This episode's pacing is marvelous. The sense of threat accorded Trelane by the writer is built up very nicely...
There's some nice visual f/x timing of Trelane's text onto the viewer in virtually perfect timing as Spock reads it...
...but for being 900 years away, why does Trelane act surprised when Kirk reveals the Squire (retired) has been looking at events 900 years old? (A nice bit of real science, coupled with the possibility of Trelane testing Kirk since Trelane knew what frequency to use to display his messages onto the screen. )
The planet shown has nice atmospheric detail drawn onto it, complete with cloud detail. As usual, when the sausage party of the week lands we see a different color backdrop to represent the horizon (planet is red, backdrop with actors is teal.) Yet a later scene when Trelane teleports Kirk to an unprotected area of the planet, the camera avoids the skyline entirely. (It would have been nice to see a teal splotch on the orange/red planet, but being made in the 1960s with limited means to produce these images (TOS reuses planetary footage all the time too) it's not necessary.)
Trelane is one of the few sci-fi characters that can pull off lime green trousers with that royal blue coat. Then again, so can Mike Nesmith of "The Monkees" since he wore that same coat in an episode (the one where Liberace cameos and destroys a piano with a sledgehammer. Trust me, it helps to be in your 20s in 1967 to understand the comedic aspect though one doesn't need to be... I'd swear that dungeon set was used on the sitcom as well... but I digress.)
Shatner and Campbell have some great chemistry with their scenes. Indeed, William Campbell is clearly having a field day acting out this character as well. In some ways, I'm surprised over how much of it holds up.
And, yep, it's easy to see how TNG got its character of Q from as "Squire" shares some of the same themes regarding humanity being a barbaric species. while I like "Encounter at Farpoint" and Q, the sense of threat and mystery surrounding Trelane just feels more palpable.
DeSalle makes the mistake of crouching stealthily toward Trelane, all while ignoring that big and perfectly-angled mirror showing his reflection for all to see perfectly. Also note the possible anachronism of the mirror, of which its clarity of reflection and frame hark back to a process developed in the 1800s, suggesting Kirk and co are from 400 years into the future. The calligraphy could stem back to the 1600s...
The audience is informed that the food has no taste and that the wood fire generates no heat. This works if Trelane is watching something unfamiliar 900 light years away and can only create a facsimile of the visage. But I really want to believe, oh yes I do, that Trelane is doing this deliberately to fool the humans.
They beam up back to the ship and Trelane - who wiggles his nose in a bewitched way like Samantha - promptly appears on the bridge and goads, becomes all giggity about the "crewwomen" (as Kirk calls by name) aboard. So much for "crewmen" being an all-inclusive term, at least for this episode.
I love it when Kirk looks all jealous when Trelane starts dancing with Teresa. Meanwhile, Gilligan is struck by lightning and becomes magnetic. Oh wait, wrong show - why was I taking a break to eat and switching to Gilligan's Island...
Trelane points out Kirk's jealousy, with Kirk refuting that claim - as if the audience believes that for a second, the episode has Shatner putting out enough facial cues that - via rote, anyway - suggest Kirk is restraining himself.
I didn't like it when Spock opined Trelane never strayed far from that mirror, since Trelane popped up to the ship earlier but the mirror didn't pop up with him. Again, is Trelane playing a multi-layered game? Perhaps he is, the destruction of the mirror leads to comedy sound effects being used. Or is Spock just having a bad bowl cut day?
The pistol draw scene was rather good and note how Trelane deliberately misses, not to mention how Trelane earlier belts out how everything was better than what he planned... Campbell steals the show and keeps his performance perfectly balanced to ensure a sense of menace and threat mixed in with what would otherwise be deemed "camp". Suspension of disbelief retains intact.
They manage to break free of Trelane again and get back to the ship, prompting an unusual yet exciting cat-vs-mouse game. Kirk informs the audience he's the mouse. Of all the things to point out in-episode via exposition, that's the smallest issue to spell out. (By the way, Trelane later makes a comment that infers the "mirror machine" wasn't important and one could read into it abit lot and say he was tricking Kirk and crew, again. Ideally these tricks would have been summed up at one point since they went out of their way to spell out the obvious "cat and mouse" game, so it's open for interpretation - like any Beatles song is. Except the one about the Walrus, its maker said it was written to troll music critics who look for messages in their songs, but I digress. I love to digress. But I digress again...)
In the courtroom scene, the lighting is used to great effect, taking a sparse set and giving it a truly onerous feel, complete with noose (in 1967, this was no kid show.)
Kirk, tired of Trelane, shouts with exasperation he'll plead guilty to anything.
I love how the episode turns into the oft-used 1960s trope of "hunting 'the most dangerous game'" (aka humans), which was based on a 1924 but took a few decades before it became popular to exploit on the airwaves. This wouldn't have flown well in the 1950s next to Wally and the Beav.
