himself is feverish. Into this scenario waltzes (literally) a stunning woman, and...well, love itself has been described as a fever.<br /><br />I may be overreaching, but I'm also basing this conclusion on a concurrent pitch of Jerome Bixby's to Star Trek named "Skal," in which an alien race gives Kirk an illness, which causes him to act out of character. In fact, the final coda for "Requiem" was originally written in the pitch for "Skal," with Spock helping Kirk to forget. This information is included in the third volume of Marc Cushman's "These Are the Voyages," and his assessment of "Requiem" is excellent, and well worth reading.<br /><br />With regards to that coda, Thank Heavens for dvd's and blu rays. When Star Trek was remastered and re-syndicated with brand new effects, one of the unfortunate aspects of the "new" reruns was the tendency to snip and edit sections, both small and large, from the episodes. "Requiem" suffered horribly, and I would literally get enraged, because McCoy's entire entrance, speech to Spock, and exit were eliminated from the syndicated episode! They literally cut out the heart of the entire episode, just to put in a commercial for hair tonic or some other junk.<br /><br />Lastly, let us not forget that "Requiem for Methuselah" has what I consider to be the best Fade to Black in Star Trek history: When Kirk is introduced to Rayna, and the camera fixates on his interested gaze - cut to commercial! Every Star Trek fan in the world knew what Kirk was thinking...and what was coming next!<br /><br />SteveAnonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13101722769411384962noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12380553.post-41795902121570941862017-08-29T13:19:30.507-04:002017-08-29T13:19:30.507-04:00Yes, "Requiem" is one of those nagging e...Yes, "Requiem" is one of those nagging episodes that keeps Star Trek fans hopping back and forth over the ditch marked Like/Dislike for ages! <br /><br />There are thoughtful ideas here about the dark side of immortality, and the dangers of trying to manipulate others who have independent will so unintended consequences will result. But it all gets lost in a sea of contradictions and poorly thought-out plot elements. So viewers have to adjust their "head canon" to make it work. You're right about the Kirk/Rayna romance angle: Kirk isn't himself and therefore the whole thing isn't believable, so my brain chooses to attribute his intense feelings for Rayna as a reaction to Flint's manipulating his competitive drive. You're right that Flint should be more adroit with millennia of experience, so my brain chooses to explain Flint's behavior as a consequence of the unexpectedly intense fear that he's losing control of his creation once she experiences feelings for Kirk. Neither Kirk nor Flint behaves in his normal fashion once the romance is jump-started, and neither of them sees it until it's too late. My brain has to explain McCoy's sticking around because he notices what's going on and thinks he might need to step in.<br /><br />And then there's that wonderful coda, in which McCoy explains humanity to Spock in a truly poetic way. Touble is, it seems grafted onto a really ridiculous romance, so we automatically think Spock's "forget" would have been better used to help his friend deal with the loss of Edith Keeler, or Miramanee and his unborn child, or his brother and sister-in-law on Deneva, or . . . . So I've always had to imagine that Spock is trying to help Kirk forget not just his feelings for Rayna but the entire damn episode--forget we were ever here, forget the entire thing, the whole thing never happened! That's the only way I can make that work in my head.<br /><br />Too many episodes in the third season make us do that: imagine the episode as it should have been written so we can dismiss the stupid and poorly executed elements in favor of the remaining beautiful, intriguing, and watchable elements. Darn it.<br /><br />By the way, there's a sizeable amount of fan fiction that follows up on the unintended consequences of Spock's trying to help Kirk by stealing this memory, which comes back to haunt all involved in some unfortunate ways. Sherinoreply@blogger.com