CULT TV FLASHBACK # 115: Star Trek: "The Enterprise Incident" (1968)

For over forty years now, Trekkers have passionately debated the third and final season of ST: TOS (Star Trek: The Original Series, for the non-trekkers out there).

This was the spell during which the late Fred Freiberger (1915 - 2003) assumed the role of executive producer after series creator Gene Roddenberry -- the Great Bird of the Galaxy -- reduced his involvement.

A little background: Roddenberry had apparently promised NBC he would be a hands-on show-runner for the third season, but then the network pulled a fast one and re-scheduled Star Trek to the Friday night graveyard (or "death slot") at 10:00 pm. Roddenberry stepped down, and Freiberger arrived on the scene. Not everyone was a happy camper.

The general perception has long been that Star Trek took a significant downward turn in quality during Freiberger's tenure; perhaps as a result of his involvement. Yet the ratings-troubled series had other problems to grapple with too, including a dramatic budget cut in the third season which rendered location shooting impractical except on rare occasions (such as "The Paradise Syndrome," early in the new season). According to William Shatner's Star Trek Memories, the per episode budget dropped from a high in the first season of $193,500.00 to a low at the third season of $178,500.00. (William Shatner, Chris Kreski, Harper Collins, 1993, pages 290-291).

Now intriguing, visually-exciting location work -- "planet side" action -- had been a staple of Star Trek in the first two seasons; with episodes such as "Arena," "This Side of Paradise," "The Alternative Factor," "Shore Leave," and "Friday's Child" springing to mind. But in the third season, Freiberger -- in the words of original series star, Nichelle Nichols -- suddenly became a "producer who had nothing to produce with." (Nichelle Nichols, Beyond Uhura: Star Trek and Other Memories, G.P. Putnam & Sons, New York 1994. p.189.)

So depending on mind-set, you can either appreciate Star Trek Season Three for what it is (and in some cases, by necessity what it had to be), or dislike it for the manner in which it differed from the first two seasons.

One can either laud episodes such "The Paradise Syndrome," "The Enterprise Incident," "The Tholian Web" and "All Our Yesterdays" or curse the quality of such outings as "Spock's Brain," "And the Children Shall Lead" and "The Way to Eden."

Other third season episodes remain even more controversial, both loved and despised by fans in equal measure: "Let that Be Your Last Battlefield," "The Empath," and "Spectre of the Gun." Failures, or, in some cases, almost avant-garde masterpieces?

One third season episode that holds up remarkably well today is author D.C. Fontana's "The Enterprise Incident," which first aired September 27, 1968 and featured the Enterprise's secret espionage mission inside Romulan space to recover a new and deadly cloaking device technology. This was the second broadcast installment of the last season.

When I interviewed D.C. Fontana for Filmfax, she explained in detail about the origins of this episode: "It was a reflection of the Pueblo Incident, where a ship was captured in an area of sea where it shouldn't have been. The ship claimed not to be a spy ship, but in fact it was a spy ship."

Specifically, on January 23, 1968, the U.S.S. Pueblo, a Banner-class research vessel with six officers and seventy crew men aboard, was surrounded and captured by North Korean vessels. The U.S. government insisted the ship was well within international waters, but the Democratic People's Republic of Korea countered that Pueblo was inside its territory when captured.

Classified, high-security material was eventually found aboard the Pueblo...it was on an American spy mission after all. The ship was brought back to an enemy port (the nearest U.S. naval vessel was -- ironically, the U.S.S. Enterprise -- positioned some five hundred miles south and in no position to assist...). The Pueblo crew was then processed, tortured, and eventually returned stateside. The ship itself remains in the custody of the North Koreans.

In "The Enterprise Incident," you can see many deliberate resonances of the real-life incident, which had occurred scarcely nine months before the episode was broadcast. Here, a Federation starship, NCC-1701, strays into enemy waters, metaphorically-speaking. The Romulan Commander (Joanne Linville) plans to take the Enterprise back to a Romulan port as a prize, and process the crew before eventual release. Of course, that doesn't happen.

Here, history is re-written rather dramatically. The party that is actually in the wrong (conducting the espionage in enemy territory in the name of intergalactic security,) escapes with a secret device that could alter the balance of power. In fact, the Enterprise actually gets away scot-free, with an important captive in tow: the Romulan Commander herself. In other words, Kirk and Spock are on the side of the angels, keeping the Romulan-created technology...out of Romulan hands.

In space, all warriors are cold warriors...

In "The Enterprise Incident," Kirk and Spock's secret spy mission also involves the logical half-Vulcan science officer...uh...romancing the Romulan Commander to gain her confidence.

Like the rest of us, then, the Romulans prove themselves intrigued by Vulcan morals and ethics. In this case, they make a bad mistake. The commander is manipulated by the poker-faced Spock. Specifically, he distracts her while a surgically-altered Kirk (now resembling a Romulan) makes off with the top-secret cloaking device. Scotty does a lickety-split installation, and the escape is made.

Notably, Spock re-affirms in this episode that "Vulcans are incapable of lying" and live by a code of "personal honor and integrity." The Romulan Commander naively accepts his word on these crucial matters, and pays the price for trusting Spock.

Yet, "The Enterpise Incident" works so well because the noble Spock clearly takes no satisfaction, let alone joy, in manipulating this Enemy of the Federation. In the hands of another actor, Spock might very well seem like a heel or a cad for actively encouraging the romantic inclinations of the Romulan Commander, but Leonard Nimoy plays the role sensitively; humanely. This subtle approach comes to the forefront during Spock's final conversation with the Romulan commander aboard the Enterprise, in the turbo-lift.

The Romulan commander has been tricked and disgraced. She is angry, and rightfully so, over Spock's trickery. And yet Spock doesn't hide behind orders or regulations here. Instead, he expresses, perhaps obliquely, that this has all been a rather useless and short-lived game. "Military secrets are the most fleeting of all," he acknowledges. Rather, he suggests to the Commander that it is the connection that the two of them shared that will prove more permanent, more lasting.

This is one of the reasons I love and admire Star Trek. The character of Spock -- perpetually the outsider -- gives us a good, outside perspective on ourselves and our behavior. By contrast, Kirk is the giddy American cowboy, the dashing American secret agent, the guy who is going to accomplish his mission with heroic flair and dynamic action. He is entrenched in his mission (he cannot afford otherwise), and he doesn't really look outside it at the big picture. We love and admire Kirk for this clarity of vision and purpose.

But Mr. Spock thinks more analytically, and with a deeper perspective. He weighs matters outside of petty political and military concerns. Though as a Starfleet officer he performed his duty, he intimates that in this case, that duty involved something "fleeting," hence ultimately unimportant. Rather, the bond established by the Romulan Commander and Spock suggests that these two clashing races/empires can find common ground in the future, beyond the conflict of the present.

The second-to-last time we encounter Mr. Spock in Star Trek history, he is pursuing this very cause: the re-unification of Romulus and Vulcan. I've always wondered if Spock's personal encounter with the Romulan Commander was the impetus of his decision to pursue this tough-to-negotiate peace. In some subtle way, Star Trek -- despite the presence of all kinds of alien creatures and some imperialistic tales -- has really been, sub textually, about the bonds that unite humanity. We may differ with the Soviet Union (during the Cold War) or the Taliban today, during the War on Terror, but we hope and pray that in the future what unites us all as inhabitants of the planet Earth will overcome that which today divides us. In Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991), only Nixon could go to China; only Kirk could bring peace between the Klingons and The Federation. And here, way back in "The Enterprise Incident" in 1968, the seeds of peace between the Romulans and the Federation are being planted...by Spock; in his humane treatment of the Romulan Commander.