Meanwhile, Squire Eddie Haskell there agrees to Kirk's gambit and allows him to contact the ship. Kirk falls for this, only to get static. He does this a few too many times, especially when it seems clear Trelane wouldn't let the ship and its personnel go under any circumstances.
They begin a chase in the tiny plot of wilderness that's habitable.
Trelane blinks like Jeannie again and makes cage bars appear around Kirk - the episode uses several times the trick where actors stay still on cue, the camera stops, the stage person adds a prop or changes a set piece then goes back, then the camera stops again to make it look like a magical being did something. Most instances this is done really well in this episode. Even when Trelane gets a sword and one can tell there's a slight movement, for the 1960s with no flash overlaid to conceal the shift, it's all really well done.
Here's where the episode nosedives, and considering my score for this episode what precedes the downfall is fairly excellent material, acted out beautifully - Trelane's mommy and daddy appear (voiced rather well by Barbara Babcock and Bart LaRue) call him in for dinner - in what is surely one of the fledgling show's most cringeworthy dialogue to date. Granted, the effects of his nuclear family are rather good for being green glowing blobby things and are also stunt doubles for the Incredible Hulk's snot, but that dialogue is simply atrocious. At least their equating Kirk and crew as "pets" holds up. He's not examining them in terms of evolutionary progress but keeping them as cheap thrills.(But it's also true that not all Q are the same...)
But the bit that amounted to "You're a bad boy so you can't make any more planets" is just laughably bad and not in the "it's so bad it's good" way. Maybe this show really is for kids... or the show is trying to reach the widest range of adults as possible. TOS was advertised as the first adult sci-fi drama, but not all the writers will have remembered or been told that. For a family show, it's certainly some gritty themes to it because kids of the day were neck-deep in episodes revolving around nooses and plague and gun violence... oh wait, most of them were adoring Granny making possum stew. This episode does have scenes that would send kiddies screaming in terror.
But that's the episode in a nutshell - focusing on humans being savage as seen by a being who's been a Peeping Tom some 900 years in the past - which then begs the question of some missing persons cases that went cold. (Or the bodies were not found and decayed and some local vermicular critters ate them.) The episode is solid enough to show a newcomer today, who might enjoy it as camp appeal (but was dead serious in terms of 1960s viewership), was clearly an influence for TNG's "Q", and could arguably be made canon to show Trelane's people being the same as the Q but I'd rather they remain separate since TOS onward have numerous incorporeal life forms with remarkable powers, who may have started as corporeal beings but developed psi powers and/or outgrew their bodies, who promptly vanish at the end.
8/10
There's some nice visual f/x timing of Trelane's text onto the viewer in virtually perfect timing as Spock reads it...
...but for being 900 years away, why does Trelane act surprised when Kirk reveals the Squire (retired) has been looking at events 900 years old? (A nice bit of real science, coupled with the possibility of Trelane testing Kirk since Trelane knew what frequency to use to display his messages onto the screen. )
The planet shown has nice atmospheric detail drawn onto it, complete with cloud detail. As usual, when the sausage party of the week lands we see a different color backdrop to represent the horizon (planet is red, backdrop with actors is teal.) Yet a later scene when Trelane teleports Kirk to an unprotected area of the planet, the camera avoids the skyline entirely. (It would have been nice to see a teal splotch on the orange/red planet, but being made in the 1960s with limited means to produce these images (TOS reuses planetary footage all the time too) it's not necessary.)
Trelane is one of the few sci-fi characters that can pull off lime green trousers with that royal blue coat. Then again, so can Mike Nesmith of "The Monkees" since he wore that same coat in an episode (the one where Liberace cameos and destroys a piano with a sledgehammer. Trust me, it helps to be in your 20s in 1967 to understand the comedic aspect though one doesn't need to be... I'd swear that dungeon set was used on the sitcom as well... but I digress.)
Shatner and Campbell have some great chemistry with their scenes. Indeed, William Campbell is clearly having a field day acting out this character as well. In some ways, I'm surprised over how much of it holds up.
And, yep, it's easy to see how TNG got its character of Q from as "Squire" shares some of the same themes regarding humanity being a barbaric species. while I like "Encounter at Farpoint" and Q, the sense of threat and mystery surrounding Trelane just feels more palpable.
DeSalle makes the mistake of crouching stealthily toward Trelane, all while ignoring that big and perfectly-angled mirror showing his reflection for all to see perfectly. Also note the possible anachronism of the mirror, of which its clarity of reflection and frame hark back to a process developed in the 1800s, suggesting Kirk and co are from 400 years into the future. The calligraphy could stem back to the 1600s...
The audience is informed that the food has no taste and that the wood fire generates no heat. This works if Trelane is watching something unfamiliar 900 light years away and can only create a facsimile of the visage. But I really want to believe, oh yes I do, that Trelane is doing this deliberately to fool the humans.
