Is There No Truth In Beauty? Commentary

[In_Correct]

I guess I never provided my commentary for Is There No Truth In Beauty?


Dr. Miranda Jones does not like other people. (Neither do I. And we both have the same reasons.) But the person who created Ex Astris Scientia seems to not understand why she does not like other people.

I completely agree with:

• In a matter of two minutes the Enterprise crosses the edge of the galaxy. Marvick can't be all that insane if he accomplishes such a miracle.

But as for:

• Miranda Jones is blind and she needs the sensor net to see anything. But her eyes move as if she could see. So someone built mechanically perfect eye prosthetics for her but didn't include image sensors there?

I would think perhaps she put contact lenses on her eyes that would make her eyes look normal. And the way Pulaski walked and moved in the episode supports that Jones could be blind. I don't know which scene her eyes move "as if she could see".

and

• Why does Miranda Jones make a secret of her being blind anyway, except for another melodramatic impact when it is discovered?

Completely missing the point. I suppose that the person behind Ex Astris Scientia is not disabled and could be completely ignorant about what it is like to have some type of disability. Or perhaps you live a difficult life in some other way. Sometimes people just don't want others to know and they find it embarrassing and they also find out that people (perhaps the Ex Astris Scientia guy) would not understand.

Kirk and Miranda Jones clearly said:

"You said Pity is the worst one of all."
"Pity ... Which I Hate."

• Similar episodes are or story arcs that I also enjoy (some not on Star Trek) are Dark Shadows, the episodes that have Magda The Gypsy in them. (Grayson Hall) Magda tries to help a woman in distress.
• Also a programme co-starring Kate Jackson "The Rookies" episode A Farewell Tree From Marly, a mentally disabled woman (played by an unfamiliar looking Tyne Daly) is confronted by her past when she watches a film of herself. And she hates her former self.
• The simple fact that four of the characters from Gatchaman are orphans.
• TNG's Worf Son Of Mogh, especially Sins Of The Father and Reunion. (also an orphan)
• TNG's episode The Loss, ... Deanna doesn't take losing her empathic powers too well.
• A couple of episodes from Hetty Wainthropp Investigates has a few lines exploring the life of mentally disabled persons, including award-worthy lines from Patricia Routledge.
• Matilda Wormwood's teacher Miss Honey. You can never find her Closet Of Skeletons in a field of sunflowers.
• Seven Of Nine, who never got a chance to live because of her "Live Dangerously" parents and her assimilation, until her stay on U.S.S. Voyager.
• InuYasha episode Jinenji, Kind Yet Sad (The only reason why I like InuYasha) life as a "Biracial" in a small town, including award-worthy lines from fellow "Biracial" InuYasha.

It is much easier for me to just recommend TV episodes and Films such as those examples instead of telling my life story. If they don't understand the episodes, then they probably won't understand my life story anyways.

I also found Diana Muldaur's acting to be wonderful in this episode. And also as Dr. Ann Mulhall. As for (yet another Doctor) Pulaski, I much prefer Dr. McCoy.

One thing that the review did not mention is the purple walls. Purple Walls should lower the rating of any episode, but I really don't think that "Is There No Truth In Beauty?" deserves a 3. Another complaint is why Medusans aren't piloting any starships after this episode. They could just go to a control room and interface with the navigational computer and pilot the ship from there. (or are they required to merge with Vulcans?)

But the things I like in this episode: I like the music. It has the music of the second and third seasons but with a story line similar to the first and second seasons. Seeing it Remastered also provides The Enterprise in high warp speed.

It is probably one of my favourite episodes, tied with The Cage which at over an hour long, I consider The Cage to be a movie.

Of course there are now many Runner Up episodes after watching every episode in order. I also like Some for the music, some for the story, some for the acting, and some for all of those reasons.

 

[scotpens]

One slight correction: The name of the episode is "Is There In Truth No Beauty?" Although it really doesn't matter -- you can mix up the words and it still sounds OK.

 

[Forbin]

Blind people can't move their eyes?
Of course they can. And the point was that she was trying to pass for sighted, so she became adept at pretending to look at who she was talking to.

 

[Spock's Barber]

One slight correction: The name of the episode is "Is There In Truth No Beauty?" Although it really doesn't matter -- you can mix up the words and it still sounds OK.