Now, Spock also manipulates the Romulan Commander very successfully and in some sense, it does play as cruel. But lest we forget, she is also manipulating him simultaneously, using what she perceives to be Spock's sense of racial superiority to harness resentment against Kirk and loyalty towards her. So they are both pawns of the mission. But I would suggest that -- all along -- Spock may have a better future in mind. He may be stealing a cloaking device and deceiving a beautiful woman in the present, but he also realizes that military secrets are fleeting and that one person can change the world; can alter the direction of the future (also a message of another Star Trek episode, "Mirror, Mirror.")

In Star Trek history, "The Enterprise Incident" may actually be one of the most significant episodes of all, especially in terms of impact on the franchise.

This episode establishes a Klingon-Romulan alliance (later shattered, with great resentment and animosity in the Next Gen era), and it introduces blue Romulan Ale, though not in name, as a "powerful recruiting inducement." The episode also establishes Spock's time in Starfleet as 18 years.

Much of the drama also hinges on the mistaken belief that "Vulcans are incapable of lying," a turn of phrase which returns in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982) and Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986). Also, although Fontana introduced Vulcan "finger-touching" as a gesture of affection in "Journey to Babel," here we see a more...erotic...application. That too returned to Star Trek, in 1984's Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. Additionally, in "The Enterprise Incident," the audience gets some significant knowledge of the Romulans, from the "Right of Statement" to the command structure inside the Empire.

And of course, "The Enterprise Incident" introduces the Vulcan Death Grip. Which, as you surely know, does not exist...

I'll go even further. I believe that "The Enterprise Incident" is very much a template for the modern Star Trek motion picture series, as it involves the Enterprise forced to take dramatic action to capture or otherwise stop a weapon of mass destruction. Here it is the Romulan Cloaking Device. But Khan had Genesis, Soran had the Ribbon -- which he wielded as a weapon, Shinzon had a tharalon device, and Nero had Red Matter.

Over the years "The Enterprise Incident" has not been without controversy, of course. Fontana told me that the "episode wasn't substantially re-written" from what she had imagined, but rather "was changed in ways that really bothered me. The relationship between Spock and the Romulan commander was somewhat different than what I had envisioned. From a production standpoint, the cloaking device was supposed to be small and easily hidden, but on the show it looked like a lamp. That didn't work for me, because they had to run around holding this large device, it was pretty obvious. More than that, the relationship between Spock and the Romulan commander wasn't what I had in mind. I wanted it to be more adversarial than it was."

Indeed, if "The Enterprise Incident" contains one weakness, it is that the Romulan Commander appears far too trusting, far too early, of Spock. Especially since she did not know he was stationed on the Enterprise and therefore could not anticipate her strategy before seeing him on the viewscreen. Of course, given a little thought, the Commander's actions might be written off as signs of a healthy, Kirk-sized ego. She believes she can appeal to Spock's ego, assuring him that he is a "superior being" and thereby offer him ample incentive to turn against the Federation. Given Kirk's irrational, arrogant behavior leading up this incident (all orchestrated, of course...) it is also easy to see why she could imagine Spock would prefer to serve her rather than the fragile, insulting Captain Kirk. Of course, that's what she's supposed to believe.

I think some fans also dislike "The Enterprise Incident" because it says, basically, that when Starfleet breaks its own laws, it is okay, because -- hey, these are the good guys.

Perhaps today, given all we've been through in the last decade, this makes the program feel a little simplistic. The (overlooked) fact of the matter is that this mission could have sparked an all-out war with the Romulans, one that could have cost millions if not billions of innocent lives across the galaxy.

And furthermore, the Romulans had not even used this cloaking device in battle yet. They had used a similar weapon in the past, on Federation border outposts ("Balance of Terror"), but still, this seems to qualify as a pre-emptive strike, right? Does Starfleet subscribe to the...Bush Doctrine?

For a second, imagine what a powerful episode this might have been had Kirk's mission failed; had he and the stalwart crew been taken hostage and interrogated back on Romulus; had the mission been exposed as a dangerous, irresponsible one; had Starfleet paid the consequences for issuing such orders. But you know -- honestly -- that sounds more like a Next Gen era story of DS9-flavored one. And if that had happened here, we might have lost the valuable message that is clear in "The Enterprise Incident:" that peace can begin in the heart of one man, or one Vulcan, as the case may be. That Spock is, for lack of a better word, emotionally affected by his contact with the Romulan commander...who, despite her manipulations, comes across as strangely vulnerable...and likable.

In closing, I submit that "The Enterprise Incident" is a worthwhile and memorable installment of Star Trek because in that last scene, Spock acknowledges something important and true. Kirk, the Romulan Commander, and Starfleet itself are all playing one dangerous move in a much larger chess-game. They are focused on that move: getting the Cloaking Device (or getting the Enterprise, contrarily). But Spock is thinking a long-term strategy, thinking several moves ahead, to something more permanent than a fleeting military secret. He was touched by his encounter with the Romulan Commander, more than he ever could have imagined.

On the other hand, you could also argue that Spock's entanglement with the Romulans, begun in earnest in this episode of the classic series, is the very thing that destroys his timeline some hundred years down the road. As the Vulcan himself might note, "fascinating..."

Also, I appreciate Leonard Nimoy's thoughtful take on this tale: "Episodes like "The Enterprise Incident" made it exciting to go to work. Like all of Dorothy's scripts, it had an edge to it, an adult level of complication, and social commentary. The characters' lives were being affected, their ethics violated, even their spirituality touched. Scripts like this added to the moral structure of the Star Trek universe." (Nimoy. I am Spock. Hyperion, 1995, page 118).

John Carpenter's The Ward To Premiere in Toronto

It looks as thoughThe Ward -- John Carpenter's first feature film in almost a decade (since 2001's Ghosts of Mars) -- will premiere at The Toronto International Film Festival this fall, during the week September 9 - 19th, 2010.

From The Hollywood Reporter:

John Carpenter is making a long-awaited return to the big screen with the world premiere in Toronto of "The Ward," a thriller about a young woman, played by Amber Heard, in a 1960s mental institution who becomes terrorized by malevolent unseen forces.

To help celebrate the return of J.C. to the silver screen, fellow blogger and friend J.D. at Radiator Heaven is launching John Carpenter Week from October 3 to October 9, 2010. Count me in! I've been jonesing for a reason to buy the Escape from New York Blu Ray...

The Cult-TV Faces of: The Robot

CULT MOVIE REVIEW: Dirty Harry (1971)

Ah...I love the smell of a reactionary action-movie in the morning...

...And Don Siegel's Dirty Harry (1971) is one of my long-standing favorites of the form, even if the case it presents concerning civil liberties in the United States of the 1970s is undeniably...extreme. (Others have called it sick and "profoundly dangerous.")

In fact, no less a respected source than film critic Pauline Kael had grave problems with the film. Similarly, Roger Ebert termed the Clint Eastwood film "fascist" in "moral position" at the time of the film's release...just two days before Christmas Day in 1971.

Yet by today's standards, Dirty Harry -- though hardly a holiday, feel-good movie -- seems pretty innocuous. If you really, really want to see a film that is fascist in tone, position and expression, check out 2008's Wanted, an anti-human tract which suggests that super-human skills run only in the superior blood line of a murderous elite that knows better than the rest of us work-a-day "losers."

