Deep Focus Episode 5: The Hunger (1983)

 

60 Years Ago: Star Trek: "Miri" (October 27, 1966)

Stardate: 2713.5

The Enterprise encounters an Earth-style distress S.O.S. and traces its origin to the third planet of a system hundreds of light years from Earth.  The planet is an exact duplicate of Earth as it existed in the 1960s. The planet, however is sparsely populated.

A landing party beams down to the planet and discover that all the adults on the planet are long-dead.  Strangely, there are packs of wild children still alive; children who are actually 300 years old, but who contract a deadly disease upon the onset of puberty

As Kirk (William Shatner) and the others learn, piecing together information from a teenage girl name Miri (Kim Darby), this strange set of circumstances came about when scientists on the parallel Earth undertook a project in “life prolongation.”

When Kirk, Bones (De Forest Kelley), Yeoman Rand (Grace Lee Whitney) and the other humans in the landing party contract the disease, they realize they have only days left before the onset of dementia and an agonizing death.  

And unfortunately, Miri’s friends have stolen their communicators as part of a game, because these ancient children don’t like “grups” (grown-ups). Now they can’t even contact the ship for help in determining if an antidote is fatal.

Finally, Kirk must confront the children about the truth of their existence, and a disease that extends childhood…but never allows one to grow up.

“Miri” is a strange and affecting Peter Pan story. It acknowledges that there’s a strange duality in being young. 

For a time, it seems that childhood lasts forever…and we want it to do so There is nothing more like paradise than the first day of summer vacation…the promise of so many days ahead filled with endless play and games. 

But then, as adolescence looms, it seems we can’t grow up and be independent fast enough. Childhood seems like a prison at that point, not the ultimate freedom. We count the days until we can escape curfews and house rules, and chart our own destiny.

What once seemed like paradise now seems like damnation.

This episode of Star Trek (1966 – 1969) takes as the title character a young woman, played beautifully by Kim Darby, who has half-crossed that bridge from childhood to adulthood. Childish things are now behind Miri, and she longs for an adult life. But because of the disease on her planet, she will never reach that threshold. 

When Miri grows up, she dies. She has waited quite a long time to reach a destination that she will never see, at least for any length of time. This is her tragedy, though the good people of the Enterprise help her escape the trap.  Her dilemma, however, is haunting.  Miri is very much alone when Kirk and the others first meet her, an outcast who doesn't belong to the world of adults or the world of children.

In a way, Miri is the female counterpart for Charlie Evans ("Charlie X"), and so this segment is thus the second episode in Trek's first season that contends with adolescence as a time of great capriciousness. 

The notion of children running a society on their own, often quite cruelly, is a science fiction and literary trope. We saw the concept play out in William Golding's 1954 novel Lord of the Flies, for example. After Trek, the idea appeared on other science fiction series, including The Starlost (1973) and the episode "The Children of Methuselah."

This situation encountered by the Enterprise in “Miri” could be a metaphor for many things, but it seems a perfect reflection of human life. 

What children don’t always recognize in their longing to “grow up” is that adulthood -- while freeing in terms of decision-making and independence, at least for a while -- is also about shackling one’s self to a certain set of variables or responsibilities. 

You need a job. You need a place to live. You need a car. 

The freedom you imagined is, instead, a kind of soul death where your childhood dreams go to curl up and die.  This is especially true for those with an artistic bent. Want to be a musician, a writer, or an actor?  Be prepared to do a lot of lousy jobs to support your dream. Few kids imagine that truth.

Similarly, the Grups in “Miri” are combative, delusional monsters who just want to fight with another. This seems to suggest that brand of the freedom represented by adulthood is wasted on grown-ups. 

Once ensconced in maturity, grown-ups long for the childhood they once had -- like the disfigured Grup with his broken tricycle -- and now spend their days acting like raving maniacs. 

Miri describes Grups as people who burn, yell and hurt people, a good indictment of some bitter grown-ups, especially today. When one looks at the anger seething right now in this country, one has to wonder what our children make of the so-called "adults."

Like last week’s story, “What Are Little Girls Made Of,” there is a distinctly conservative bent to this episode of Star Trek. 