It took me many years of watching this episode before I got the title right.

 

[johnnybear]

It's one I used to mix up too but not these days in my enlightened Trek physique!
JB

 

[Spock's Barber]

I run out of breath when I try to say "For The World Is Hollow and I have Touched The Sky" 5 times really fast....

 

[UnknownSample]

I missed why all those remarks about other shows were there, but I also love Dark Shadows and the character of Magda. The ITITNB review on that site does seem unusually clueless. I'm getting fed up with fans missing the point of half of the choices made in a particular episode, and proceeding to list them all as "mistakes".

 

[Scotchy]

They could've taken the sensor web concept from this episode to make Levar Burton a little happier. I saw an interview with him where he complained that covering his eyes with that chrome plated banana clip hindered his acting. They could've woven a sensor web into his uniform like they did for Miranda.
Also, what was it like in Kollos' lunch box? Was it like Jeannie's bottle with throw pillows, maybe a nice flat screen TV or a minibar?

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

They could've woven a sensor web into his uniform like they did for Miranda.

Not all sparkly, though. Maybe something like a belt or neural interface armband?

Also, what was it like in Kollos' lunch box? Was it like Jeannie's bottle with throw pillows, maybe a nice flat screen TV or a minibar?

LOL. A portable Medusan mancave?

 

[Spock's Barber]

Kollos' mom...."Kollos! You've been a bad Medusan! Go back to your box and don't come out until I tell you to!"

 

[Shawnster]

I had an idea for a Medsan Starfleet officer. He (or she) would be in a robot body instead of a lunch box. Kinda like Kosh in his encounter suit from Babylon 5.

 

[In_Correct]

I would think perhaps she put contact lenses on her eyes that would make her eyes look normal. And the way Pulaski walked and moved in the episode supports that Jones could be blind. I don't know which scene her eyes move "as if she could see".

I meant Muldaur.

One slight correction: The name of the episode is "Is There In Truth No Beauty?" Although it really doesn't matter -- you can mix up the words and it still sounds OK.

I can't believe it. Why did I never spot that?

It took me many years of watching this episode before I got the title right.

They could've taken the sensor web concept from this episode to make Levar Burton a little happier.

It would be interesting if they gave him a similar but less noticeable sensor web (such as one without the jewels) and given him silver eyes from TOS Where No Man Has Gone Before.

Also, just simple modified "Google Glasses" would also work. Another 1987 programme (BraveStarr) has something similar to Google Glasses, and considering that technology is modeled after the futuristic technology of Star Trek (Diskettes, Memory Stick Pro) I am surprised that Star Trek (AFAIK) didn't think of giving Geordi Google Glasses. Also, the character BraveStarr is not blind, but there is an episode featuring a blind character that has a larger device that resembles Google Glasses.

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Rzkexpzg90Q/hqdefault.jpg

But this would only work for Geordi because everybody already knows he is blind. Miranda needed the sensor web because if she preferred eyewear, it would easily give away her secret that risks pity and other fake emotions.

 

[scotpens]

. . . Also, what was it like in Kollos' lunch box? Was it like Jeannie's bottle with throw pillows, maybe a nice flat screen TV or a minibar?

It was never actually stated in the episode, but I got the impression that Medusans were non-corporeal (and Memory Alpha agrees). An alien without a physical body would have little use for throw pillows or a minibar.

 

[Scotchy]

It was never actually stated in the episode, but I got the impression that Medusans were non-corporeal (and Memory Alpha agrees). An alien without a physical body would have little use for throw pillows or a minibar.

I got that impression as well. However, just because he is non-corporeal doesn't mean he has to stay that way. Many non-corporeals in Trek can take whatever physical form they choose for a length of time. I just wondered if he was getting bored in there, or if he had something to do.

He (or she) would be in a robot body instead of a lunch box. Kinda like Kosh in his encounter suit from Babylon 5.

Sure, instead of driving Spock insane he could have a nice game of 3 dimensional chess with him. Artificial bodies for super-being types isn't unheard of - Return to Tomorrow is one example.

 

[2takesfrakes]

I've actually worked with the blind and visually impaired and I can tell you that none of them make any sort of transition to it, where they're cool with it, or feel they've been blessed by it, or because of it.