But that's a subject for another day...

Dirty Harry dramatizes the tale of a modern American city under siege. A psychotic sniper called The Scorpio Killer (Andrew Robinson) unleashes a reign of terror upon that derided bastion of liberalism: San Francisco. There, Inspector Harry Callahan -- nicknamed "Dirty Harry" (Clint Eastwood) -- is on the case with his new partner, Chico Gonzalez (Reni Santoni). When a 14-year old girl is abducted and buried alive by the Scorpio, the pace of the police investigation ramps up dramatically.

Callahan apprehends the Scorpio outside the killer's apartment, on the grounds of a local football stadium, but breaks four constitutional amendments in the process. Since Callahan has wantonly violated the killer's civil liberties (without a search warrant, no less...), the City of San Francisco allows Scorpio to go free, and forbids Callahan even from tailing the madman.

When the Scorpio Killer inevitably strikes again, Callahan refuses to help the City bureaucracy catch the killer, and goes off on his own to confront the maniac. After rescuing a school bus of abducted children and shooting down the Scorpio Killer, Callahan finally tosses his badge into a lake. He's finished with a system that puts criminals' civil liberties ahead of victim's rights.

Originally titled, "Dead Right" (a moniker which certainly expresses the film's political leanings...) Dirty Harry makes the case that something is rotten in Denmark, or at least San Francisco. The fear expressed so palpably and vividly by the film is that traditional, "just" America has been overturned by, well, rampant liberalism, specifically by the activism of the Warren Court in the so-called "Civil Rights Era."

In 1966, for instance, in Miranda vs. Arizona Supreme Court, the Miranda Rights of criminal suspects were enshrined in U.S. Law, establishing 5th and 6th Amendment protections for them

"The suspect's rights were violated," declaims one bureaucrat in the film. "I'm all broken up about that man's rights," Callahan responds. He even goes so far as to suggest that the "law is crazy" for allowing a dangerous lunatic like Scorpio to go free and endanger more innocent civilians. Now, as I often suggest here, all films are reflections of their context, of their age, and Dirty Harry is absolutely no exception. It is very much a reactionary film, yes, and one deeply concerned about the direction of our country at the advent of the 1970s.

Director Don Siegel cunningly and cleverly utilizes film grammar and some fine mise-en-scene to argue this conservative perspective. Early, panoramic shots in the film over-look the vast, sprawling city of San Francisco. These rooftop moments visually establish Callahan as being positioned "above" the petty politics of the village below. At the same time, Scorpio is simultaneously positioned on the rooftops, "above the law" as well. The relative rooftop positions of the dramatis personae reveal that Callahan and Scorpio represent opposite sides of the same coin: a hero who won't be sidelined by legal technicalities and a villain who won't be restrained by a legal system that he believes favors his murderous activity.

Several night-time shots of San Francisco locales also successfully transmit the point that new laws -- which allegedly protect criminals -- have only created a society of excess, vice and moral turpitude. Repeatedly, Siegel's camera captures real-life imagery of adult sex shops and theaters (with signage that blares "Totally Nude College Co-Eds" or "Amateur Topless Contest!").

And in the scene during which Callahan (illegally...) tracks Scorpio to a nightclub, the entire interior scene is cast in a garish, lurid red illumination. It is literally a modern "red light district." This accent on what the filmmakers apparently consider "out-in-the-open" vice is also suggested in a scene in a San Francisco park at night-time, when Harry is propositioned by an attractive young man who calls himself "Alice" and says he'll take on "any dare." Callahan sends him home with a dismissive one-liner. There are bigger fish to fry...

The action in Dirty Harry is also punctuated by several images of Old Glory, the American flag. We see the stars-and-stripes fluttering in the breeze over San Francisco's city hall, in the mayor's office and even -- damningly -- plastered on Scorpio's refrigerator in his stadium apartment.

These views of the flag are designed to broadcast an ironic, even cynical notion: the idea that the law enforcement bureaucracy and the criminals -- in a perhaps unintentional alliance -- have taken over the country and the city streets with their dangerous vision of "America."

The preponderance of flag imagery successfully reminds the audience both what America was, historically, and what the filmmakers' fear America has come to symbolize in the 1970s. Several times in the film, Siegel also cuts dramatically to beautifully-composed insert shots of the regalia of police work -- the badge, the gun, the flag -- and asks viewers to consider the symbols and the meaning behind such items. Do they still carry the same pride? Are we -- as a people -- still behind these symbols?

Another symbol that shows up in the film is a colossal, Christian cross, standing in that aforementioned San Francisco Park. The Scorpio orders Harry to "face the cross," a signal, perhaps that Callahan will ultimately be crucified by the powers that be for failing to respect criminal rights.

The Dirty Harry script (by Julian Fink, R.M. Fink, and Dean Riesner, with uncredited assists from John Milius and Terrence Malick) also builds the case that good men will no longer desire or continue to work in law enforcement so long as criminal rights are favored over victims' rights; so long as they are hand-cuffed by bureaucracy. After being shot on the job, Chico Gonzalez -- a clever, earnest and wholly sympathetic detective -- decides not to return to the force. He's going into teaching instead. And when Chico's wife asks Callahan why he remains a police officer in this environment, Harry has no cogent answer. "I don't know. I really don't."

Even the film's opening imagery is squarely on the side of the individual policeman: it's a lingering, even loving shot of a plaque in San Francisco's police headquarters, showcasing -- through a series of dignified dissolves -- the names of fallen police officers. From the outset, then, Dirty Harry aligns itself with the man on the street, with the cop on the beat, not the chiefs, the mayor, the D.A. or the like. Those folks are all bureaucratic dunderheads more interested in covering-their-asses than in fighting crime and achieving justice for the wronged, the film suggests. As simplistic as this view is, the opening shot of Dirty Harry is also undeniably inspiring: a testament to the policeman's credo; to his dedication to protect and serve.

By film's end, in a deliberate reflection of High Noon's (1952) denouement, Callahan tosses his police badge away. If he can't protect the citizenry, the badge is meaningless in his eyes. By discarding his police badge, Callahan separates himself from a hierarchy that is more concerned with the letter of the law than the spirit of justice. He's not going to be anybody's "delivery boy" anymore.

One way of interpreting Dirty Harry -- beyond the clear parameters of right-wing political polemic -- is as a very modern-day transposition of familiar Western genre tropes (like the aforementioned tribute to High Noon). Harry Callahan is the lone "hero" who rides into town to defend a helpless, imperiled community. As the form demands of its cowboy protagonists, Harry can't be a part of the established system when he saves the day. On the contrary, he becomes a vigilante who can only operate outside the system. The vigilante, according to Pramod K. Nayar, in Reading Culture: Theory, Praxis and Politics (Sage Publications, India, 206), "represents a symbolic escape-route for law-enforcers: it is only by stepping out of the bounds of the law that the law can be upheld."

The myth of the American frontier, the myth of the cowboy riding into the helpless (and often corrupt) community to save the day is one that has been re-directed in recent years to the superhero genre, for instance, particularly the cinema of Batman. However, these tropes also inform the specifics of Dirty Harry to a remarkable degree.