They beam up back to the ship and Trelane - who wiggles his nose in a bewitched way like Samantha - promptly appears on the bridge and goads, becomes all giggity about the "crewwomen" (as Kirk calls by name) aboard. So much for "crewmen" being an all-inclusive term, at least for this episode.
I love it when Kirk looks all jealous when Trelane starts dancing with Teresa. Meanwhile, Gilligan is struck by lightning and becomes magnetic. Oh wait, wrong show - why was I taking a break to eat and switching to Gilligan's Island...
Trelane points out Kirk's jealousy, with Kirk refuting that claim - as if the audience believes that for a second, the episode has Shatner putting out enough facial cues that - via rote, anyway - suggest Kirk is restraining himself.
I didn't like it when Spock opined Trelane never strayed far from that mirror, since Trelane popped up to the ship earlier but the mirror didn't pop up with him. Again, is Trelane playing a multi-layered game? Perhaps he is, the destruction of the mirror leads to comedy sound effects being used. Or is Spock just having a bad bowl cut day?
The pistol draw scene was rather good and note how Trelane deliberately misses, not to mention how Trelane earlier belts out how everything was better than what he planned... Campbell steals the show and keeps his performance perfectly balanced to ensure a sense of menace and threat mixed in with what would otherwise be deemed "camp". Suspension of disbelief retains intact.
They manage to break free of Trelane again and get back to the ship, prompting an unusual yet exciting cat-vs-mouse game. Kirk informs the audience he's the mouse. Of all the things to point out in-episode via exposition, that's the smallest issue to spell out. (By the way, Trelane later makes a comment that infers the "mirror machine" wasn't important and one could read into it a
In the courtroom scene, the lighting is used to great effect, taking a sparse set and giving it a truly onerous feel, complete with noose (in 1967, this was no kid show.)
Kirk, tired of Trelane, shouts with exasperation he'll plead guilty to anything.
I love how the episode turns into the oft-used 1960s trope of "hunting 'the most dangerous game'" (aka humans), which was based on a 1924 but took a few decades before it became popular to exploit on the airwaves. This wouldn't have flown well in the 1950s next to Wally and the Beav.
Meanwhile, Squire Eddie Haskell there agrees to Kirk's gambit and allows him to contact the ship. Kirk falls for this, only to get static. He does this a few too many times, especially when it seems clear Trelane wouldn't let the ship and its personnel go under any circumstances.
They begin a chase in the tiny plot of wilderness that's habitable.
Trelane blinks like Jeannie again and makes cage bars appear around Kirk - the episode uses several times the trick where actors stay still on cue, the camera stops, the stage person adds a prop or changes a set piece then goes back, then the camera stops again to make it look like a magical being did something. Most instances this is done really well in this episode. Even when Trelane gets a sword and one can tell there's a slight movement, for the 1960s with no flash overlaid to conceal the shift, it's all really well done.
Here's where the episode nosedives, and considering my score for this episode what precedes the downfall is fairly excellent material, acted out beautifully - Trelane's mommy and daddy appear (voiced rather well by Barbara Babcock and Bart LaRue) call him in for dinner - in what is surely one of the fledgling show's most cringeworthy dialogue to date. Granted, the effects of his nuclear family are rather good for being green glowing blobby things and are also stunt doubles for the Incredible Hulk's snot, but that dialogue is simply atrocious. At least their equating Kirk and crew as "pets" holds up. He's not examining them in terms of evolutionary progress but keeping them as cheap thrills.(But it's also true that not all Q are the same...)
But the bit that amounted to "You're a bad boy so you can't make any more planets" is just laughably bad and not in the "it's so bad it's good" way. Maybe this show really is for kids... or the show is trying to reach the widest range of adults as possible. TOS was advertised as the first adult sci-fi drama, but not all the writers will have remembered or been told that. For a family show, it's certainly some gritty themes to it because kids of the day were neck-deep in episodes revolving around nooses and plague and gun violence... oh wait, most of them were adoring Granny making possum stew. This episode does have scenes that would send kiddies screaming in terror.
But that's the episode in a nutshell - focusing on humans being savage as seen by a being who's been a Peeping Tom some 900 years in the past - which then begs the question of some missing persons cases that went cold. (Or the bodies were not found and decayed and some local vermicular critters ate them.) The episode is solid enough to show a newcomer today, who might enjoy it as camp appeal (but was dead serious in terms of 1960s viewership), was clearly an influence for TNG's "Q", and could arguably be made canon to show Trelane's people being the same as the Q but I'd rather they remain separate since TOS onward have numerous incorporeal life forms with remarkable powers, who may have started as corporeal beings but developed psi powers and/or outgrew their bodies, who promptly vanish at the end.
8/10
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