The people of Miri’s planet made a grave mistake when they sought to change nature; to pursue immortality through their life prolongation project. They showed hubris or pride in believing that they could over-write nature’s plan, and for their folly the planet was destroyed.  They thought they could substitute their wisdom for the wisdom of God or Mother Nature.

Kirk, Spock and McCoy provide an antidote that restores the previous status-quo; giving the children a natural life-span to live out, rather than the dreamed-of immortality.  In other words, they re-boot in the society in terms of its original design.

The message is quite explicitly that science, medicine and technology can go too far, and so should be viewed warily.  It’s funny for a show about the future -- one that depends so fully on advanced technology -- to take this view, but I understand it.  

Star Trek is about human beings learning to face the mysteries of the final frontier while maintaining their essential human nature.  And that nature, episodes such as “Miri” remind us, is mortal.  The fact that we grow old and die is part of our essential make-up.  Indeed, we count our lives as worth living in part because we realize they won’t last forever. What drives us is the need to achieve great things in the time given us.

Still, I wouldn’t be averse to living for 200 years or so, assuming no plague is created by doctors in giving me that opportunity…

“Miri” is also a kind of second (or is it third?) pilot for Star Trek, in that it is the first in an intended series of “Parallel Earth” stories. 

In these (projected) money-saving type stories, the Enterprise encounters planets that are duplicates of Earth, but ones that veered off of our “chosen” destiny in some key way. 

In “Miri,” the quest for immortality releases a deadly plague that is a “veritable soup of bacteria” destroying the human race, mostly, at a 1960s level of technological development.  

From a production standpoint, these stories are cheap to do because they utilize standing studio sets.

However, I think we can be grateful that no other “Parallel Earth” stories are told in quite this fashion, with the Enterprise encountering exact duplicates of our planet in the distant heavens.  

“A Piece of the Action” and “Patterns of Force” are about alien worlds contaminated by contact with Earth culture, rather than planetary duplicates that spontaneously exist in other solar systems. 

“Bread and Circuses” isn’t set on a duplicate Earth, but rather an alien planet that mirrors the rise of human culture on Earth. Perhaps that’s splitting hairs, but I think it would be awful if Star Trek featured every few weeks, a duplicate Earth. I'm glad the series didn't go that way.

“Miri” does set a trend in Star Trek storytelling in terms of another factor: language.  

In this episode, Kirk and his crew encounter children who have adopted their own slang or vocabulary.  Not merely “Grups,” but “Onlies” and Foolies” too.  The crew must decipher these words as part of their method of understanding another culture.  This notion recurs in “The Omega Glory” with the Yangs (Yankees) and Kohms (Communists), and even in Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) with V’ger (Voyager).  

The answer to each story’s particular riddle involves an understanding of language, in all cases, a mangled “code” that no longer functions entirely as it should. The key is to crack the code.

Abnormal Fixation Season Three Trailer - Prepare for Chaos!

 

30 Years Ago: Chris Carter's Millennium (October 25, 1996)

Frank Black (Lance Henriksen), his wife, Catherine (Meghan Gallagher) and their daughter, Jordan (Brittany Tiplady) move into a beautiful yellow house in Seattle.  

Frank, a former FBI agent who is recovering from a nervous breakdown, is now consulting with an organization of like-minded law-enforcement officials, the Millennium Group.  He helps the Group solve cases of an especially difficult nature utilizing his gift of “insight.”  Specifically, Frank becomes “capability,” seeing what the “killer sees.”

This ability, Frank notes, is both his gift and his curse.

Frank’s unusual brand of insight is put to the test almost at once, when a peep-show stripper is murdered by a deviant, poetry-reciting killer, “The Frenchman” (Paul Dillon). Frank tracks the killer, hoping to catch him before he strikes again.

But the Frenchman -- who is punishing sins against God in what he considers a Godless time and place -- commits another sexual homicide before he can be stopped.

As the case grows more difficult, Frank is distracted when Jordan contracts an unknown malady and is rushed to a Seattle hospital…

The pilot for Millennium (1996-1999) represents, perhaps, Chris Carter’s finest writing contribution to television in the 1990s. With seemingly effortless grace and literacy, this hour-long drama sets up the three central dramatic pillars of the cult-TV series.  