In understanding this filmic tradition, it may be easier for some modern viewers to the film's hard-right leanings. Siegel's movie is simply adhering to the Western myth, finding modern corollaries for long-standing cowboy chestnuts. That it does so with great humor at times is to Dirty Harry's everlasting credit. The scene in which a pistol-packing, hot-dog chewing Inspector Callahan single-handedly takes out a cadre of urban bank robbers plays as a parody of the Western or police drama far more adeptly than it functions as political agit-prop. After Eastwood glowers by a theater showing Play Misty for Me, sits down for a hot dog, and calmly -- while eating -- tells the chef to call in a 211 in progress -- there's a tongue-in-cheek vibe that's easy to enjoy.

On the other hand, Roger Ebert and other writers accurately pinpointed Dirty Harry's straw-man argument, a deliberate stacking of the deck to achieve maximum dramatic effect. Look at the film's villain, for instance. The Scorpio is not merely a criminal, he is the most extreme case of psychotic imaginable.

Alone, he terrorizes an entire city (including crying school children...), but then -- when confronted by the police -- he whimpers and cries about his rights, about retaining a lawyer. So he's both a maniacal genius and a sissy coward. Thus, I submit the Scorpio's not very realistic; he's at the far end of the spectrum of believable criminality. Most criminals aren't such maniacal masterminds. And few law-breakers would have the foresight, resources or self-discipline to go out and find someone to beat them up so the police appear to be brutalizers and abusers. This guy -- as a function of Dirty Harry's political message -- plays all the angles expertly.

Yet, oppositely, movies have never been strictly about realism; they're about making the most dramatic case imaginable. And that's exactly what Dirty Harry does; and does very well. The Scorpio is a great villain, contradictions and all. I love Siegel's selection of shot or camera angle at the stadium, when Harry finally traps the Scorpio. After the Scorpio stops screaming about his rights, about his lawyer, the camera (apparently perched on a helicopter) retracts from the scene --- up, up and away into the atmosphere (even leaving the stadium) -- as though God Himself is utterly disgusted by his wailing about civil rights.

Another straw man in the film, of course, is the derided bureaucracy of San Francisco. Down to a man, everyone but Harry is depicted as an appeasing, legalistic boob. Every last one of these heartless souls is willing to let a diabolical criminal go free because the letter of the law was broken regarding the Scorpio's rights. These characters are painted with an unnecessarily broad and simplistic stroke. In real life, lieutenants, mayors, and district attorneys also have the safety and well-being of the citizenry on their minds. They are not, everyone of them, all CYA-technocrats. But once more, this depiction -- while udeniably one-sided -- is also part of that Western tradition. By necessity, Harry Callahan must defeat the villain alone, outside the "legalities" of the corrupt system, and according to a higher natural law: true justice.

In other words, Dirty Harry puts down just about everybody so as to elevate Callahan -- the every man -- to the role of iconic defender of society and guardian of justice. Frequently, Siegel provides heroic low-angle views of Callahan too, or gazes at him down the barrel of his gigantic...pistol. In non-too-subtle terms, we are asked to worship this decent, uncorrupted man, and not just the girth of his pistol, either.

"My, that's a big one!" Scorpio exclaims with envy. Is he talking about the Magnum?

Many critics and audience members were legitimately upset and offended by the arguments that Dirty Harry makes with such power and cinematic aplomb. Philosophically, I certainly don't agree with many of these arguments simply on the grounds that everyone -- even police officers -- can make a mistake. You don't just want the police to catch anyone who looks guilty, you want to make sure they've caught the right person, the guilty party. Otherwise, innocent people will be tried, incarcerated, or heaven forbid, executed. In my eyes, society must balance some rights for those suspects not yet proven guilty in court with the freedom of the police to do their job effectively. I submit that recent History has proven that America pretty much has a good balance: we have seen violent crime rates go down and down since the 1970s -- the era of Dirty Harry -- even with those once-controversial Miranda laws in effect.

So yes, Dirty Harry indeed looks ultra-paranoid these days. And really, Harry Callahan is a trained, experienced police officer, so certainly he understands the importance of a search warrant. If he can't play by the rules proscribed by society at large, he has no business being in the game. (And indeed, perhaps Callahan realizes that fact; perhaps that is why Harry discards his badge at the end of the film...he no longer wishes to play.) And yet -- and I realize this may offend some people -- I still like and admire this film.

Today, perhaps the best way to look at Dirty Harry is as the cinematic missing link between John Wayne and Christian Bale, between the Western Cowboy and the superheroic Dark Knight. I don't have to agree with any (or every) argument or viewpoint in the film to make note of its significant artistry and skill. Stacked deck or no, straw man argument or no, Dirty Harry is still a great action film, a classic (if utterly reactionary) example of the genre.

So, how can a left-winger like me admire a right-wing cinematic effort like this? I guess I just feel lucky (punk...) to live in a country where our art has the freedom to argue a point, to debate the law, and to take a stand...even if I disagree with the conclusions reached.

At the Movies Ends this Weekend

Nothing lasts forever...

This weekend, the syndicated TV series At The Movies -- which has been around since 1975 -- finally ends its impressive broadcast run. Movie critic hosts have come and gone, and the series has endured the best of times (Ebert and Siskel) and the worst of times (Ben Lyons).

But it's amazing to step back and think about everything that has happened in the culture since the series began in the disco decade. At the Movies has been around since The Ford Administration (!) and has remained on the air through the advent of VCRs, cable television, the Internet, streaming video, Netflix and more. That's pretty impressive.

In fact, I think a DVD release of the Siskel and Ebert years would be a fantastic gift to film buffs, but I don't know if that's possible.

Of course, the national discussion about film will continue, even if At the Movies does not. Still, a little light goes out of the pop-culture-sphere this weekend when that old balcony is closed permanently.

From my "cult TV flashback" last year about the series:

In the New York area, At The Movies was broadcast on WPIX, channel 11, and usually aired around 7:00 pm on Saturdays...right before I often headed out with friends to catch a new release. And the recommendations of these TV critics always carried considerable weight in my film selection process.

Siskel and Ebert had already hosted the PBS predecessor, Sneak Previews, prior to this Tribune-sponsored variation on the format. And in 1986, the duo moved on again, this time to Disney. Two inferior critics, Rex Reed and Bill Harris, manned their stations on At The Movies and the show drifted into silliness and pop-culture irrelevancy before merciful cancellation.

The format of At the Movies was simple. After a cheeky opening sequence which found Ebert and Siskel sneaking into the balcony of a movie theater, a short clip of a new movie played on the big silver screen before them (and positioned between them in the frame). Then, following the preview, we'd switch to the reverse angle -- facing the balcony -- as Siskel and Ebert introduced each other. I always felt that last bit of business was a nice, gracious (and original) touch in what was clearly a competitive partnership. To their credit, Ebert and Siskel never choked on each other's names or credentials...

Then, in the course of a fast-talking, high-spirited, ceaselessly-amusing half-hour, the two critics reviewed four new releases, assessing them, finally, with a "thumbs up" or "thumbs down."

The series occasionally featured a fun segment with "Aroma the Skunk," the show's mascot (a critter who always sat next to Ebert, for some reason...). This led into a spirited discussion of "The Stinker of the Week."

Sometimes, the critics even turned their gaze to new "home video" releases, and I recall one installment of At The Movies in which the duo discussed the 20th anniversary release of "The Cage," the original Star Trek pilot starring Jeffrey Hunter.

Other movie critics -- not to mention several textbooks on film criticism -- have been notably rough on Siskel and Ebert over the years. An Introduction to Film Criticism (Longman Inc., 1989) dismissed the duo as a "Laurel and Hardy imitation" and noted that their reviews were "as shallow as the average review in a daily newspaper; simply the unsupported opinions of the reviewers," (pages 17-18).

