Star Trek (TOS): The Empath

[Durandal_1707]

Haven't had time to watch Chuck's review of this one yet, and probably won't until tomorrow, but I'm looking forward to it.

I always remembered this as being one of the better Season 3 episodes, although I haven't seen the episode since the 90s, so who knows if that impression would still hold up.

[TK99]

I completely forgot how this epo. ended.

I thought this epo. ended with the Big Headed aliens admitting they knew they and their race didn't deserve to survive the Nova and I thought Jem did die to heal McCoy giving them their answer that her people were worth saving.

[MikeinNJ]

Hey, my first post.

I always enjoyed clips of this episode, individual scenes and speeches. The problem is that I never much cared for the episode as a whole. I genuinely regard Kirk’s final speech as one of the best in the series but you have to slog through 50+ minutes of just not much happening in order to get there.

The problem is Gem. Not the actress, who is fine. Not the character, which I rather like. It is the fact that Gem and the efforts of the Vians to ‘grow’ Gem as an ethical being is what ultimately drives this episode.

And Gem can’t talk.

In many ways this fact gives the episode unique flavor, charm even. She is sufficiently alien that she cannot communicate with us. But the whole point of the episode is that the Vians are trying to change her and the audience has no idea how the events around her are impacting her, how difficult it is proving to internalize and embrace the concept of personal sacrifice.

Sacrifice is a complex concept – it involves an understanding and belief in empathy, duty, and justice. The audience needs to know what Gem is thinking beyond just what a few soft, gauzy close-ups can tell us. Otherwise the episode devolves into what it is: a cycle repeated about four or five times where the Vians hurt one of our heroes, our heroes are outraged, and then they all nobly attempt to sacrifice themselves so that their fellows might live. And at the end of the day, that’s not compelling television.

As for the suggestion by Linkara:

I think what would have worked better is if they had a subplot with Scotty and company attempting to rescue them and their party undergoes a different sort of test with another empath or the like that reflects other qualities and whatnot that the Vians would want to preserve.

I tend to concur. I admit I would have enjoyed seeing more of Scotty and the rest of the crew in the episode and I definitely would have preferred them to be more proactive. Sure, too much of them might crowd out the character dynamic between the main leads a bit but you’d have to cut out a lot of dead air until you ran into that problem.

[cdrood]

I'm firmly in the hate camp on this one. It somehow makes torture boring. The alien's plan makes no sense. They torture 4 people, kill 2 of them to see if one person will sacrifice herself for complete strangers and that will decide the fate of her entire race? We learn nothing about the other candidate race at all. We don't even know if Gem failed to let the two scientists die, failed to save them, or if it was the other race's representative who did that? Also, what would have been the test if she didn't have magical healing powers?

As to the willingness of the big three to sacrifice for each other, I'd say other episodes and films did it much better. Amok Time is a great example. It's especially poignant when Spock invites McCoy to the very private ceremony. His friendship with Kirk had always been more verbalized. Inviting McCoy shows how their disagreements are closer to bickering siblings than anything else. McCoy seriously being honored at the invitation also shows this.

I think the whole "theater" aspect you mentioned is the key to why I hate it so much. It's just so over the top with the reactions. Does Gem have no concept of even drawing a picture to convey a thought? I get they wouldn't have time to translate written or sign language, but the big arm movements looked more like an old silent movie than how any real person would communicate. It didn't feel alien. It felt like overacting.

It's funny. When you think about it, Babylon 5's "Comes the Inquisitor" came from a very similar idea and explored a lot of the same themes. That was done exceptionally well. With an experienced writer and a production staff that gave a damn, maybe Empath could have been closer to that.

[Durandal_1707]

So, after refreshing my memory by watching the review, my reaction is: These aliens are assholes, aren't they?

Instead of wasting valuable evacuation time waiting for the next schmucks to come by so they can kidnap and torture them to see if Gem is worthy enough to sacrifice herself (because God knows sacrificing one of their own for this test would be crazy talk), why don't they just evac one of the planets, and ask the Federation for help evac'ing the other one? The Federation seemed to think they were capable of doing just this in All Our Yesterdays...

[PapaPalpatine]

The whole "we are deciding which planet's inhabitants to save" always seemed a bit silly to me:

1) What's stopping them from grabbing a handful from this planet and a handful from that planet?

2) The inhabitants of the other planet get no on-screen representation. For all we know, they may have a utopian society or they may be one big planet of assholes. We'll never know because the episode couldn't be bothered with showing us even one of them.

[Darth Wedgius]

For me, the worst part of the episode was Gem's actress's performance. But she had a long and illustrious career on television and was well-respected for her Broadway performances as well. So either it was a sub-par performance for her (understandably, as it had to be a challenging part), or the director mis-directed, or it was the 60s and characters just charactered differently back then, or it was an individual taste kind of thing.

[cdrood]

The whole "we are deciding which planet's inhabitants to save" always seemed a bit silly to me:

1) What's stopping them from grabbing a handful from this planet and a handful from that planet?

2) The inhabitants of the other planet get no on-screen representation. For all we know, they may have a utopian society or they may be one big planet of assholes. We'll never know because the episode couldn't be bothered with showing us even one of them.

My only guess is that it was their representative, and not Gem, who failed to save the two scientists. Of course one must wonder if the people on the other planet even had magic healing powers. That's a big part of this episodes' problem. It all hinges on Gem having these specific abilities. Kirk, Spock, and McCoy are all willing to sacrifice themselves for each other because they are long time friends and colleagues. They've also all chosen a profession where they know laying down their lives for their comrades and even for complete strangers is a real possibility. We have no backstory on Gem or her people, so how do we know how much she actually learned and how does that necessarily translate to everyone of her people?

[cdrood]

Vian #1: This star we happen to be passing by is going nova soon. We can save the intelligent life on one of two planets in the system.

Vian #2: How can we possibly choose who lives and who dies?

Vian #1: We can do an in depth analysis of their current and past socio-political behaviors and determine which has the greater capacity for altruistic behavior and personal sacrifice.

Vian #2: Sounds like A LOT of reading. How about we kidnap one person from one of the planets, kidnap a bunch from an unrelated third party who happen to be in the neighborhood, and see if the first person we kidnapped will save them?

Vian #1: Great! Half day. First drink is on me.

[bigman6969]

Jem in this episode was outrageous. Truly, truly, truly outrageous.