Episode of the Week : Operation: Annihilate!
- Thread starter Botany Bay
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I gave it an '8'. Not a story matter, but the location city shooting was very unique for the series, and a real attempt to portray a truly alien life form that presented a very unique challenge to the crew.
And that poster, for some bizarre reason, makes me think of Conscience of the King.
And that poster, for some bizarre reason, makes me think of Conscience of the King.
I really liked this one. I thought having a non-humanoid alien was interesting, and when they thought that Kirk might have to destroy everyone on the planet -- including Spock and his nephew -- to keep the parasites from spreading, it pointed up just how difficult it can be to be a starship captain and what terrible decisions they might have to make.
I also enjoyed Leonard Nimoy's performance as Spock-in-terrible-pain; he was great at showing us both Spock's amazing control AND how much it hurt.
I thought it would have been better if it had been Spock or McCoy who came up with the idea that it was light that killed the critters, but I suppose that was part of Shatner's ongoing campaign to grab all the best moments for himself. And adding Kirk's brother to the episode seemed like overkill to me; I thought it would have been better without that.
Still, an interesting and enjoyable episode with some good science fictional moments and some good character moments; I gave it an 8.
I also enjoyed Leonard Nimoy's performance as Spock-in-terrible-pain; he was great at showing us both Spock's amazing control AND how much it hurt.
I thought it would have been better if it had been Spock or McCoy who came up with the idea that it was light that killed the critters, but I suppose that was part of Shatner's ongoing campaign to grab all the best moments for himself. And adding Kirk's brother to the episode seemed like overkill to me; I thought it would have been better without that.
Still, an interesting and enjoyable episode with some good science fictional moments and some good character moments; I gave it an 8.
"Operation: Annihilate!" is one of the few times we go to a solar system and actually notice its sun. If you were a real interstellar voyager, the sun would be the main thing you notice whenever entering a new solar system.
Generally a good episode except for the cheat ending. Spock is blind -- no, wait, the blindness was only temporary because Vulcans have an inner eyelid that automatically blocks strong light, something Spock simply forgot about. Uh-huh. 
And if he has those blackout-curtain eyelids, why was he blinded at all, even temporarily?
I liked the attempt to portray a truly alien life form. What's your favorite description of the neural parasites? Flying fake vomit? Flying fried eggs?
And if he has those blackout-curtain eyelids, why was he blinded at all, even temporarily?
I liked the attempt to portray a truly alien life form. What's your favorite description of the neural parasites? Flying fake vomit? Flying fried eggs?
I love the location shots, and basically like the episode, except for two things. One, I wasn't thrilled with the deus ex machina of the Vulcan inner eyelid. Two, worse, it's not like invisible radiation should have been an unobvious thing to try first, especially since they had plenty of time to figure out that it worked before lighting up Deneva.
Man, Joan Swift can scream!
7.
Man, Joan Swift can scream!
7.
Well, Spock isn't Vulcan. Since he's half-Vulcan, it's sort of plausible that he would also have "half-eyelids" that don't close in normal desert lighting but only in circumstances where they aren't really useful any more, and don't open properly afterwards...
Spock didn't know whether he would have pon farr, either. Presumably, his body is a mess not even Vulcan doctors could properly sort out. And it's possible he left home before puberty set in and made an even bigger mess of his innards, one that only human doctors were now available to observe and try to make sense of.
No, this twist didn't work for me dramatically. But it's par for the course for the character: his "superpowers" (and, thankfully, "superweaknesses" as well) always come as a surprise to everybody and always make a big impact on the adventure of the week. It's just as with James Bond and his gadgets.
Timo Saloniemi
Spock didn't know whether he would have pon farr, either. Presumably, his body is a mess not even Vulcan doctors could properly sort out. And it's possible he left home before puberty set in and made an even bigger mess of his innards, one that only human doctors were now available to observe and try to make sense of.
No, this twist didn't work for me dramatically. But it's par for the course for the character: his "superpowers" (and, thankfully, "superweaknesses" as well) always come as a surprise to everybody and always make a big impact on the adventure of the week. It's just as with James Bond and his gadgets.
Timo Saloniemi
8.
As noted by you and others, the Deneva parasites were were truly alien--no man in a suit or face applications. There was no relating to, or communicating with the creatures, no olive branch, Horta-like meeting of the minds.
Further, the final episode of season 1 could have been handled in a light, "look where have been" manner seen in other series, but the plot was injected with much character development, not only with the introduction of Sam's family, but the growing strength of the "big three's" relationship--a preview of what we would see early in season two with "Amok Time."
8 for me.
I like it, the biggest problem is the writer's lack of fundumental physics and what light is. That's a bitter pill to just pretend it's not happening while you are watching it, but other than that, I don't really have any complaints.
I don't know if it was Shatner getting the lines but his conclusion is ridiculous.
Light is radiation, the visible wavelengths are a narrow band of radiation, saying he exposed should have included visible and ultraviolet and infra-red as well of gamma and x rays, but this was written back in a time when if you got exposed to gamma rays you turned green and were super powered. Also, that much ultra violet would give every one skin cancer, or worse. But, maybe that's treatable in the setting of the show.
So, barring that, I think it's a really good episode.