With respect to the authors of this book -- an otherwise outstanding study of critical approaches to narrative film -- I disagree. While it is true that Siskel and Ebert on At The Movies reduced film criticism to a simple (but useful) binary decision of thumbs up/thumbs down, it's also critical to make note of the medium in which they toiled. In fact, their program devoted more time to discussing film as an art form than any other weekly program in television history. Of course, the drawback of the TV format is time, and that should also be acknowledged in film books too. In the freewheeling blog format here, for instance, I can write about a movie until I'm blue in the face, but that's simply not the case in television. In a half-hour span, how many films can be debated in depth, especially once you throw in commercials, plus several clips of each film described?

To ameliorate this concern, Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert talked fast, working in as much detail and analysis as was humanly possible. And they often devoted entire half-hours to a single relevant subject, so they could go into deeper detail. I remember an episode on the Star Wars trilogy (following the premiere of Return of the Jedi), another on the films of Woody Allen, and a third about the durability of the James Bond franchise. I remember that the critics also devoted one episode to sequels ("The Stinkers of 1983") and another one to reporting on screen violence. Again, there was simply nowhere else on TV you could go to find this in-depth perspective on modern film.

I would also argue that Siskel and Ebert, on At the Movies, traveled well beyond the basics, and well beyond simple "unsupported opinions." In their review of Gremlins (1984), they got down to the satirical aspects of Joe Dante's initiative, and even the palette of the film, which lampooned Norman Rockwell's vision of America. In their review of Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983) they noted -- before just about anyone else did, I think -- Spielberg's drift towards on-the-nose sentimentality. Their review of Ghostbusters (1984) brought up relevant comparisons between Bill Murray and Groucho Marx. And in that review of "The Cage" that I mentioned above, they were able to contextualize the episode's narrative (about the dangerous, numbing nature of illusion as "narcotic") to the mid-1960s drug culture.

I was in the sixth grade when I first started watching At the Movies, and I had never, ever, seen anybody, anywhere discuss films with this degree of specificity; in these contextual and historical terms. Within the obvious constraints of TV programming, Siskel and Ebert thus managed to provide a kind of weekly history lesson in cinema. They brought up films I had never heard of, and films I would never have sought out without their guidance. I watched a few old clips of the series again on You Tube this week -- after not seeing At the Movies in years -- and once more, I found myself sucked in by the passion and charm of these guys. Even today, their motormouth reviews are packed with interesting insights.

When I began watching At The Movies, I preferred Gene Siskel to Roger Ebert. He was so acerbic, and had this funny manner of rearing his head back -- almost like a lion -- and then leaning forward when he was about to score a point. He seemed a bit more camera-savvy than his sparring partner, and could really land the zingers.

But then I began reading Roger Ebert's movie yearbooks in 1987 (and purchased every new edition of the book through 1996...) and found that my tastes more closely aligned with his. Roger Ebert also seemed much more fair-minded, I soon realized. He often recognized and acknowledged the artistry of a film, even he didn't necessarily approve of the subject matter on personal terms (he championed Wes Craven's Last House on the Left, for instance.) I also began to grow more frustrated with Siskel over the years because I felt that his personal biases sometimes prevented him from recognizing a good film. He gave a "thumbs down" to James Cameron's Aliens (1986) because the film put a child, Newt, in harms way. I never felt that was a valid criticism, even as a kid. As I like to say, how would Gene Siskel have judged the movie had the aliens -- vicious, slobbering beasts -- treated the child with kid gloves? Of course, that would have been silly and unrealistic, and a good critic like Siskel would have noted that terrible lapse in tone and realism. Yet the critic had put Aliens in a box from which the film could not escape; from which it could not achieve a good review. No doubt I've done the same during my writing career, but I do try hard to remember this example.

Ultimately, I came away from At the Movies preferring Ebert. I always liked how -- when the camera turned to him -- he would absently straighten out his cardigan and then almost imperceptibly glide forward in his chair, towards the audience...like a wise philosopher sharing wisdom with his best student in the spirit of knowledge, not arrogance or superiority. To this day, I make Ebert's blog a regular stop. He's the only film critic ever to win a Pulitzer Prize for criticism, and just recently he was judged America's most trusted pundit. Still, it's a crying shame there's no "Collected Criticism of Gene Siskel" available in print ten years after the man's death. Ultimately, it was the discovery of Ebert on the book store shelves that drew to me to his manner of thinking; to his reasonable tone, fair-mindedness and consistent standards. But Siskel remains an important enough figure in the annals of film criticism that someone ought to assemble a collection of his reviews in print, and contextualize his work.

As I noted above, At the Movies went on sans Siskel and Ebert, but without these guys at the helm it was almost a self-parody, just two critics bitching over movies they didn't like, with no clear understanding of the standards applied. I watched the new crew a few times and found the enterprise...embarrassing.

I attended the University of Richmond in 1988, and watching television wasn't really an option or concern for me at that point, so I didn't keep up with the new Siskel and Ebert series very closely. Then I got married, and moved into my own writing career, and only occasionally saw Siskel and Ebert's show again in the later 1990s. However, I was very upset to learn that Gene Siskel had passed away in 1999, and tuned back in a few times to watch the new sparring partner, Richard Roeper. I had no problems with Roeper as a film critic or on-screen personality, but felt that the magic was gone; that nobody really challenged Ebert the way Siskel did. Siskel made Ebert better; and Ebert made Siskel better. Perhaps it was the spirit of competition, perhaps it was friendship, perhaps it was just chemistry...but their partnership worked. It worked so well, in fact, that filmmakers have gone out of their way to acknowledge (or attack) the duo. The 1987 film Willow featured a two-headed dragon named Sissbert, for instance. And the dreadful Godzilla of 1998 featured a New York Mayor Ebert and his assistant, Gene. And who can forget, Carpenter's They Live (1988), which revealed Siskel and Ebert to be insidious alien invaders?!

At the Movies, more so than Sneak Previews or the 1990s version of the series also reminds me of a special and cherished time in my own life. The movies reviewed on the program in those years are ones that I recall with nostalgia and affection, whether they were actually that great or not. Ghostbusters (1984), Aliens (1986), Young Sherlock Holmes (1985), Fright Night (1985), The Right Stuff (1983), The Last Starfighter (1984), Gremlins (1984), Dune (1984), Starman (1984), Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984), and so on. This was the period of dueling James Bonds (Octopussy vs. Never Say Never Again in 1983), Woody Allen on blazing ascent as a serious filmmaker (Hannah and Her Sisters, Radio Days), and more. So for me, this cult tv flashback isn't just about remembering the good times watching Siskel and Ebert on At The Movies, it's about the movies that informed by teenage years...

CULT MOVIE REVIEW: Clash of the Titans (2010)

I first saw the original Clash of the Titans (1981) when I was eleven or twelve, at the Clairidge Theater in Montclair, New Jersey.

As a kid, I loved the movie without reservation, and found the fantasy, romance and adventure -- so ably imagined and executed by Ray Harryhausen -- entirely to my liking. The stop-motion effects/creatures were startling for their time, and painstakingly-achieved.

Specifically, I recall the film's atmospheric opening, which featured a Mother and her young child cast cruelly into the hungry sea...in a coffin. And then there was Medusa: a terrifying, nightmare-inducing creation lurking in the shadows, first seen in flickering candle-light. She was a nightmarish apparition, and one that endured in my memory for years after first watching the film.

Well, I'm not eleven years old now.

