“Whom Gods Destroy”
Teleplay by Lee Erwin
Story by Lee Erwin and Jerry Sohl
Directed by Herb Wallerstein
Season 3, Episode 14
Production episode: 3×16
Original air date: January 3, 1969
Star date: 5718.3
Mission summary
Kirk and Spock beam down to Elba II, a planet that houses an asylum for the “few remaining incorrigible criminally insane of the galaxy.” The asylum is in a sealed complex because Elba’s atmosphere is poisonous: presumably a feature and a not a bug. Kirk and Spock are bringing Dr. Donald Cory, the governor of the so-called colony, a medicinal cure for the crazy people left there. (I’d guess Dr. Cory was on someone’s shit list since all he governs is a group of 15 psychopaths, but maybe the alternative was Triacus?)
The newest arrival to the funny farm is Garth of Izar, a former fleet captain for the Federation and a hero of Kirk’s. Kirk would like to meet him, so Dr. Cory leads his visitors through the Rogue’s Gallery: an Andorian rockin’ a bright red pimp coat, a pig-faced Tellarite, and a green Orion slavegirl named Marta who seems perfectly rational until she tries to explain that Dr. Cory isn’t Dr. Cory at all. Silly girl. But when they reach the last cell, they find a battered and beaten Dr. Cory inside, suspended in mid-air! A broing and camera shake later, the Dr. Cory they thought they knew appears in his true form: Garth of Izar, or as he prefers to be addressed, “Lord Garth, Master of the Universe.” He locks Kirk in the cell with Dr. Cory, releases the other inmates, and has his droogs drag Spock away.
In the usual villain way, he explains that because his original crew mutinied against him he’s going to capture the Enterprise and hunt each of them down to kill them. Kirk knows that the Enterprise crew would mutiny against him, too, but Garth has a plan for that, and a broing and a camera shake later he looks just like Kirk. Delighted, he takes Marta and heads to the transporter room.
Now stuck in the cell with Dr. Cory, Kirk has a few questions he wants answered. Well, maybe just one:
KIRK: How does he manage to change form at will?
CORY: The people of Antos taught him the techniques of cellular metamorphosis to restore the destroyed parts of his body. By himself, he later learned to use the technique to recreate himself into any form he wished. The first time we knew about it was when a guard, seeing what he thought was me in Garth’s cell, released him.
KIRK: He was such a genius. What a waste.
Garth, looking like Kirk, makes it to the transporter room and hails Mr. Scott. But there’s a glitch in his plan:
SCOTT: Scott here, sir.
GARTH: Beam me aboard.
SCOTT: Aye, sir. Queen to queen’s level three.
GARTH: I said beam me aboard.
SCOTT: I said, queen to queen’s level three.
GARTH: We have no time for chess problems. Beam me aboard!
SCOTT: I’m following your orders, Captain. Queen to queen’s level three.
He didn’t even get to the riddles! What kind of starship captain was this Garth fellow? He tells Scott he’ll check in later, and proceeds to have a complete toddler tantrum on the floor of the transporter room. This makes everyone feel awkward, including the audience.
Scotty knows something is up, but they can’t penetrate the planet’s security forcefield, so they’ll just have to sit back and kill time.
Garth calms himself down and goes back to Kirk, extending a dinner invitation to both him and Spock. Kirk doesn’t have much choice, so they all meet up in the dining hall. There, the Andorian is using the Tellarite as a wheelbarrow–this actually seems an improvement after the horseriding episode–and Marta takes something of an interest in Kirk. This drives Garth into a jealous rage and they proceed to have a domestic dispute in front of the whole group. Then he commands her to dance, magic, dance. To ease the tension and add some filler, she obliges.
Ten hours later*, Garth offers her to Kirk like some kind of sleazy pimp. Kirk decides to lighten the mood by asking why Garth attempted to obliterate the Antosians, who healed him when he was sick and gave him this amazing ability to transform himself. Diplomatic, that one. Garth says only that he offered them a galaxy and they rejected him. Kirk makes a half-hearted attempt to soften the mood by praising Garth’s victory on Axanar, but then walks it back with a dig:
KIRK: But my first visit to Axanar was as a new fledged cadet on a peace mission.
GARTH: Peace mission! Politicians and weaklings!
KIRK: They were humanitarians and statesmen, and they had a dream. A dream that became a reality and spread throughout the stars, a dream that made Mister Spock and me brothers.
GARTH: Mister Spock, do you consider Captain Kirk and yourself brothers?