These pillars are: Frank Black’s family and home life, his investigations into the most savage and monstrous of criminals, and, finally, the series’ social role as commentator on 1990s America.  All these pillars are interconnected, as you might guess.

The writing is unquestionably sharp in this pilot episode, but its edge is enhanced immeasurably by director David Nutter’s brilliant visualizations. 

Many times throughout the pilot, a central clue or connection is captured merely in terms of canny imagery, with no dialogue to support it. This visual story-telling represents one reason why Millennium endures and is so incredibly smart. Nothing is spoon-fed to us. But the clues are there for us to see, and the connections are there for us to make, just as Frank Black (Lance Henriksen) makes them.

There are two examples to consider, immediately, of this visual storytelling approach. One involves the clue, PESTE, which is written both on a casket and underneath a bridge. Frank connects the graffiti and the epitaph, but the dialogue does not. We are asked, ultimately, to make the connection alongside the investigator.

Secondly, the key climactic event of the episode involves nothing but a look -- and a momentary hesitation -- between protagonist and antagonist. Frank stumbles upon the Frenchman in police headquarters. He takes one look at him, and knows that he has found his man. Creepily, the Frenchman stares back and knows precisely whom he is facing as well.

A look passes between the two men, and then the conflict becomes physical, but again, there’s never a moment in which a character explains his thought process, or how, specifically, he knows or recognizes the identity of his opposite.  This is a powerful approach for two reasons.

First, it validates Frank’s brand of insight. 

He has been in the “head” of the Frenchman, so it makes sense that he would recognize him on sight, after a fashion. But much more frightening is the opposite recognition.  The Frenchman seems to recognize Frank not merely as an investigator, but as a kindred force or person.  He seems to understand, or believe – instinctively – that Frank sees the same things he does.  That means that Frank’s insight is right, but also that the killer possesses some level of insight as well. 

A simpler way to put this is, simply, that Frank has looked into the abyss (the Frenchman), and the abyss has peered back into him (Frank). 

Beyond these terrific visual moments, the episode is also punctuated by gruesome and shocking sights. We see the gay men cruising a park by night, and in the Frenchman’s view their eyes and mouths are sewed up. There’s a psychic jolt when these individuals loom from the darkness, their faces a mockery of what we consider a normal human visage.

Then there is the bracing moment, in the pilot’s prologue, wherein beautiful women strip and dance, only to be drenched in blood and fire.  The Frenchman says “I want to see you dance on the blood-dimmed tide,” and the episode makes that wish a reality, by adopting his (twisted and perverse) perspective. 

Much of Millennium involves what we understand to be reality (based on Frank’s view of the world), and an alternate, corrupted view of reality. That second perspective is how the killer sees the world, and Frank’s key to unlocking each mystery is to tap that horrible (but also imaginatively realized) viewpoint.  In many ways, this episode of Millennium is about the differences between realities, and the way that we all navigate them.

Consider the doomed exotic dancer, Calamity, in the teaser sequence. Before she strips for the killer, becoming his fantasy (or becoming trapped in his fantasy, perhaps), we get a harsh dose of reality. She is not the object of sexuality that customers believe she is. Instead, we see her calling her child on the telephone before starting her shift at the sex shop.  She’s a single mom trying to make a living.  Selling sex is what she does for a living, but sexual arousal is probably the furthest thing from her mind as she goes about her “work.”

The idea of image vs. reality in terms of the stripper’s world, and the killer’s world, also has one more corollary in the episode, in Frank Black himself. He has bought his family the “perfect” yellow-house, and wants to carve out a place in the world for his wife and daughter that is safe and happy.  He wants them to see only the sunshine, not the blackest night.

But Catherine -- a clinical psychologist -- knows all too well that Frank’s reality is constructed, and therefore fragile.  She tells him that he can’t protect them from the darkness.  His answer is that he wants her to pretend that he can.  In other words, he prefers, in this case, not to “see” the truth.  He constructs his reality of the yellow house and asks Catherine and Jordan to share that illusion with him, without acknowledging that it is an illusion.