I find the loss of Jim's family members especially heartwrenching, his sister in law certainly suffered greatly and died in extreme pain. It's hard for me to watch even though if my in laws became infected I'd have no problem shooting them all, like when Homer shot the zombie Flanders, "he was a zombie?"
I could imagine Vulcan children looking at the sun and being temporarily blinded and their parents telling them they should just wait a few hours/days and it will be ok and then the children not giving the inner eyelid much thought again. (not Human children, Vulcan children.)
I like it, the biggest problem is the writer's lack of fundumental physics and what light is. That's a bitter pill to just pretend it's not happening while you are watching it, but other than that, I don't really have any complaints.
I don't know if it was Shatner getting the lines but his conclusion is ridiculous.
Light is radiation, the visible wavelengths are a narrow band of radiation, saying he exposed should have included visible and ultraviolet and infra-red as well of gamma and x rays, but this was written back in a time when if you got exposed to gamma rays you turned green and were super powered. Also, that much ultra violet would give every one skin cancer, or worse. But, maybe that's treatable in the setting of the show.
So, barring that, I think it's a really good episode.
I find the loss of Jim's family members especially heartwrenching, his sister in law certainly suffered greatly and died in extreme pain. It's hard for me to watch even though if my in laws became infected I'd have no problem shooting them all, like when Homer shot the zombie Flanders, "he was a zombie?"
I could imagine Vulcan children looking at the sun and being temporarily blinded and their parents telling them they should just wait a few hours/days and it will be ok and then the children not giving the inner eyelid much thought again. (not Human children, Vulcan children.)
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Not to mention what they do to man-in-the-moon marigolds.
Actually, the dialogue does explain why visible light was neglected. McCoy was concentrating on things that are "lethal", and correctly stated that bright visible light isn't, not to life as we know it. Heat is, when intense enough (that is, when it manages to heat the target tissue enough), and McCoy tried that. But ramping up of visible light would have to be taken to ridiculous lengths if lethality were desired, so research aiming at lethality would concentrate on those parts of the radiation spectrum that have special qualities assisting in the task and providing lethality at lower intensity.
The fundamental flaw isn't in the neglecting of some parts of the basically infinite spectrum of radiation coming from a star. It's in searching for qualities that are lethal to known life. Killing humans is easy; McCoy should specifically have eliminated the things he knew to be lethal to humans, because
a) he knew that the pancake succumbed a crucial few seconds earlier than its host, despite being motivated to and capable of protecting itself while the host was not, but more importantly because
b) his mandate was to find a cure rather than a means of elimination; he already knew phaser bombardment would do the latter job easily enough.
Timo Saloniemi
No it doesn't, unless you find explanations implying incompetence of an implausible level satisfactory.
Identifying the lethal band of radiation isn't something that McCoy wouldn't think to do. The reveal quoted below only really works as instruction for proper scientific methodology to the scientifically illiterate, but maybe that's just television.
transcript
I first saw this one in the seventies and have been haunted by it ever since! Spock being riddled with these tentacles within his body and being commanded to obey an unseen entity was truly chilling and those creatures were scary! I still love the show today even though BBC1 left it right at the very end of their 1978-1982 repeat showings of the series!
JB
JB
We are talking about two different issues here.
Dialogue does explain why McCoy didn't study the spectrum around visible light at all in the beginning, and had to be separately prompted to do so by Kirk: McCoy was only studying factors that were known to be lethal in reasonable doses, and failed to consider the combination that 1) the sun was pushing out unreasonable doses and 2) the pancakes might be more susceptible to visible light than could be reasonably assumed.
Dialogue doesn't explain why McCoy set up his study this particular way when all Kirk originally told him to do was to see how the sun could have liberated the Denevan pilot, in the most general terms possible. But it wasn't time wasted: after reporting to Kirk, McCoy got new instructions and continued his work with visible light now included, and there's no indication he could have gotten to the point any faster by systematically going through all wavelengths. To the contrary, this would probably have taken him more time!
(Yes, it might be possible to observe the sensitivity to visible light in the pancakes at lower intensities already, considering they preferred shade even in the benign lighting conditions down on Deneva. But then again, it might not. An aversion reaction test covering the entire EM spectrum would be extremely difficult to rig up, and the aversion to visible light could well be lost in the noise of the process, especially considering how little dwell time would be available for each stretch of the EM spectrum.)
The issue you bring up is a completely different one: once having found the way to kill the parasites without frying the hosts to crisp, why did he not further narrow down the parameters of the cure? It is reasonable and logical for McCoy to have failed to do so, as there was an element of hurry included. The real problem is that McCoy doesn't cite hurry as the cause - he cites oversight. Which may be his polite way of shifting blame away from Kirk, who heavily prompted McCoy into hasty action.
Timo Saloniemi
No.
Yes, even Spock's line right there shows the fundemental flaw in the writer's scientific knowlege.
Just because most people can't see ultraviolet doesn't mean it cannot affect them and it can most certainly blind you.
Also, the analogy is very poor because a sonic disrupter will still kill a deaf person. Not seeing or hearing something is not an immunity.
I enjoy this discussion, but I still want to mention I think this is a really good episode except the present subject. The actors are all very good, the dialog is good and I really like Spocks "pain is a thing of the mind and the mind can be controlled" That was a very influential thing for my young mind.
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