SPOCK: Captain Kirk speaks somewhat figuratively and with undue emotion. However, what he says is logical and I do, in fact, agree with it.
Awwww.
Spock makes the mistake of criticizing Garth and is dragged away from the dinner for it, but Garth doesn’t want to ruin the mood. He gives Kirk some wine to loosen him up, and then suggests a little invisible 3D chess! Way to show your hand, Garth. Kirk’s no fool and dances around the answer, but Garth becomes enraged again and decides to make the captain “long for death.” He has his henchmen drag out an old prop–the torture chair from “Dagger of the Mind.” Shockingly, it has the same function. He demonstrates it on Dr. Cory, first.
Kirk of course is as stoic as Portia and despite the pain, refuses to reveal the answer to his little security system. But Marta can’t watch the proceedings–she seems to have taken a liking to Kirk–and begs for him to be released. She vows to get the answer out of him with her own… techniques.
Later, Kirk is lying in a plush bed and as he comes to, Marta gives him a glass of water in the sexiest way possible. She says she lied to Garth to get him to stop hurting Kirk and proceeds to, er, use her assets. But mid-kiss she reaches beneath the pillow and pulls out a dagger! Kirk struggles with her but soon Spock arrives, freed earlier by Marta. He nerve pinches her, grabs her weapon, and leads Kirk towards the control room. They take out a guard on the way, make it to the control room, disable the forcefield around the planet, and make contact with Mr. Scott.
Scott asks for the password again, but Spock remains silent.
Kirk, suspicious, tells Scotty that Spock will give the password. When Spock can’t, he cuts the signal, re-enables the forcefield, and reveals himself as Garth! Kirk tries a new tack this time: he reminds Lord Garth, Master of the Universe what it was like to be Captain Garth, fleet captain, noble and heroic. Garth reminisces a little but shrugs it all off: he wants power, and he wants revenge, and he’s not going to take some rosy-colored remembrances in their place.
He decides that Kirk isn’t respecting him properly because he has yet to be crowned. So he convenes all of his followers (all ten of them…) in the dining area, and using a dining table and a stool as a throne, crowns himself Master of the Universe. He names Marta his consort, and in a bid to win him over, names Kirk the heir apparent. When Garth’s mood darkens, though, he orders Kirk dragged out of the room by the Andorian and the Tellarite.
They take him to the control room (for some reason), and in a last ditch effort Kirk lunges for the control panel–but is stunned by a phaser for his efforts. Garth comes in seeming very pleased with himself and has his assistants pull up a chair for Kirk. He has something to show the captain. He pulls out a tube filled with tiny crystals: the most powerful explosive ever invented. And as a test of its power, he’s decided to use a human sacrifice.
Drawing back a curtain to the outside, Garth shows us Marta being dragged through the landscape by men in atmospheric suits, choking on the poisonous atmosphere. She has a single crystal bomb in her necklace. She struggles against the two guards pitifully, and eventually Garth decides to put her out of her misery–and detonates the bomb. She explodes and nothing is left behind.
Kirk is moved but not enough to hand over the Enterprise to this madman, so Garth gets him where it hurts. He orders the assistants to bring in Spock. Back in his cell, Spock pretends to be passed out on his little bed. The Andorian and the Tellarite drag him, one arm each, out of his cell, and Spock uses the opportunity to nerve pinch them at the same time! Armed and ready, he makes it to the control room and faces off against Garth–only he’s not there.
Spock sees two Kirks.
They argue over who the real captain is:
SPOCK: Queen to queen’s level three.
KIRK 2: I won’t answer that. That’s exactly what he wants to know.
KIRK 1: Very clever, Garth. That’s exactly what I was going to say.
Spock quizzes them on battle maneuvers, but they both seem to know the answer. With nothing he can ask that only the real captain would know, Spock changes his mind:
SPOCK: Gentlemen, whichever one of you is Captain Garth must at this moment be expending a great deal of energy to maintain the image of Captain Kirk. That energy level cannot be maintained indefinitely, and I have time.
Some agonizingly long fully clothed Kirk-on-Kirk man-wrestling ensues. And continues to ensue for like, an hour*. Finally, one Kirk lifts a chair over his head and aims it at the other Kirk. Both plead with Spock to recognize them as his captain–but the man without the chair tells Spock to stun them both, because it’s the only way to save the Enterprise.
Spock shoots the one with the chair. He is, surprised, revealed to be Garth.