But in judging the remake of Clash of the Titans (2010), I must ask the all-important question: would an 11-year old child today enjoy this Clash as much as I enjoyed the cult original all those years ago?

The undeniable answer is, yes...absolutely. I should make no bones about that. This is an elaborate, big-budget fantasy film with well-realized creatures and monsters, and some serious, dynamic action.

However, as a forty-year old film critic, I might point out my grown-up reservations about this re-imagination. I could explain, for instance, that this new version of the legend is decidedly less romantic in flavor than its predecessor was. The original film highlighted a love affair so passionate and enduring that it was recounted in the stars themselves, in the constellations of our very night sky. But here, Princess Andromeda (Alexa Davalos) is almost an after-thought in the screenplay and never casts more than a longing look at hunky Perseus (Sam Worthington). He hardly seems to notice she's there.

No time for love, Dr. Jones.

I might also note that there is far less humor, far less magic, and indeed, far less joy in this remake than was found in such abundance in Harryhausen's comparatively innocent picture. I might even note how the new film makes a mean laughing-stock out of the original film's R2-D2 surrogate, a golden clock-work owl named Bubo.

In our contemporary pop culture, there's just no space in the cinema for a cute-little sidekick like Bubo, I suppose, which explains why he is dismissed with that nasty in-joke. I mean, Bubo doesn't have golden testicles, and he doesn't fart, belch, rap or anything like that.

The point of this rumination is simply that we are in a different place, entertainment-wise, than America was in 1981, and this Clash of the Titans is definitively a product of today, not a product of that era. In other words, we are much further down the line away from theatricality and artificiality in the cinema than we were thirty years ago. Rather, the pop culture needle today points further towards realism and naturalism than ever before in our nation's history. Still, I don't think you can blame the movie for reflecting this reality. We can't rightly expect it to reflect anything other than the culture in which it was created.

But because of our culture's increased, almost obsessive demand for realism, even the Gods of Olympus are somehow smaller-than-life and less magnificent in this version.

We demand definitive answers and immediate gratification about mysteries in our culture today, and so this Clash of the Titans insists on explaining the exact relationship of the Gods to humans: they thrive on our worship, literally, like our emotions are tasty nutrients. Zeus eats our love; Hades our fear. What humans get from the Gods, apparently, is environmental stability. Nature is controlled, at least until we step out of line.

Accordingly, much of this film involves how the humans of Argos tire of the Gods' capricious, tyrannical ways and decide to strike a blow for human independence. They want their country back. They want liberty and freedom. And yes, this is indeed a metaphor for the culture war going on in the United States today. There is, actually, a timely subtext here, and like The Dark Knight, it's on the "right" side of the spectrum, which is relatively rare in Hollywood.

The realistic approach to the drama dictates the very look of Clash of the Titans. Our protagonist, Perseus -- still a hero from Greek Mythology -- spends the duration of this film covered in dirt, grime and scorpion guts, and is also something of a lunkhead. This incarnation of Perseus lacks the imaginative, curious spark, and even the energy that defined Harry Hamlin's Perseus.

The character's background has been made even darker in the remake too, for the purposes of increased brooding and sustained emotional angst. Not only has Perseus lost a mother, but his biological father has been transformed into a monster, Calibos. Even Perseus's adopted family is murdered in tragic fashion...right down to his innocent little-sister. Let me be clear: what entirely motivates this Perseus is the ugly and commonly found human emotion of revenge. He's not in it -- like the people of Argos -- for liberty, freedom and emancipation from tyranny. Rather, he's got it in for Hades (Ralph Fiennes), who pulped his family's boat in a fit of rage.

As Spinal Tap might say at this point...none more black.

Or more bleak, really.

Symbolizing these changes in character motivations and story particulars, 1981's immacualte white Pegasus steed has been made entirely black for the remake. I'll try not to read too much into this significant color change, but it's worth mentioning. at least. More dramatic, perhaps, is the use to which Pegasus is put by the producers. In the original Harryhausen film, Perseus had to capture Pegasus, and laboriously train the horse. He had to put in significant time and effort to wrangle and tame the noble animal. In this version, Perseus literally just hops on his new steed with no introduction, no training, and no taming. Again, instant gratification. The original movie rewarded patience. This movie has no patience at all.

Once more, however, I don't blame the movie so much as the culture. Everyone's a dark knight these days. And we want action, not foreplay, apparently. But the upshot is that this new Clash of the Titan feels a bit commonplace and enervating, instead of magical and uplifting.

Again, this remake downplays romance to an alarming degree and I think that's its cardinal sin. Never once does Perseus think about (or even mention, actually...) rescuing Andromeda from the fangs of the Kraken. Instead, he wants to destroy the Kraken so he can get at Hades, who will be vulnerable once his creation is defeated. Thus the core of the Clash of the Titans story has been changed from one in which love motivates the hero to one in which hatred motivates him instead. Andromeda is a cipher in this story -- a minor cog in the narrative wheel -- and all the action is geared towards the destruction of the enemy, not the love of another human being. She gets rescued, sure, but it's a side-effect of the vengeance-quest.

This extreme shift in the story's core may be the very reason why Perseus's supposedly inspirational speech at the doorway to Medusa's temple plays so woefully flat and almost laughable. It's supposed to read as a tribute to mankind's nature, and his ability to stand up to a huge, overgrown power like the Gods (metaphorically the U.S. Government). Someone must stand up and say "enough," declaims Perseus, channeling his blue collar, fisherman father (Pete Postlethwaite).

But you don't inspire people based on hatred, with only the thought of tearing something down, because of a heightened sense of victimhood or personal grievance. Simply opposing an existing structure for the sake of opposition accomplishes nothing; nature abhors a vacuum. It's "that vision thing:" it must be present for a new philosophy to take root in the hearts and minds of a people, and Perseus never makes the important case here that humans would be better off on their own.

In fact, he's a hypocrite. Perseus accepts Zeus's help throughout his quest. Zeus gives him a magical sword...and he (eventually) accepts it. Zeus gives him the coin to pay the ferryman...and he accepts it. Zeus even resurrects his would-be lover, Io. In other words, Zeus "entitles" Perseus...he successfully brings Perseus into the existing (apparently corrupt...) system, through these hand-outs.. Thus the film's message is thoroughly corrupted too. You can't trust the Gods...unless they're on your side. You must destroy the Gods...unless they can be helpful to you, personally. Do you really want liberty, or just gold coin?

In addition to altering this story from one about love to one about hate, there's a weird, paradoxical quality about the remake too.

Specifically, there's much more violence in this version of Clash of the Titans, but somehow -- simultaneously -- much less terror. The original Medusa was the kind of imaginative, grotesque creation you'd think about before going to bed at night; and this Medusa -- though spectacularly rendered -- won't affect the delicate psyche at all.

My three year-old son could watch this Clash of the Titans and not be bothered in the slightest by Medusa's presence or appearance, whereas I wouldn't let him near the original film for several more years, because of Harryhausen's suggestion and intimation of terror in the Medusa sequence. Medusa was a nightmarish, legitimately scary creature in the original. Here, she's spectacular and amazing, but not scary.

Again, that tells you something about the culture now. It more readily accepts violence, but also blanderizes the violent material to some degree so as to achieve the widest possible reach...and the biggest audience.

These are the reservations of an adult film critic, one seeking narrative and thematic consistency, and gazing at the context that breathed life into the remake. But I've got to go back to that eleven-year old child: If I were eleven, I would absolutely love this movie.