Frank paints away the darkness with the yellow house, as Chris Carter told me in an interview in 2009, but he too -- like the Frenchman -- erects a world that isn’t quite real.

In terms of Frank’s family and the relationships between members, this pilot is the starting point for several story-arcs.  The first involves Catherine. She tells Frank, explicitly, that she can handle his job. What she can’t handle is him keeping secrets from her.  “I can handle imposition, Frank,” she says directly. “What I can’t handle is secrecy.”

Frank, however, is unable to be completely truthful and open with Catherine, despite her admonition that he should be.  Why?  I believe the answer is encoded in the reality he creates.  He will not be the one to shatter the sanctuary of the yellow house. If he tells Catherine everything he sees, everything he knows, she -- like him -- won’t be able to live in the world he has created.

The pilot also gives us the first instance of Jordan mysteriously falling ill or having unexplained wounds This plot device recurs on at least two other occasions in the series (“Monster” and “Borrowed Time.”) 

These dangerous events always remind Frank where his priorities should be, but also suggest that Jordan is incredibly fragile and not a “normal” child. As stories such as “Walkabout” suggest, she may possess Frank’s gift of insight…and something beyond it too.

In terms of the second dramatic pillar, Millennium’s pilot introduces to a killer who views others as sinners, and yet has sinned himself. He judges others, and condemns them to (horrible) deaths, without addressing his behavior.

The first time we see the killer in the pilot is in a rain-soaked, gray world, as he stalks it in near silhouette. 

The Frenchman is depicted under an arch, and the visual suggestion is that he is being crushed by the world; being crushed by his vision of the world, which he believes requires him to act. The world around him is dead, is slate gray, and the trees are devoid of life and color. 

He does act, to murder sinners, and Frank connects his crimes, in particular to “The Second Coming,” a 1920 poem by W.B. Yeats about, not surprisingly, apocalypse, and historical cycles. Specifically, Yeats apparently envisioned a doomsday coming roughly two thousand years after the death of Jesus Christ.

That would be right about 1996 -- the epoch of this story -- give or take a couple of years. So in some twisted way, the Frenchman is working on the assumption that he is living through Yeats’ apocalypse, which he sees as one of moral depravity. 

He talks about the “great plague in the maritime city,” and this reference may carry two meanings. The episode links the line from Yeats to AIDS, and the Frenchman’s gay victims (and also, apparent inclination).  

But given what we know of Millennium as a series, the “maritime” city of Seattle does suffer an outbreak in 1998, or a plague, in the two-part second season story “The Fourth Horseman”/”The Time is Now.’

Taken by itself, the pilot is the story of a sick serial killer who dwells in his own reality of judgment and wrath. But if we look at the series as a whole, we might even view him as one more person who seems “gifted” or “cursed” by an insight the rest of us don’t possess.  In this case, The Frenchman adopts the telltale “anticipatory anxiety” of Chris Carter’s 1990s programs, fearing that he knows what God’s judgment will be, come the turn of the century. Or, perhaps he knows what the Millennium Group is actually up to…

The third dramatic pillar I mentioned above is social commentary, and for me this is a key artistic aspect of Millennium. This episode points out the hypocrisy of those who judge others, and we certainly saw much of that in the 1990s.  But more than that, I think the episode gazes at people who walk among us and yet dwell in  their own separate realities.  Today, we are more divided, even, then we were in the 1990s.  

Frank’s answer to the anxiety he feels when reckoning with the real world is to create a sanctuary for his family. And that in a way is part of the problem. A sanctuary is a place to hide after all, not to engage the darkness.  A key aspect of Yeat’s The Second Coming is “turning inward,” and I think the episode demonstrates that in regards to both Frank and the Frenchman.  The episode encourages us to compare and contrast the two characters in terms of their world view, and their insight.

I’ve written this before, and I continue to stand by this assessment: Millennium opens with one of the five best pilots in TV history.  

One would be hard-pressed to pinpoint another premiere episode that achieves so much, so well. It is smart and literate, engrossing, and terrifying.