They reunite, and Spock hails the Enterprise. Kirk correctly gives the right chess move to Scotty, and all is well.
Some time later, Dr. Cory administers the cure to Garth, who is suddenly docile but confused, and doesn’t seem to remember any of what happened over the last few hours. Good enough, they seem to think, but Kirk expresses some disappointment that Spock took so long to figure out who the right Kirk was:
SPOCK: The interval of uncertainty was actually fairly brief, Captain. It only seemed long to you. I was waiting for a victor in the hand to hand struggle, which I assumed would be Captain Garth. Because of your depleted condition. Failing a resolution to the struggle, I was forced to use other means to make my determination.
KIRK: I see. Mister Spock. Letting yourself be hit on the head, and I presume you let yourself be hit on the head, is not exactly a method King Solomon would have approved. Mister Scott, ready to beam up.
*Time elapsed may be shorter than it appears.
Analysis
The title is a classic Greek cliche, usually falsely attributed to Euripides and generally paraphrased as: “Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad.” Yeah, okay. Given that this episode has absolutely nothing in common with the kind of moving high tragedies of the ancient Greeks, my guess is the writers went through Bartlett’s looking for the keyword “insane,” found that one, wiped their hands proudly, and stuck it on the script.
This episode lost me right from the premise. So mental illness is curable, except for these fifteen criminal masterminds? Let’s be generous here and assume that the conflation of mental illness and criminal violence is accidental and unfortunate. (Because wow, is that unfortunate. And by unfortunate I mean appalling. Criminal behavior and mental illness do not go hand in hand as a matter of recourse.) Aside from our friend Garth, who seems to have started as a nice guy before being corrupted by the power from Antos IV, I don’t see anyone there with mental illness. Marta’s sexual and a little self-aggrandizing, but aside from the randomness with which she tries to stab Kirk (where did THAT come from? If she stabs her lovers, wouldn’t Garth be dead by now?) she doesn’t strike me as the kind of Nero figure you’d think would be hanging around here. I mean she spends the entire episode being berated and then pimped out by Garth–who wouldn’t feel a little stabby at that point? And the rest of the inmates look… bored. Isn’t this supposed to be the home of the fifteen most violent and brutal crazies in the galaxy? Why are ANY of them okay with being lackeys? I would assume a group of arrogant, power-hungry psychos, kind of like the folks in “Plato’s Stepchildren,” who’d murder each other over breakfast.
The real injustice done here is against Spock, who’s forced into the kind of Watson buffoon role that he doesn’t deserve. Okay, so the double nerve pinch is pretty cool, but it completely fails to make up for his inability to do anything but piss off Garth in the dinner scene (they were hatching a plan, briefly, and then suddenly… it stopped?). The worst is the “climax,” which I use in the loosest possible sense of the word, where he’s shoved aside like a sack of red shirts and proceeds to do absolutely nothing for the five hundred years* it takes for the two men to fight it out. He can’t come up with one thing that only the real Kirk would know or be able to answer? Not one? I can think of a hundred.
Mr. Scott and Dr. McCoy get equally short shrift, appearing in maybe a full minute of screen time only to be utterly useless. I love when McCoy asks, “”How can we be powerful enough to wipe out a planet and still be so helpless?” GOOD QUESTION.
Though I liked Inhat’s turn as Garth, it should probably appear in Wikipedia as a great example of scene-chewing. I quickly grew bored with his predictable tantrums and fits and longed for just a smidgen of nuance and depth. He had more in common with Zoolander than Khan Noonien Singh. During the dinner scene, as he barks at Marta, you can see him trying desperately not to laugh. Low point: the complete lack of emotion during Kirk’s pleas to think of the man he was. That could have been a great scene. It wasn’t.
I was very much disturbed by Garth’s murder of Marta, which to me crossed a line from “Oh look, he’s a crazy maniac” to “Oh my god why am I watching this.” But more disturbing was the implication at the end that the “cure” of the Federation is basically a lobotomy. Garth wakes up and doesn’t seem to know who or where he is. He’s docile and complacent, empty. What the hell kind of cure is that? I’m reminded of Harvey–sometimes the cure is worse than the disease.
