TOS - Metamorphosis

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

So James Cromwell was playing a 33 year old Cochrane in First Contact...

[ChiggyvonRichthofen]

Kind of a weird episode where you can make a decent case for it being either pretty poor or really good depending on which elements you emphasize. I fall somewhere in the middle. Some nice ideas, a good script, but fairly weak in both the set-up and resolution of Cochrane's story. In some ways this feels like a very progressive episode, in others it seems old-fashioned, which makes a decent amount of sense since the episode is dealing with a man from another era.

It's interesting to me to compare Gene Coon's scripts with Roddenberry's. Coon, who wrote this episode, was really the one who was writing the sort of anti-war, anti-racism episodes that Roddenberry would later take credit for. This isn't his best episode, but the guy still deserves more credit imo.

I do much prefer this version of Cochrane to what we see in First Contact, and I honestly don't see much similarity.

[CrypticMirror]

What's happened to Lucy in the sky with Diamonds?

That got the video kicked. This is a temporary solution until I think of something permanent.

star trekking across the universe

Yesssssssss!
For those that haven't heard this wonderful gem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCARADb9asE

[drewder]

Kind of a weird episode where you can make a decent case for it being either pretty poor or really good depending on which elements you emphasize. I fall somewhere in the middle. Some nice ideas, a good script, but fairly weak in both the set-up and resolution of Cochrane's story. In some ways this feels like a very progressive episode, in others it seems old-fashioned, which makes a decent amount of sense since the episode is dealing with a man from another era.

It's interesting to me to compare Gene Coon's scripts with Roddenberry's. Coon, who wrote this episode, was really the one who was writing the sort of anti-war, anti-racism episodes that Roddenberry would later take credit for. This isn't his best episode, but the guy still deserves more credit imo.

I do much prefer this version of Cochrane to what we see in First Contact, and I honestly don't see much similarity.

I really think Roddenberry's grand enlightened vision for the future boils down to him wanting to have as many choices as possible to put his dick in.

[chaos42]

i won't deny roddenberry was probably a bit less then what he tried to create with his public appearance. then again not all this info was widely known because the internet wasn't what it is today. Still i do agree that after finding out some of the things he did ive a very different view of star trek, ive come to accept roddenberry isn't so much the creator of all the trek i love but the guy who came up with an idea and it grew and evolved from him. Once an idea is created it doesn't just belong to one person.

also i think the biggest issue with roddenberry was his inability to accept outside points of view like the box and his no money thing, or that humans are perfect, when people tell me they want something perfect i point out its impossible and that perfection is an aspration not a destination.

[drewder]

Did anyone else look at the thumbnail for this video and think this was an animated episode?

[Darth Wedgius]

I remembered Cochrane probably mostly because I read the Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens novel Federation, which brings them back for a bit, and gives Cochrane a backstory. But the novel doesn't jibe with the First Contact.

By coincidence, I'd been thinking about this episode and the whole male/female thing being universal. I used to think it was a bit of a stretch to expect that on most other worlds, but I'd been reconsidering. Of course male and female don't cover everything, but on earth male and female seem to have developed in many different ways. The X/Y thing for most mammals (I'm sure that's The Bad Touch song was talking about), the Z/W system found in birds and some reptiles, the XX/X0 system, temperature-dependent systems, etc., in a myriad of ways. Nemo's dad should have become his mother after the unfortunate predatory encounter early in the movie.

Not that the bigger critter is always the male (e.g., hyenas) or the one with the egg carries the young the whole time (seahorses), and there are species with only females (e.g., New Mexico whiptail). Obviously a species with only males isn't going to work, and not just because they'd be playing video games the whole time.

But it does seem to happen enough that there's probably a utility making it not unlikely elsewhere.

[Petike]

Is it just me, or have the TOS reviews started omitting the Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds cover intro they had until now, and replaced it with the generic opening sequence ? If it's about legal issues, I'm fine with that, but part of what gets me pumped for each Trek review, TOS included, is the opening montage. And TOS has one of the most fun montages of the whole bunch, not the least because of Shatner's cover.

Concerning the episode itself, while it might be a bit emblematic of 60s attitudes to men/women in TOS - Cochrane's lonely, he ends up with Henford combined with the supposedly feminine creature and they stay on the planet, etc. - I'd go a bit easier on Cochrane for his flustered complaint of "it/she used me, how vile", etc. Regardless of whether a male, female or genderless being does it, thinking of a friend you are close to or a romantic partner in very possessive terms is not healthy. It's pathological, mentally and emotionally. Especially if your whole modus operandi is kidnapping a person (man or woman), using your powers to keep them alive and ensure you're the only thing keeping them alive long-term, and then guilt-trip them whenever they're not "providing you with love". You can't really have love between two beings if one feels like a doormat, dominated and emotionally blackmailed by the other individual, even barred from being free to leave a particular place and be their own person. Real love, even a hypothetical one between beings uneven in their power, should always be based on respecting the lives of both individuals. That they have a life, a right to make their own decisions, etc., outside of focusing solely on someone they're a couple with. Anyone who treats you, verbally, physically and otherwise as "you are mine, the only other person in your life should be me" is a manipulator and narcissist (with very little self-esteem of their own, actually), and that's regardless of gender, sexual orientation or (since this is Trek) even species. So, I wouldn't be that harsh on Cochrane for losing his nerve, even if he was perhaps a bit unfair to the creature. Regardless of its gender, I don't think it wanted to actively harm him, but at the same time, I don't think it realised it's hurting him, even just emotionally, by treating him like a hamster in a cage. Or not even as a pet to dote over, but as outright property.