50 Years Ago: Land of the Lost: "Flying Dutchman" (October 23, 1976)

While it is undeniable that the third season of Land of the Lost suffers in terms of its continuity with the preceding two years’ worth of episodes, I nonetheless appreciate how the third season occasionally adapts creepy elements of world mythology to the world of Altrusia.  It’s a different take than the original vision, to be certain, but the mythology-based episodes make for intriguing adventures, at least on a few occasions.

Such is the case with “Flying Dutchman,” this week’s installment, which first aired on October 23, 1976.  

The story uses as its basis the legend of a Dutch man-of-war “ghost ship,” reported as early as the 18^th century by sailors and other travelers on the high seas.  

In some stories, the captain of the Flying Dutchman (known as Bernard Fokke) is believed to be in league with Satan himself….a devil.  In other variations of the folklore, the captain (sometimes Vander Decker) is being punished for some moral failing by this eternal life on the seas, never able to reach port again.  

The Flying Dutchman is also sometimes reported to be a pirate ship, lost off the Cape of Good Hope, and a young King George V once reported seeing the eerie vessel off the coast of Australia.

In Land of the Lost’s “Flying Dutchman,” The Marshalls discover a wrecked man-of-war in the Mist Marsh (former home of the Zarn), but the area is not referred to on-screen as such, which is disappointing. 

The Marshalls hear ghostly voices emanating from the ship’s deck, and find a lonely captain, Van Der Mere (Rex Holman) alone on board.  Although he promises to take Uncle Jack, Holly, Will and Chaka back out through the vortex by which he arrived, the captain secretly plans to leave with only Holly (Kathy Coleman) on board.  She is a dead ringer for his long-lost daughter, Wilhelmina, and he misses his child’s companionship.

Uncle Jack (Ron Harper) realizes that Van Der Mere’s ship is the legendary Dutchman and saves a drugged Holly at the last moment.  The Captain apologizes for his behavior.  “I am ashamed,” he admits. “You have my apologies…it’s so terribly lonely.”

In the episode’s final moments, the Marshalls and Chaka watch in awe as the Flying Dutchman takes to the air, and sails out of view...though how it escapes Altrusia (and the land’s one in/one out rule of entry/exit) is left unexplained.

On the plus side of the equation, “Flying Dutchman” is an episode filled with creepy imagery of the derelict ship in the Mist Marsh.  These moments are atmospheric, and a real sense of danger and terror dominates the show (at least in Saturday morning terms).  

On the down-side, this episode sees the return of the single-worst character in Land of the Lost history, the cave-man Malak (Richard Kiel).  Too much time is wasted in “Flying Dutchman” as Jack and Will negotiate with Malak for the release of Captain Van Der Mere’s nautical belongings, including a sextant and a compass.

Some viewers, I remember, found this episode sexually perverse, with an adult man professing his love for a much, much younger woman, Holly.  But the text of the episode makes it  absolutely clear that Van Der Mere’s affections are not sexual, but those of a father who misses his daughter, and can never be reunited with her so long as he is cursed to travel the endless corridors of time.  For me, the episode doesn’t play as particularly perverse, though I admit it features a scary undercurrent about children being kidnapped and swept away by dark forces.

Despite the fact that “Flying Dutchman” plays fast and loose with the established rules of Altrusia, I still feel that the episode, much like “Medusa” works as a sort of children’s horror show.  I remember that I liked this installment very much as a child, and was obsessed with the legend of the Flying Dutchman for months after viewing.  I still find the legend compelling, and accordingly, I would rate this episode of the third season pretty highly in the roster.

60 Years Ago: Star Trek: "What are Little Girls Made Of." (October 20, 1966)

Stardate 2712.4

The U.S.S Enterprise approaches the frozen world, Exo III, which was the last known location of Dr. Roger Korby (Michael Strong), a renowned scientist described as “The Pasteur of Archaeological Medicine.”

Aboard ship is Nurse Christine Chapel (Majel Roddenberry), Korby’s hopeful fiancée.

To the surprise of everyone, including Captain Kirk (William Shatner) and Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy), a signal from Korby is received. Miraculously, he has survived for five years on the inhospitable world.

Kirk and Chapel beam down to the planet surface and discover that Korby has discovered, in the planet’s deep caverns, the remains of an ancient Civilization -- “The Old Ones.” 