We get a few things that never show up in Star Trek ever again: the countersign password idea (which is damn cool, cheap to implement, and fun to play, yet disappears forever) and the magical cure for crazy (you’d think it’d be part of the commodore daily regimen by now). We also get a dozen things we’ve seen a million times before: reused props (the chair, the outfits), more torture porn, the lesson not to have heroes, completely inexplicable plot turns, shallow references to both Shakespeare and the the Bible, and lingering open questions. (How is it that Garth can pull off a nerve pinch when he appears as Spock? Is Marta actually sincere about Kirk, the way that he thinks she is, or is it all a ploy set up by Garth? Why does Garth have any followers at all after he kills his right-hand woman?)
But like so many of the episodes that have disappointed, its mostly just boring. Half the episode is filler dance scenes, fight scenes, and needless emoting. The rest indulges in more torture–seriously, guys, what’s with the torture obsession??–and empty, uninspired rhapsodies about the ideals of the Federation. Sometimes it edges on the interesting, with Garth’s talk about rising above weakness and becoming a more perfect kind of man–but it’s been done better. (See: “Space Seed.”)
In fact, skip this, and just go see “Space Seed.”
Torie’s Rating: Warp 2 (on a scale of 1-6)
Eugene Myers: It was interesting to watch this again, because all I remembered of it was the name Garth. (You’d think Batgirl as an Orion dancer would have been unforgettable!) I may have only seen the episode once before, and it obviously didn’t leave much of an impression. It’s a fascinating premise and much of the dialogue sparkles, but like the inmates of Elba II, something’s a bit off.
First of all, I was impressed early on by a couple of things. When Marta began shouting about Garth replacing the Governor, I thought for sure they were setting up an obvious plot twist that would take the whole episode to develop. I was pleasantly surprised when moments later they find the Governor in the cell and Garth shows himself, without drawing it out. I was also impressed with Kirk’s chess code, which is both consistent with the character and shows incredible foresight. And yet, if they expected the prison to be so dangerous, why beam down your two senior officers with zero security? (Granted, red shirts wouldn’t have been much help.) And why have them deliver the medicine instead of Doctor McCoy? He’s the one who ends up administering it anyway.
Naturally, it’s much easier to mess with just Kirk and Spock, and the whole password thing is an excuse to have Garth try to trick each of them in various ways to get the information out of them. It’s a flimsy plot, but if you just accept it–as you must accept that Garth can change his appearance at will–it’s a mostly enjoyable story that still manages to be tedious at times. I loved the split screen effects and the Garth’s transformations, and his outfit and performance are wonderfully outlandish. (Mismatched silver and gold boots! Punky Brewster would be proud.) The bizarre dinner scene reminded me a little of the Mad Hatter’s tea party, and the episode follows a Carroll-esque sort of logic where Garth’s insanity clearly makes perfect sense to him. No wonder Spock’s criticism of the self-proclaimed Lord’s illogical behavior drives him into a rage. Their debate and the Vulcan’s generally snarky attitude and wry humor throughout are some of the most entertaining aspects of the episode. I also liked Garth’s use of “Fascinating,” just after suggesting he had to “establish a rapport” with Spock. Though I was just as confused as Kirk as to why Spock had such a hard time picking between him and Garth-as-Kirk, their exchange at the end of the episode was humorous and nearly plausible.
I’m sure no one was shocked to learn that Garth was a starship captain before he lost his mind. Those guys must have the highest rate of mental breakdowns in the Federation. The depiction of madness and the cure is somewhat simplistic (how can medicine reverse brain damage, exactly?), and the idea of medicating the mentally ill was still a newish concept at the time, though institutionalizing them was unfortunately the standard method of keeping them out of the way. It’s an intriguing concept in conjunction–or more likely contradiction–with “Dagger of the Mind,” where they established that criminals are “rehabilitated” through mind wipes. Both approaches seem at odds with Gene Roddenberry’s vision, and shows some of the cracks in Paradise that are often explored on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, which also highlighted the challenges of dealing with shapeshifters. On the other hand, it was nice to see an Andorian and a Tellarite getting along, sort of. Peace through shared insanity?
Finally, I liked the way Spock ultimately identified his captain, through Kirk’s concern for Enterprise and its crew, and it was touching how Kirk and Spock made a point of addressing Captain Garth by his rank at the end. I sort of wish that Garth’s true image had been revealed as scarred and misshapen, masked by his extraordinary abilities much as the Talosians do for Vina in “The Menagerie, Part II.”
Was I the only one who kept wondering if Garth was a fan of He-Man, since he kept talking about how he wanted to be the master of the universe? It made me laugh every single time.
Eugene’s Rating: Warp 3
Best Line: GARTH: You wrote that?
MARTA: Yesterday, as a matter of fact.