And here's why. Even though it is a remake of an existing story, this Clash of the Titans boasts some amazing, and imaginative creatures as well as some commendable narrative invention. For example, the giant scorpions of the original have been improved upon approximately a thousand-fold. The movie even gets creative in the way the beasts are utilized in the plot. Here, the Scorpions are battled to a standstill, then harnessed as steeds, as transportation. The imagery of men riding giant scorpions across rocky terrain is powerful, and a testament to human ingenuity (which fits in with the movie's theme). Secondly, the movie adds some great new creatures as sidekicks for Perseus: the djinn, desert wanderers and "conjurers" who also have a grudge against the Gods. If I were a kid again...I'd be first in line to buy action figures of these guys. The Djinn are mysterious, inscrutable, magical and pretty damn awesome.

In terms of action and special effects, the Kraken, Medusa, the Stygian Watches, the Ferrymen and all the other mythical creatures are brought to colorful, vivid life in effective and creative fashion. I know the purists hate this fact and will no doubt criticize me as a generational traitor, but stop-motion animation isn't exactly cutting edge, or particularly efficacious these days. We can enjoy the craft as nostalgia, and as a fine, difficult art that is past its prime. But the computer-generated beasts of this Clash of the Titans are truly impressive, save for Calibos, who looks like a steroidal burn victim rather than a creature from the realm of fantasy. But the new technology works. It enables Perseus and his men to engage these gigantic creatures in a fashion that, as an eleven year old, would have absolutely thrilled me. I've argued before that the computer doesn't understand the flesh, and enumerated the reasons why CGI doesn't work well in the horror genre. I stand by that argument entirely. But horror is about flesh and blood, and fantasy films are a different beast all together.

I also appreciated the fact that Louis Leterrier and the other makers of this film have thrown in some narrative curve balls for the old-timers already familiar with the story (I mean me.). Here, Perseus rides up to the roaring Kraken with Medusa's head in a bag, ready to turn the "colossal elemental beast" to stone...when banshees arrive and promptly steal the bag out from under the hero. That's a new and fun wrinkle that gives way to an unexpected (and delightfully rendered) special-effects action-scene. Getting Medusa's head seems like an easier task this time around, but holding on to it proves more difficult.

My wife Kathryn really, really didn't like this movie. She's a fan of the original, and she fell asleep in this movie. She said that it was emotionally-empty and there wasn't one character she cared about, or who seemed real. I don't disagree with those points. The movie is flat in terms of human dimensions and relationships, but emotional truth is not really the movie's point. This is a movie that showcases brave men fighting giant monsters, and on those admittedly limited, simple terms, it succeeds. The confrontations are thrilling.

So I enjoyed the movie as a modern-day throwback to the great Harryhausen pictures of yesteryear - with swords battling scorpion claws, and men menaced by inhuman beasts -- and I would definitely recommend this one to kids. But as an adult, you may find the film relatively shallow. To sufficiently enjoy it is not difficult, however, if only you follow the advice Perseus receives from Io.

Ask only what you need to know, nothing more.

If you don't ask too much of it, this Clash of the Titans is an exciting fantasy. Gaze too deeply, however, and your heart will turn to stone.

The Tooth, The Whole Tooth and Nothing But the Tooth...

So...my little boy Joel had to have his front (baby) tooth unexpectedly extracted today, after he fell on a concrete driveway a few days ago, and the tooth turned an unhealthy gray.

Joel was an absolute champ about the whole procedure (including the shots...), but I'm still shaking and quaking after watching the tooth get tugged and pried from of his little mouth. We had a great dentist, who asked if I was going to faint, and then questioned me: "does hemorrhaging bother you?"

That would be an affirmative...

Anyway, I spent all morning at the dentist and have not been able to get back to my review of Clash of the Titans (2010.) I'm going to try to get back on it now, but honestly, I just want a good, stiff drink....

Somebody please tell me that being a parent gets easier...

What I'm Reading Now: I Am Number Four

"The events in this book are real. Names and places have been changed to protect the Lorien Six, who remain in hiding. Take this as your first warning. Other civilizations do exist. Some of them seek to destroy you..."

-- Pittacus Lore.

CULT TV FLASHBACK # 114: Buck Rogers in the 25th Century: "Time of the Hawk"

Earlier this week, I posted about genre television and specifically "first season wonders" and "second season blunders."

Keeping with that theme, today I want to remember "Time of the Hawk" by Norman Hudis and directed by Vincent McEveety, the premiere episode of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century's hotly-debated second season. The two-hour episode aired on NBC, January 15, 1981, following a lengthy writer's strike, and eventually earned an Emmy nomination for "Outstanding Cinematography in a Series" for director of photography Ben Colman.

Loyal viewers of Buck Rogers' first season were in for a shock with the opening moments of Season Two. Dr. Huer (Tim O'Connor) and Dr. Theopolis had been erased from the format (along with the Earth Defense Directorate), and were never mentioned again. The Draconians were also gone.

Instead, Buck Rogers (Gil Gerard), Wilma Deering (Erin Gray) and Twiki -- now voiced by Bob Elyea -- were officers ensconced aboard a starship called "The Searcher," heading out on a space mission in search of the "lost tribes of Earth." They hoped to find humans who had fled Earth following the nuclear holocaust... and re-establish contact.

New characters on the series included the gruff, temperamental commanding officer of the Searcher, Admiral Asimov (Jay Garner), a dotty, scatter-brained professor, Dr. Goodfellow (Wilfrid-Hyde White) and an officious robot called Crichton, who refused to believe that humans had actually constructed him. Dennis Haysbert -- later President David Palmer on 24 -- had an early, recurring role as a "communications probe officer."

"Time of the Hawk" introduces the second season's most prominent new character, a noble bird-man called "Hawk" (Thom Christopher).

As the two-parter commences, Hawk and his mate Koori (Barbara Luna) return home to their peaceful village on the distant planet Throm in the Argus Sector, only to find that drunken humans have murdered all of their people, including Koori's family. Hawk swears vengeance on the human race and begins to launch lightning raids against human-owned starships from the cockpit of his deadly fighter, the war hawk.

"The Galactic Council" orders The Searcher to stop this "devil" called Hawk, and Buck tracks the bird-man down to the City-State of Neutralis on Throm, where Hawk's ship is often serviced by local engineers who are -- you guessed it -- "neutral" in matters of conflict.

"Forget the hatreds of the past," Buck urges Hawk, "help us discover the future..."

The first thing you may notice about this particular narrative is the overt western genre structure.

A decent lawman (Buck Rogers) on a frontier of sorts (the West/Space) needs to bring in a terrible criminal from a different or "alien" culture (think of Hawk as a native-American, a wronged Apache-Chief...), but it is mankind's (America's...) difficult history actually put on trial, particularly for the crime of genocide.

Indeed, this structure was absolutely intentional. New Buck Rogers producer John Mantley had also overseen a decade's worth of Gunsmoke (1955-1975) stories, and had re-vamped a script from that long-running series to open Buck Rogers's sophomore sortie

Mantley told Starlog Magazine's Karen E. Willson (#39, October 1980, page 18) that "something can be said for the fact that Matt Dillon and Buck Rogers are the same man, six or seven hundred years apart. They're 'both' superheroes -- the difference is that up to now, Buck has not been very real. In the first show that Matt Dillon was in, the 'heavy' blew him down. He didn't outshoot the heavy. He even hanged the wrong man once. That made him very human. In the first show of this year, Buck is going to be soundly whipped in the air by a character named Hawk..."
In theory this may have sounded like a strong and intriguing idea -- to allow Buck to finally meet his match after a season of handily dispatching space tyrants -- but Mantley's concept was also, plainly, a western re-tread, a rerun.