Among other achievements, these highly-advanced (but now extinct…) beings could create perfect android duplicates of human beings. Even more impressively, they could transfer consciousness from human form to mechanical form.

Kirk is concerned, however, because Korby’s androids, including Ruk (Ted Cassidy) and the lovely Andrea (Sherry Jackson) have developed signs of independent will.

Korby creates an android duplicate of Kirk to assume command of the Enterprise, planning to take his discovery of androids out to the far reaches of the galaxy, beginning at a colony, Midas 5;  a world “abundant with raw materials.”

Penned by the great Robert Bloch (1917-1994) to feature strong H.P. Lovecraft overtones (particularly in the mention of the “Old Ones,”) “What are Little Girls Made Of” makes for an effective episode of Star Trek’s (1966-1969) first season. 

Christine Chapel’s engagement to Dr. Korby provides the narrative’s emotional hook, and Ted Cassidy’s hulking Ruk supplies plenty of menace. Without exaggeration, Cassidy (1932-1979) is a huge man, and he dwarfs the other actors. He tosses William Shatner across various sets like a rag doll, and projects not just malevolence, but inhuman strength.

Meanwhile, Sherry Jackson’s Andrea proves both tragic and gorgeous, and Kirk comes off particularlytoo. Specifically, our beloved captain displays his resourcefulness -- and thorough understanding of his first officer -- by dooming his android double with a subconscious racist message (“I’m sick of your half-breed interference, Mr. Spock.”) This is the only clue the intrepid half-Vulcan requires to understand that his captain is in danger.

The quality that proves most compelling about this Star Trek episode, however -- especially in light of future “generations” -- is the anti-technology theme running through it. 

Even though Korby has transferred his human consciousness into an android body, he is still depicted as being a slave to machine nature; to programming that makes him a “monster.”  The episode’s final point is that “something doesn’t survive the process” of transferring human consciousness to a machine.

Today, that idea seems antiquated and fearful, especially as man and machine grow closer than ever to an inevitable merging.

Hopefully we won’t become the Borg.

Star Trek: The Next Generation’s “Technology Unchained” idea is not yet in full effect here, clearly, and throughout the Original Series, one can detect a certain level of wariness and concern about new technology supplanting man. 

In “Court Martial,” for example, a lawyer rails against the idea of computer testimony being utilized in a court case. 

And in “The Ultimate Computer,” a thinking computer is seen as both a job killer and a competitor for superiority. Its Achille’s Heel is the fact that it lacks a human conscience and moral barometer

The same is true here.  

No middle ground can be forged with Dr. Korby and his androids, though it would be beneficial, perhaps to do so. '=

Clearly, they can’t be allowed to assume control of a Federation Colony. But shouldn’t Federation scientists study the life-saving principles discovered by Korby’s party?  Andrea, Ruk, Brown and Korby, despite being androids, are still individuals. The episode successfully writes itself out of a nuanced solution by having all these individuals die by either attacking humans (and be phasered..) or committing suicide.  The moral debate their existence raises seems to die with them, at least so far as this episode is concerned.

I’m firmly an Original Series fan in terms of my preferences, but this blog retrospective is about an objective look back at a 50 year classic.  And objectively speaking, this is another arena in which Star Trek: The Next Generation is plainly superior in its commitment to and exploration of its creator’s humanist values. 

There, in episodes such as “11001001,” “In Theory” and “Measure of a Man,” the android Data (Brent Spiner) explores his humanity and his rights. If he had been activated in Kirk’s time -- on Stardate 2712 or thereabouts -- he likely would have been met with suspicion and fear. 

Next Gen episodes such as “Redemption” Part II display the fact that some Starfleet officers carry hostility towards artificial life into that 24th century era, but “What Are Little Girls Made Of” trades in outright paranoid possibilities; android duplicates infiltrating human populations and assuming control of them. There is no discussion of the idea that these machines have consciousness, and therefore the right to exist.

Kirk also talks about the idea that machines can’t feel love, tenderness, or sentiment here. Again, when one looks at Data, that’s a difficult argument to make. Data possesses a moral barometer (as we learn in the “Descent” two-parter), and a finely-developed sense of friendship.  He is not a loveless, unsentimental monster bent on human conquest.