GARTH: It was written by an Earth man named Shakespeare a long time ago!
MARTA: Which does not alter the fact that I wrote it again yesterday!
Syndication Edits: None
Trivia: The line at the end about Spock getting hit on the head refers to a previous draft of the episode, in which Garth essentially one-shotted the Vulcan. Nimoy protested vehemently, saying his character had never appeared that weak, and refused to do it. The line stayed, hence the confusion.
Nimoy had numerous issues with this episode. He wrote a memo to the producers complaining of the recycled concept (and props!) from “Dagger of the Mind,” but was mostly upset with the extent to which the script–especially his own character–were dumbed down in order to include more man-wrestling sequences. He felt Spock should have been able to figure out who the real Kirk was, probably through a series of logical questions, rather than sheer luck.
If you can believe it, that original draft was more violent and even stupider than the one they went with. In it, Garth of Titan throws his fellow inmates out of the protective done and watches as they slowly suffocate. He also creates a simulated hell out of a cage to torture Dr. Cory in, and the inmates displayed more obvious symptoms of mental illness.
The first poem that Marta recites is “Sonnet #18” by our favorite poet to flog in this series, Shakespeare. The second is “In Midnights of November” by A.E. Housman.
Elba, of course, refers to the island where Napoleon was exiled to for about a year after his forced abdication. Off Italy, it was decidedly not poisonous and is in fact pretty gorgeous. Way better than St. Helena, anyway.
This episode was skipped in all UK runs of the series until 1994 because of its violent, sadistic content.
Other notes: Steve Ihnat, who played Garth, appeared in just about every television show of the decade. He appeared in The Chase and In Like Flint (with Yvonne Craig, who played Marta).
Craig herself was a former ballerina (hence the obligatory dancing scene) and perhaps most famous as Batgirl. She briefly dated Elvis Presley. She had been considered for the role of Vina in “The Cage” because of her dancing skills.
Keye Luke, here as Governor Cory, appeared in The Good Earth and had a recurring spot on Kung Fu as Master Po, Caine’s teacher. In the TNG era he was considered for the part of Dr. Noonien Soong, Data’s creator, but in the end they decided that Brent Spiner could pull off the triple(!) role of Soong, Data, and Data’s evil twin Lore.
Previous episode: Season 3, Episode 13 – “Elaan of Troyius.”
Next episode: Season 3, Episode 15 – “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield.” US residents can watch it for free at the CBS website.
Man, this was a boring episode. Clearly it takes place close to the speed of light given the amount of distortion to the flow of time while watching it. I had to resist the temptation – constantly – through the screening to stop and eject the disc.
The writers haven’t a clue as to how varied mental illness is and how it works. It does not make you stupid if you weren’t already stupid. I mean as a plan why not Dr Coy long enough to finagle a visit to the Enterprise then with your presto-chango out-of-focus ‘learned’ cellular trick take over? Yeah it has a low order of probability of working but its better then revealing your best trick to your enemy right away.
Apparently the asylum forcefield makes you dumb, that would explain why Kirk and Spock, particularly Spock act so stupid. I mean right after Spock shows that he can nerve pinch with both hands at the same time he gets rather stupid. He does take the phaser from his guards, but he leaves them the security clicker.
The whole climax was devoid of tension like a week old potato chip left in the rain. I mean really, it’s about Spock can’t decide which is the real Kirk and Spock has a phase? On stun? Shoot’em both and let Dr. McCoy sort them out. Bang Bang — sorry Zap Zap and the problem is no problem.
Sorry Eugene I did not find the dialogue sparkling. It was dull dull dull.
And Garth also invents explosives in his spare time? Well, I guess everyone needs a hobby. (Side note I used to have a brother-in-law named Garth but he was never fannish enough to go around insisting everyone call him Lord Garth. He was a naval officer too.)
Oh and sure other inmates displayed mental illness — clearly they were all suffering from Traumatic Muteism.
As far as I’m concerned, this is another failed attempt by Freiberger to remake an episode. Next week we get his only successful attempt, but only because the original was so bad. Anyway, this is really just Dagger of the Mind all over again, but worse.
The depictions of mental illness are fairly standard for the time. Garth has a Caligula/Nero thing mixed with a Napoleon complex going and Marta is a sex kitten who flips between childlike innocence and murderous bloodlust. I bet you could find plenty of very similar examples in 60s entertainment.