The reasons for blindness and visual impairment mostly had to do with:

- Old Age
- Premature Birth
- Drug Use (in their stoned state, they would deliberately blind themselves, in ghastly ways)
- Attempted Suicide (gun in the mouth, didn't quite do the trick)

Art for the Blind is one programme that exists to help them cope and I was involved in such, for a short time.

As for this STAR TREK episode, it is still a work of fiction, so I'm not claiming some special insight into the mindest of the character of Miranda Jones. But I found her attitudes towards her blindness to be relatively realistic and the very least of the show's problems.

 

[Tenacity]

In a matter of two minutes the Enterprise crosses the edge of the galaxy.

I think they "left the galaxy" by entering another dimension, and not by physically leaving the galaxy.

 

[UnknownSample]

I think they "left the galaxy" by entering another dimension, and not by physically leaving the galaxy.

The Barrier was mysterious enough that one could start thinking those kind of thoughts about it. (Unremastered... Remastered destroys the original effect). The Barrier is physically around the galaxy though, whatever strange properties it may or may not have. Maybe their getting stuck there shows some other-dimensional component too. You have to get through it to go to Andromeda though.

 

[Timo]

I think the combination of them having "clear records" until "the point they left the galaxy" and all the talk about "navigating" being the means of getting back suggests a physical rather than metaphysical departure from the galaxy. Spock even feels they have to "re-cross the Barrier" as part of the process of returning.

Why exactly our heroes can't use their sensors to see which way to the Milky Way... That's where the "we entered a space-time continuum" comes in, supposedly. Somehow. In that continuum, there could be constant "extreme sensory distortion", IMHO the likeliest interpretation. But then Spock claims that such distortion affects the sensors at warp speed, and then tells why impulse isn't a workaround solution - which would suggest that impulse (or standstill is) free of this "extreme sensory distortion" thing. But it clearly isn't free of all distortion, so perhaps this stuff comes in varying degrees, being the worst at warp?

The thing is, even though some of the visual effects we see are similar to those of the Barrier, the heroes don't actually claim they are in the Barrier (although being completely lost, they could of course be there, too, and not realize it). Rather, the Barrier would seem to be where they want to get, in order to find their way back home. And if a look outside through the portholes shows what the camera sees, and the heroes don't associate that vista with the Barrier...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Tenacity]

Marvick spoke of being "safe at the boundaries of the universe," Spock of entering a space and time continuum after exceeding warp 9.5.

If the ship were simply sitting in intergalactic space outside out galaxy, then navigating back would pose no problem in of itself. Marvick was a expert in propulsion, I think he did something far different than just make the Enterprise go "real fast."

He uses the engines to cause the ship to go somewhere else. The barrier that Spock refers to isn't (imo) the barrier we saw in WNMHGB, it was something different.

I also don't think that the ship could be just peacefully sitting inside the WNMHGB barrier.

 

[Timo]

If the ship were simply sitting in intergalactic space outside out galaxy, then navigating back would pose no problem in of itself.

...Except if the ship were surrounded by swirling purple mist and eldritch reflections, as is the case here. There would be no way of telling where to point the bow. Assuming that the inertial navigation system had hiccuped, that is, and we basically are told this very thing happened (the "records" exhibit a discontinuity) during the "continuum entering" event.

One would think that warping in a random direction would get the heroes out of the mess. But that's what Spock says won't work: warping just makes the mists worse. Supposedly, they tag along with the ship, perhaps characteristically for this "continuum" thing, even though the ship is moving through real space in a conventional enough manner. Or then something else happens. Hard to tell.

The barrier that Spock refers to isn't (imo) the barrier we saw in WNMHGB, it was something different.

That would be somewhat disappointing, as we'd lose the bit of continuity from "WNMHGB" where impulse drive can't cope with the Barrier but warp can.

I think what is remarkable here is that neither Kollos nor Spock channeling him is stated to be doing anything to the engines. The talk is all about navigating, of flying at warp six at most, of operating the helm. This somewhat undermines the idea of crossing barriers between realms, and leaves open the question of whether the ship spent any appreciable time in that "continuum" thing (say, the duration of the weird visuals and/or the sensory distortion) or merely briefly dipped in there to the effect of disrupting inertial navigation records.

Timo Saloniemi