I think there’s an interesting comparison to be made between Trek generations and their views of technology. The original is conservative, viewing new developments as potentially dangerous, and demanding that humans remain (as they have been) in control of their technology.  

The Next Generation is much more progressive, assuming a position of equal rights for all, and noting that whether biological or mechanical, we’re “all machines.”

In terms of production, “What are Little Girls Made Of” is a real triumph. The split-screen scenes in which the two Captain Kirks share a dinner table are virtually flawless. 

The android-making process is a little silly and fanciful, but unforgettable.  What’s with all the spinning table?  But I absolutely appreciate the horror overtones of the process. Basically, a life -- like a golem -- is created from a hunk of proto-form plastic or clay.  It lives, but it doesn’t possess a soul.

Or does it?

One area where the production falls down on the job: the hunk of cave ceiling Kirk pulls down and uses to protect himself from Ruk. I’m sure it is unintentional, but by golly it really does look like a giant phallus.  

Was nobody paying attention?  How did this make it to air?

I have written before that the original Trek is incredibly kinky, yet I don't think that this prop was intentionally made to resemble a phallus.  

In terms of deliberate kinkiness, "What Are Little Girls Made Of" has plenty to crow about, elsewhere. Andrea is, plainly, a mechanical "geisha," created to love and service Korby. Chapel pins him down on this "relationship." When he asks if she thinks he could love a machine, she replies "did you?"  

That verb tense and word choice suggests sexual intercourse, rather than emotional attachment. The point is established. She's a pleasure-bot.

Finally, the supporting cast-members don't have much to do this week, but nonetheless, Nichelle Nichols again makes the most of her limited screen-time. 

When Chapel learns that the love of her life is still alive, and that she will soon see him again, Uhura leaps up from her station on the bridge and hugs her friend. It's such a spontaneous gesture of love and support, and a testament to Uhura's humanity. 

The Korby-Chapel relationship has been resurrected in Trek history, interestingly, on Strange New Worlds, and that relationship serves as a kind of prequel to this tale. I think that story works here, in part, because it starts to prepare us for Korby's darker impulses. By the time, continuity-wise,  we get to this story, if we've watched Strange New Worlds, the relationship feels deeper and more authentic.

Deep Focus Episode 4: Friday the 13th (1980)

 

50 Years Ago: In Search of (1976-1982)

"This series presents information based in part on theory and conjecture. The producer's purpose is to suggest some possible explanations, but not necessarily the only ones, to the mysteries we will examine."

- opening narration/disclaimer from In Search of (1976-1982).

In the mid-1970's, the perplexing mysteries of the world were laid bare, dramatically, in the documentary-style, syndicated TV series, In Search of.  

This series from producer Alan Landsburg ran for six seasons, and was hosted by Star Trek's (1966-1969) Leonard Nimoy. Nimoy -- often seen on-screen in some very 1970's fashions -- expertly guided viewers through stories examining the Bermuda Triangle, Bigfoot, life after death, reincarnation, The Loch Ness Monster, the existence of Martians and much, much more. The series went in search for historic Dracula and the Lost Colony, explored the cases of individuals claiming to be psychic detectives, and even investigated the fate of the missing pilot, Amelia Earhart.

I wanted to believe.

Structurally this fifty-year old TV series cobbles together dramatic re-enactments of monster sightings with on-camera interviews of experts in various fields, and also, in some cases, it features beautiful natural photography. There's a travelogue aspect to the series. It is a way to see Greece, or Egypt, or the Pacific Northwest, for example.

In terms of dramatic re-enactments, the Bigfoot episode opens with a frightening, and well-shot dramatization of an attack on settlers by a family of Sasquatch, in an isolated log cabin. I remember seeing this creepy, unsettling sequence when the series first aired, and the POV images from the re-enactment have stayed with me to this day. In Search of is also my first memory of seeing the 1967 Patterson-Gimlin Bigfoot film. That footage is dissected in this episode, with fascinating results.