Author Norman Hudis explained to CFQ's Steve A. Simak (CFQ: "Back to the Future," February/March 2005, page 46) that Mantley and fellow producer Calvin Clements Jr. had "used the story at least twice before when they worked on Gunsmoke. The idea was very vaguely about somebody who was wanted either by the police or by some authority but he was safely hiding somewhere. The only way they could entice him out was to flaunt his girlfriend or romantic interest and [then] he took the chance of coming out of hiding..They both giggled about it and said 'We've used the story twice before in the Old West and now we're going to use it in outer space.'"

Basing a high-profile re-vamp of an already popular show on a decade's-old rerun may not have been the best or most creative way to countenance a futuristic series going into a critical time period, but nonetheless, Hudis's version of the familiar tale is emotionally affecting at points. "Time of the Hawk" proves a fine introduction for Hawk, at the very least.

Buck Rogers in the 25th Century's second season faced additional concerns too. The shooting schedule per hour-long episode was cut an entire day from what it had been the year before. And the budget per episode of the series was drastically reduced, to approximately half-a-million dollars a show. This meant that props and miniatures largely had to be re-used from older episodes (and other Glen Larson series...), a fact which gave the new season a kind of bizarre, on-the-cheap visual aura. The Searcher, for example, -- the starship Enterprise of this new season, essentially -- was simply a redressed version of a vessel seen in "Cruise Ship to the Stars" in the first season. Had this fact simply been mentioned in the screenplay -- that a civilian ship had been retrofitted for the mission -- the re-use of a familiar miniature might not have been so disappointing.

And Buck is also seen in "Time of the Hawk" tooling around in a Colonial shuttle craft from the original Battlestar Galactica (1978-1979). These two space vessels don't appear to be products of the same technology, history or culture...and that's part and parcel of the problem. In visual terms, the new Buck Rogers just looked scatter shot...like a spaceship and prop vault at Universal had been raided.

The same criticism applies to Searcher's bridge: it looks like a hodgepodge of spare parts from the first season of Buck Rogers. It's crowded, ugly -- and again -- cheap-looking. And don't get me started on the fishbowl space helmets Buck and Wilma adorn early in the show. Suddenly, we're back on Rod Brown and the Rocket Rangers.

 The criticism of slipshod production values does not affect however, anything Hawk-related in this premiere episode. Hawk is introduced with great flourish, and actor Thom Christopher remains a powerful presence as the stoic, dangerous bird man. The actor brings tremendous gravitas and dignity to the role, and his "war hawk" fighter is one of the coolest, most sinister-looking miniatures ever featured on Buck Rogers, replete with retractable claws that can tear apart enemy ships.

At least this introductory episode, with its western storyline, boasts the sense to present Hawk as an authentic menace (right down to his ship...), and as a character who seems believable in terms of the genre. Some people have complained about Hawk's costume, but I submit that the overall look of the character works just fine, especially given Christopher's serious, intense interpretation of the part.


The central idea governing Mantley's re-vamp of Buck Rogers was that characters and ideas would now take prominence over space battles and action scenes. Hawk is a good step in that direction: an "outsider" with his own world perspective, and a serious counterpart for the more impish Buck.

Yet, after "Time of the Hawk," Hawk (like Maya before him on Moonbase Alpha and the Maquis after him on Voyager...) is far too easily and quickly assimilated/integrated into an existing crew structure. There's not much sense in presenting an "alien" character who quickly fits in with human buddies. You lose the chance to mine drama from that conflict. Hawk should have always had a different way of doing things, and always chafed at his proximity to humans. Thom Christopher always maintained his dignity, and the character's "outsider" traits, but often with precious little assistance from the story lines that followed "Time of the Hawk."

This was not the only problem with the "new" approach of the second season. Wilma has very little of substance to do in "Time of the Hawk," and soon becomes a console jockey in the series, flying the Searcher and pushing buttons. In Season One, Deering was a sexy, independent, operative for the Directorate. Here she's almost invisible, as if Buck Rogers had also adopted a Western-style aesthetic about the role of women.

In space, in the distant future, this is nothing short of absurd.

"Time of the Hawk" also presents Crichton and Asimov, two dreadfully-cartoonish, cardboard characters who hurl insults at each other ("ridiculous lamp post!" "kettle belly!") and, if anything, evoke only memories of Dr. Smith and the Robot on Lost in Space.

Where is the so-called "serious" drama in this relationship? Bickering is not a substitute for mature storytelling, just because Star Trek did it (and did it well...) with Spock/McCoy.

Most disturbing of all, perhaps, Buck and Wilma are now forced to endure playful romantic banter that, in contest, just seems ridiculous.

In their first scene of the season, they engage in a mock argument, flirt a little bit, and then reconcile...but it's all over nothing at all. It's strictly canned characterization. Everyone is too jovial, too emotional, and trying too hard to be likable and "human." This was also my problem with some of Space: 1999 Year Two: everybody was trying so hard to laugh and smile that it actually became painful to watch. Gil Gerard and Erin Gray are enormously likable performers, and one just wishes they had better material to work with here. In Buck Rogers' first year, Buck and Wilma had great chemistry and shared a kind of tongue-in-cheek relationship. The stories may not have been overtly serious, but the characters seemed real and human, and not forced, like grins had been plastered to their faces at gunpoint.

In terms of story lines, one can argue that the new season of Buck Rogers tried sincerely to make a statement about conformity, and the way that people fear or kill that which they don't understand. "Time of the Hawk," "Journey to Oasis," "The Golden Man," and "The Dorian Secret" all -- at least tangentially -- revolve around the idea of prejudice against those who are deemed different. This is a commendable and consistent theme. The best enunciation of it -- for all its flaws -- is likely in "Time of the Hawk," which condemns man for his predilection to render other species extinct because differences are perceived as threats. "The history of your race is written in its own blood," Hawk tells Buck at one juncture, and the point is made.

Looking back, I enjoyed (and still enjoy...) several episodes of Buck Rogers' second season, mainly "Time of the Hawk," "The Guardians," "The Satyr," and "Testimony of a Traitor," but the second season changes -- excluding Hawk -- by and large did not improve the series. Today, the first season is generally regarded more highly. Still, I can't help but wish that the second season had been granted a full renewal instead of just thirteen episodes. Maybe those last dozen or so episodes that were never produced would have been the very ones that revealed just how well the second season format might have worked. We'll never know.

Lastly, I'll say this. At age 11...what I wouldn't have done to get my hands on a war hawk model kit...

The center-piece of this two part episode is a still-impressive space/sky battle between Buck (aboard an Earth starfighter) and Hawk, aboard his bird-of-prey-shaped ship. The effects and photography are outstanding, and, for once, Buck is facing an enemy that is his equal.

Koori dies from wounds sustained in the aerial battle, and Buck captures a grieving Hawk, who has shared with him the history of his bird man culture. Apparently, Hawk's people once lived on Earth (in pre-history) and dwelt on Easter Island before mankind nearly rendered the aliens extinct.

Later, on the Searcher, Hawk is tried for murder, for his war on humanity. Buck defends Hawk before the tribunal and the bird-man is allowed to serve out his sentence on the ship, joining the team, as it were.

Pushing it to the Limit? De Palma and the Music Video on Film

Scarface - Push it to the Limit
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