As for the resolution, seriously, why doesn’t Spock just shoot them both? It’s the logical thing to do. I’m guessing there was a line that got lost about the phaser having only one charge or something.
I’m with Torie this time: Warp 2. It’s almost a middling episode, but the flaws start to stack up. Its major redeeming feature is that it’s the closest Kirk ever got to actually bedding a green chick.
The password is a neat idea, but was introduced too late for it to be used with any consistency. Unfortunately, that just makes it stick out all the more.
I don’t think that the premise belies Rodenberry’s vision. The implication that only a handful of people in the Federation can’t be easily treated is a rather optimistic one. (I’ll note that the prop reuse gives the amusing implication that the Federation Department of the Criminally Insane has more consistent branding than Starfleet.)
The only fun bit in this episode is watching the green makeup coming off on Kirk’s hands as he wrestles with Marta.
Well, okay, watching Yvonne Craig is fun, full stop. Except when she blows up. She’s pretty much the only thing I remember with any fondness from this episode — in much the same way that she’s the only thing I can remember from episodes of Batman in which Batgirl was featured.
The chess password idea joins the rubindium crystals from ‘Patterns of Force’ as another great transporter security/safety protocol that vanished after a single use.
And I agree with the best line offering, above; that was clever.
Otherwise, I don’t think there’s much to say at all. This episode was utter rubbish, from start to finish.
I’m beginning to reconsider my Warp 3. What was I thinking? Was it because I fell asleep while watching this, a little? I thought a lot of it was fun, in a truly absurd way, and there was some underlying pathos that I appreciated. I’ll just plead temporary insanity.
@2 DemetriosX
I’m guessing there was a line that got lost about the phaser having only one charge or something.
Uh, good point. What about setting it to stun on wide-beam dispersal? That seems to work when convenient.
I also wish that they hadn’t gone for the “criminally insane” trope so wholeheartedly, even if that term and concept were more commonplace in the ’60s. (Isn’t that the whole idea of Batman — everybody who obviously needs to be locked up for good and/or just executed already gets shipped to Arkham Asylum, so they can break out and endlessly recycle the two or three plots that keep the franchise running for seventy years?) On that note, I think it makes more sense for a television “insane villain” to sacrifice his gangster moll heartlessly and pointlessly — he’s nuts.
I don’t understand her loyalties right from the beginning, though — I think she really is just confused. She showed signs of maybe actually being somewhat mentally unstable when she had the obvious extreme reaction after outing Dr. Cory as not really Dr. Cory — though not the sort of thing that someone should get locked up for, natch. But in the beginning, why *does* she tell Kirk & Spock that Garth is faking Cory? Is it genuine concern, a sign of her insanity? Is it part of Garth’s megalomaniacal plan, for Unspecified Reasons?
I’d love to hear what Rodenberry had to say about this episode. Also, personally, I definitely think 3 is generous. This would’ve made more sense as part of the campy Adam West Batman than as Star Trek, even one of the dregs of the franchise.
I’m not trying to defend this episode but I do want to say that these days I can accept the other inmates not having their full insanities exposed and that they still seemed out of sorts with what we’ve seen of their races while being docile.
A friend of mine worked in a halfway-house a few years back. In this case, halfway was a misnomer since the residents were not on track to be released to society. The place (in my opinion) was just a hiding place for the unfortunate chosen when the Great State of Misery decided to cut costs by “releasing” some people from the institutions. I never saw the place or the residents. As a male I could never be allowed near the place. My friend, without naming names or giving identifiable details, told me a little about the residents. One seemed to be normal. She seemed like the average grandmother type – until she saw a man. If she saw a man she’d pull off her clothes then try to mount him. Another resident had been abused most of her life and while she could seem at times to be normal, any little thing could trigger memories of the abuse and she’d go into a rage.
Bringing this back to this episode, I can accept that we just didn’t see the ‘problem’ behaviors triggered in those other patients.
This episode, more so than Dagger of the Mind, makes me think of the movie “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” but that is in no way trying to suggest the episode is anything better than bad. The security phrase is a nice touch but it is so out of place here. Garth’s history as a Starfleet Captain suggests that he’d have expected security measures to be in place. But then, Garth expected to be taken as Kirk so the idea that a ‘no exceptions’ policy was being used could have been unexpected – they did not know before hand that he had become a shape-shifter. Like Nicholson’s character, Garth expected his knowledge and his ability to be ‘normal’ to make it easy for him to get out.