Some years back, Chuck rightfully decried that early ENT episode where some alien lady tricks Tucker into basically becoming pregnant, and the episode then treats it as if it was funny and not a violation of Tucker as a person. He wasn't exactly sexually abused or brutalised, but getting anyone pregnant against their will, be it a woman or in this case, fictionally, a man, and then shaming them for not putting up with it, would be detrimental and traumatic to anyone. At least emotionally. So, Cochrane being all alone for many, many decades, and though made younger and long-lived, I wouldn't fault him if he felt the cloud creature (Companion) was just using him, and blackmailing him by keeping him alive, just so she/it could argue Cochrane needs to with her and cannot exist without her.

My own beef with the episode, aside from the average nature of it, is that there's literally no reason for Cochrane and the energy-creature-turned-Henford lady to stay living on that dismal, wasteland of a planet. They should just board the shuttle, have the Enterprise take them to some much more habitable garden world, and they can live there, if they want to. After a century and a half of living on a purple-orange desert planet with barely any other life, I know I'd love to see a lush world if I was in Cochrane's shoes. Might just be me, though...

Another quibble is that Henford, though a guest character, is killed off just so she could become a physical vessel for the Companion creature and basically give Cochrane a more typical girlfriend/spouse/whatever to be with. Henford might have been a bit waspish, but I found her a likable diplomat, so seeing her get killed off just so that the creature could continue to form an unhealthy couple with the stranded Cochrane was... suspect in not only some feminist sense, but also in the storytelling sense. Let me tell you, I'm very far from a fire-breathing feminist (though an f. nonetheless), but the whole plot development and conclusion just didn't sit right with me and felt really iffy.

If I was supervising Coon on his script in the 60s, I'd tell him to put some interesting twist on it. For example, have the Companion get jealous at Henford, because Cochrane and Henford find a connection as her health worsens. Henford bemoans that she loves being a diplomat and resolving conflicts, but was too work-focused and never bothered with deeper relationships. Cochrane comforts her over it (just as a kind friend, he's attracted to her, but not smitten), they eventually find a deeper connection, there's some spark between them and they have sympathy for each other, you know the drill. The creature is annoyed by this and threatens Cochrane, but later rethinks things and realises the greatest gesture of love it could do is to help Henford and let her and Cochrane go free and decide their own fate. So she heals her, at the price of its own destruction, and does it out of love and sympathy for Cochrane, Henford, and their own happiness. The two decide to leave the planet with the Enterprise crew and we get an open ending. You still get a romantic subplot, without it coming across as vaguely creepy and abusive, or dismissive of Henford's choice to focus on work.

What's happened to Lucy in the sky with Diamonds?

That got the video kicked. This is a temporary solution until I think of something permanent.

Ah, that explains it. Sorry I overlooked your post.

[SFDebris]

Is it just me, or have the TOS reviews started omitting the Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds cover intro they had until now, and replaced it with the generic opening sequence ? If it's about legal issues, I'm fine with that, but part of what gets me pumped for each Trek review, TOS included, is the opening montage. And TOS has one of the most fun montages of the whole bunch, not the least because of Shatner's cover.

I'll likely see about putting the original title version somewhere for historical purposes. Ironically, I can probably get away with posting the title only on Youtube, and the review only on Dailymotion, but not the whole thing on one or the other.

[Beastro]

I think it's more that McCoy might act like a jerk at times, but I think it's not so much closed-mindedness or bigotry so much as he's just really irritable or is easily bewildered by the actions of others. A lot of older people are like that.

It helps to keep in mind that McCoy is the symbolic representation of emotion of the trio.

He's passionate and reacts intensely to situations, Spock is cold logic while Kirk is intuition or something akin to consciousness, able to listen to and bring in both sides opinions while also able to go outside the box at times of both to do what is necessary that the other two struggle with.

I've found it interesting at times to look on TOS Enterprise as an individual person with different aspects of the brain being represented by the primary trio.

also i think the biggest issue with roddenberry was his inability to accept outside points of view like the box and his no money thing, or that humans are perfect, when people tell me they want something perfect i point out its impossible and that perfection is an aspration not a destination.

The no money thing comes from him being a rather greedy sod.

That's the funny thing, he seemed aware of his problems and hated them, which is where TNG had an almost self-loathing streak in it. He seems to have grown to obsesses about perfection later on in his life because he so desperately wanted to overcome his flaws.