Leonard Nimoy's participation on In Search of provides one of the great strengths of the series' format as well. The actor's presence is a great coup for the produces because his persona is so inter-tangled with his most-famous rational and logical alter-ego: Mr. Spock. Thus every wild or weird theory presented on In Search of sounds tantalizingly plausible, or at leas possible. Nimoy's gravelly, intelligent voice makes every episode of the series a rich, aural delight.

Also, in fairness, In Search of garners tremendous respectability today, in our modern age of "fake news" with its many attempts to appear judicious and even-handed in its explorations. In The Loch Ness Monster episode, or example, a paleontologist notes on camera that he he believes no monster exists in the lake. He just flat out says it. Nessie doesn't exist! 

Similarly, in the episode featuring the Ogopogo Monster, a scientist notes on-screen that he finds it difficult to believe that a prehistoric monster could exist in a lake so small, and so young, geologically-speaking. 

So the episodes here may explore topics that some people consider absolute nonsense, but the way In Search of goes about its explorations suggests that it is interested in science, not phantasmagoria.

It is clear that the series wishes to foster interest in its controversial topics, but also clear that it doesn't ignore fact or evidence, to do so. One episode, about The Bermuda Triangle, opens with Nimoy's statement that mainstream science has determined there is no phenomenon impacting ships and planes in the Triangle. 

Then, however, following that disclaimer, the episode examines historical disappearances, and some first-person "encounters" int the Triangle. The creepiest (and most unforgettable) portion of the episode, however, involves a radio DJ who hosted a show on the topic of the Bermuda Triangle. During the radio show, a strange individual called in to the station, leaving a weird, inhuman-sounding message about the truth of the Triangle, and how it serves as the "aura" of our world. The actual recording is played during the episode and is so weird and unnerving that it captures the imagination, and more than that, spawns further interest in the mysteries of the world. 

In Search of''s episode about Astrology charts similarly even-handed territory. It opens with a question: "What strange influence does the moon have on the behavior of man?" Then, however, during the course of the investigation, the series finds time to feature an astronomer who says, in no uncertain terms that he feels Astrology is but an "an ancient religion" with no basis in fact. "Millions of people fall for Astrology," he says, right to the camera, "but I hope you do not." 

Again, the series is to be commended for never buying into the mysteries it investigates.

The episode "Pyramid Secrets" is also fascinating for the way it tackles the construction of Egyptian pyramids. The writing structure of the episode explores three ideas about the pyramids. One is that they are but elaborate tombs ("a central part n the quest for immortality.") The second is that they are "Earth Base One," ground zero for the colonization of Earth by ancient astronauts, and three, that the pyramids are some kind of "radio transmitter" or "energy generator." 

The more outrageous theories are debunked, however, by a scientist who says, quite simply, that mankind possessed the knowledge it needed, in antiquity, to construct the pyramids. They are, he says, a testament to man's ingenuity, not a supernatural or alien construct. Once more, the series explores theories, and, at the same time, provides a scientific explanation to counter the wilder ones. 

I would never vouch for any of these mysteries, or their wilder explanations. Like Mulder, I want to believe, but temperamentally I am more like Scully. I tend to be skeptical. For me, the great thing about In Search of is the fact that it approaches its weird mysteries with an open mind, and makes time, in virtually every episode, for scientists to make their case about why the mysteries are not valid.  

Today, In Search of has been remade twice (hosted in the early 2000's by Mitch Pileggi, and in 2019, by Zachary Quinto), but it is the original series that remains a pop culture touchstone for those of us who grew up in the 1970's. There were six seasons, In Search of books, and even a movie documentary. The third Star Trek movie was jokingly referred to as "In Search of Spock" before the official title was settled on: The Search for Spock.

My childhood self both loved and was terrified by In Search of. I felt afraid of the mysteries, as dramatized in the creepy re-enactments, but I also felt safe throughout, because Mr. Spock himself, was my guide through these tantalizing "conjectures." 

As an adult, revisiting the series has given me a newfound respect for it. I'm glad that there are so many scientists front-and-center on the series, willing to stand up and debunk the wildest, most unsubstantiated theories. And at the same time, I like that the series still spurs my imagination about things that go bump in the night, and exist outside the things dreamed of in my philosophy.