By the way. Since I’ve mentioned “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” I’d like to mention that that movie reminds me of the H.G. Wells story “In the Country of the Blind, the One-eyed Man is King.” I wonder if this episode could be reworked as a short story along the lines of the Wells story. Maybe told from Garth’s point of view. Then again, would it be worth the effort?
Steve Inhat really was a talented guy. The few lines he’s given that have any dignity he issues with dignity.
I’ve always liked that scene where Marta is cavorting around and he’s in the background cracking up, until his role calls for him to explode in irritation. It doesn’t seem particularly out of character for a schizo genius madman, and it reminds me a bit of the final scene in Dr. Strangelove where the actor who plays the Russian ambassador can’t help but crack up as Peter Sellers takes the script to new and towering levels of absurdity.
If Garth was fleet captain at Aaxanar and Kirk participated in the Aaxanar Peace Mission as a “new-fledged cadet” and indeed even was decorated with the Palm Cluster for his participation, shouldn’t these two fellows know each other?
It was established in “This Side of Paradise” that assaulting a fellow officer was a court martial offense. Maybe that was why Spock was reluctant to phaser both men as logic would dictate. :-)
@5 Eugene Myers – Can you remember that last episode of television you saw from beginning to end without falling asleep?
@10 JohnSteed7
Sure. The “Slapsgiving 2” episode of How I Met Your Mother, last night. So there!
Not very impressive. Those episodes are usually less than 20 minutes long!
@ 1 bobsandiego
Agreed on all points.
@ 2 DemetriosX
I said exactly that to my TV: “JUST SHOOT THEM BOTH!”
@ 3 ChurchHatesTucker
It’s an optimistic vision, I guess, but if you’re mentally unbalanced because of abuse or trauma, what kind of cure are they giving you? It just doesn’t make sense to me. I believe that treatments can come a long way, but they have to work a lot harder to convince me of cures.
@ 4 NomadUK
That drove me NUTS. It gets all over his hands and even his face.
@ 5 Eugene
I don’t know, what WERE you thinking? I almost gave it a 1.
@ 6 DeepThought
I can see her as being “somewhat mentally unstable” but they say that the people here are incorrigible psychopaths. I don’t see that.
@ 7 Ludon
My issue with the mental illness thing was that it was used as this broad, all-encompassing plot tool. I mean, what kind of mental illness are they considering curable? Are we talking depression, OCD, PTSD? Are we talking autism and psychosis? It’s true that we incarcerate a lot of mentally ill people in this country, people who need treatment–but violent crime is complicated and the mentally ill are more likely to be victims than perpetrators. More importantly, crime tends to be a symptom of poverty, and since the Federation claims to have done away with poverty I imagine the violent crime rate is fairly low even if there were no “cure.” Anyway it’s just such a loaded, complicated subject that for them to trot lobotomies for all mental illness (whatever that even means) strikes me not only as pure fantasy, but dangerously naive. Just don’t go there.
I love One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, by the way. I should re-read it.
@ 8 Lemnoc
Well maybe the first peace mission had to wait for 2/3 of the senate to ratify the treaty. :D
@ 10 JohnSteed7
Give the guy a break! He’s planning a wedding AND his first book, in addition to these (remarkably time-consuming) reviews. That makes me sleepy just thinking about it…
@Torie #13
Regarding crime being usually a result of poverty — this is true, but it suggests that under the Federation, the most common crimes would be crimes of passion. That’s the sort of thing that’s more likely to be violent than property-driven crimes like burglaries.
More generally, I just realized something — one long-standing cliche of the Insane Asylum in television is that there’s always the guy who thinks he’s Napoleon.
In this episode he pretty much is, right down to the Elba thing. Good job with the subtlety there guys.
@DeepThought #14
As I believe we shall see in the next Re-Watch, there is absolutely nothing subtle about Season 3’s morality plays.
It’s interesting that this episode corresponds with the beginning of the deinstitutionalization movement in the US.
I worked in some of the remaining institutions in the nineties, and there were still a handful of people that would have fit in on Elba.
I’m eager for next week, since it’s the very first episode of Trek that I ever saw. (Imagine if it was a good one!)
@ 13 Torie
I’m in agreement with you on this issue. I was just pointing out that having those other characters seem to be normal and even bored was not inaccurate.
And your comment to #3 ChurchHatesTucker has led me to think even more about “In the Country of the Blind…” The debate about what is the illness/problem, what is the cause and what is the cure in Country works fine with Cuckoo’s Nest and, to me at least, it may work with this discussion.
@ 16 ChurchHatesTucker
i was thinking about that too–that maybe the chair was supposed to evoke the kind of shock treatment they had finally begun to do away with.
@ 17 Ludon
Oh I wasn’t trying to argue, just trying to agree in my own way. :) At first I thought the other inmates were catatonic, as if they had lost touch with reality, but then they started following orders, which makes me wonder what their illnesses were…
I’ll have to read that Wells story! I think the cure/treatment line is a problematic one, and shock treatment (now that I’m thinking about it) seems a good example of the difficulties. No one understood what exactly it did except that it made people docile, so hey, that’s like a cure, right? Garth seemed to have been treated for his traumatic experience, not cured of some kind of genetic disorder. How do you heal psychic wounds?
Interestingly, DS9 dealt with this subject a lot in Bashir’s interactions with the four genetically engineered people. At first he attempts to rehabilitate them, but in the end he realizes that “fixing” them would be destroying who they are. I wonder if the Garth at the end of the episode really bears any relationship to the great man he once was, or if the lobotomy cure just wiped everything away, personality and grandeur included.
Torie, you speak as though ECT (electroconvulsive therapy) isn’t used anymore. Sadly, there are still places using this…therapy, and a thriving movement of people trying to bring about its end.
I’m much impressed by the nuanced and knowledgeable discussion about mental illness here. I’d sort of dreaded this episode because I’d dreaded the comments – I’ve been very pleasantly surprised. I speak here as someone who’s spent time “committed” (or “sectioned” for our UK friends) for various mental illnesses, and who lives daily with a fairly severe depression.
@ 19 CatieCat
You’re right, of course–ECT is still around, even if it’s not as widespread as it was in the ’50s. Shudder. I’m sorry to hear about your own experiences.
Part of me is grateful this episode had such a superficial, nonsensical approach to the whole subject. I’m worried about how they would have tried to tackle it if it had been an inkling more serious.
It wasn’t just me, right? They basically lobotomize him in the end? Was I the only one deeply troubled by that resolution?
I haven’t actually watched the episode for a few years, but I seem to recall as a kid noticing how docile Garth became after the treatment. I suppose I assumed that it was a temporary side-effect, and that his memory would eventually return, because the Federation were the good guys, and wouldn’t do such nasty things to someone — especially not one of their own citizens, and Starfleet to boot!
Of course, I used to harbour similar feelings about the West in general, and I was pretty clearly wrong on that score, too.
It’s interesting to note that this episode was produced very close to the median between the publication of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” and the debut of the film. I’ve no idea how much that figured into the public consciousness.
@19 CatieCat
ECT is still used largely (I hope) because it is actually useful in a small number of cases. Back in the day it was one of the few tools that worked at all, and thus inevitably used inappropriately; a classic ‘every problem is a nail’ example. Of course, misuse is still a problem but agreeing on what is proper use is controversial.
@20 Torie and 21 NomadUK
My impression was that they were trying to convey that the ‘real’ Garth was quite calm, and that his behavior in most of the episode was an example of ‘that was the madness speaking.’
Also note that we cannot blame JJ Abrams for short Orion Women, they were first displayed here.
@torie #20 —
Yeah, I read that as lobotomy. I suppose they didn’t really get into it enough to explain it — maybe they *merely* erased his memory of the horrific events since his visit to the asylum! If able was ‘e ere ‘e saw Elba, pushing the reset button couldn’t POSSIBLY raise any emotional or moral flags, could it?
Reminds me of a similar “Well why don’t we just wipe his memories!” incident involving Whorf’s brother in DS9 . . .
@23 BobSanDiego
The auburn/reddish hair is probably her claim to greater, later fame.
Unfortunately, despite attempts to ban it, electroshock is still commonly used, often on low-income women and children. In other places inmates are dosed (often overdosed) with nerve-deadening medication instead. What the people running such places want is less a matter of sanity than of docility and compliance, like you saw at the end of this episode. And there are a lot of insurance scams around mental health “treatment”. It’s not all like that, but it’s such a crapshoot what you’re getting that it’s no wonder people who really need help often don’t seek it.
A bit of trivia. Keye Luke and George Takei both did voiceover work for _Godzilla Raids Again_ (1959). I believe they also did some other work together before Star Trek.
@27 Stickmaker
I didn’t even know Takei did voice work for that movie! Although I may not have actually seen that one before… His voice is pretty distinctive, so I’m sure I would have noticed if I had.