Wanderlust

1.15 — “Shore Leave”

1.15 — “Shore Leave”

Written by Theodore Sturgeon(!)–”Shore Leave” veers away from last week’s ship-to-ship battles with Romulans into broad comedy, complete with silly, comedic music in the vein of Looney Tunes.* 

The story is simple enough–the crew beams down to a supposedly uninhabited planet to check out it’s shore leave potential, only to discover their daydreams coming to life to accost them.  The managers of the planet must have also pumped a lot of stupid gas into the atmosphere.  We have just seen Captain Pike see right through a series of pleasant illusions sent to trap him in “The Menagerie”–and resist them!–yet in this episode Kirk and the crew seem to meet a long string of dangerous impossibilities with a cheerful shrug and a new round of “Alright, gang, let’s split up.”

What galls me about “Shore Leave” is that everyone involved, up to and including the composer of the godawful incidental music, knows (and wants us to know that they know) that the circumstances are silly and the crew’s actions are stupid. Lighten up! It’s a comedy episode. The actors were evidently coached to act broadly and to use big hand gestures, which does not serve this fine ensemble. As a result, this is a worst episode acting-wise for just about everyone, with DeForest Kelley coming off especially badly.  Whereas I feel that commitment to realism is the key to Star Trek, I could not help feeling like my time was being wasted.  

I did appreciate the makeup, camera work, and choreography in Kirk’s long fight scene, the location shooting (I believe this is the first time for this, and the location shots were impressively well integrated with studio work), and the bits of backstory about Kirk’s days in the Academy, where he was apparently frequently taunted by a demented Leprechaun.  I felt offended to discover that Rand had been replaced by a younger, prettier Yeoman, albeit one with the hots for the Doctor instead of the Captain.  This is probably because the first draft of the script was written before Rand was cut from the show–according to IMDB, we never see Yeoman Barrows again, so she does not become a recurring character.

When Spock relates his discovery that the planet is draining the ship of its power, I thought “Oh no, it’s sapping our precious bodily fluids!”

*For the record, I don’t know what’s supposed to be funny about xylophone music and staccato woodwinds.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shore_Leave_(Star_Trek:_The_Original_Series)

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11 responses to “1.15 — “Shore Leave””

  1. Randi Cohen Avatar
    Randi Cohen

    I actually like the actress who plays Yeoman Barrows better… not sure why.  I think whomever was playing Rand just never seemed comfortable in her own skin to me.  On that topic, the Don Juan thing suggests that Barrows has a rape fantasy, which is both surprising to see it get past the censors and also yet another Star Trek insensitivity toward women to heap on the many.  

    I thought it was hilarious that Kirk thinks Spock is the one giving him a massage at the beginning… more because the mental image of Spock massaging anyone is kind of funny, and also funny to think for a second Captain Kirk believes Spock is the one doing it.  Apparently this scene is fodder for much speculation among fans about the true nature of the relationship between the Captain and his first officer…  I also thought it was cute how Spock trapped Kirk into taking the shore leave.

    Is that the same female crewman who was widowed in the last episode?  Strange coincidence of casting.

    “Ruth” does not look 15 years younger than Kirk… was he in love with an older woman at the Academy?  Do we ever hear more about his history with her?

    How do these aliens who are capable of actually reading people’s thoughts somehow not realize that these people do not know they’re on a pleasure planet?  Just one of the many ridiculous plot inconsistencies, but really….

    I do rather like seeing McCoy with the dancing girls and ultimately with the Yeoman.  Her rather aggressive approach to a senior officer almost makes up for the whole Don Juan thing.  

    Was I the only one who noticed the supposedly synthetic dead knight blinking?  That actor must have been super-uncomfortable behind all that make-up!   

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  2. Michael Hanscom Avatar
    Michael Hanscom

    Right off the bat, some great fodder for K/S slashfic — Kirk was obviously surprised and possibly a little disturbed to discover that it was the yeoman working on his back, not Spock.

    Some local sports team seems to have lost their mascot…closely followed by a young girl doing a rather bad British accent. And now, we’re quite clearly into Star Trek’s first obviously and intentionally comedic episode.

    Spock, you sneaky little devil!

    Why look, a couple crewmembers we’ve never seen before! Shouldn’t they be wearing red?

    Okay, Sulu. You’re on an uninhabited planet nowhere near Earth, you happen to come across an old Earth handgun, and your only concern is to try a little target practice? Not at all concerned about its sudden appearance, or curious as to where it came from?

    Another little glimpse into Kirk’s Academy days. In an earlier episode he was described as always being hidden behind a stack of books, here he describes himself as “positively grim”. It’s a pretty far cry from the Kirk we know, though not unbelievably so. It is quite different from the nuTrek Kirk, though.

    Why are so many of the trees and plants splashed or sprayed with red paint? Is that supposed to make them look alien?

    So are bras not part of the regulation women’s outfit? Or maybe they’re all issued strapless bras, just in case a shoulder of their tunic is ripped while on an away mission.

    My biggest problem with this episode is how every time an impossible thing happens, it’s just accepted by everyone. McCoy’s initial reaction to the White Rabbit and Alice is the closest thing to the kind of reaction I’d expect; other than that, everyone seems to be fine with an odd, bemused, “Well, that’s a little weird, but I’ll run with it,” no matter what or who they encounter. This kind of behavior is “speculative fiction” far harder for me to accept than many of the other alien entities and technologies the Enterprise encounters.

    No, that wasn’t a promise, Yeoman — Dr. McCoy was simply remarking the he would also have to be fighting off hordes of Don Juans, if he were to put on a floofy dress and tall hat with a veil.

    Love that line of McCoy’s though: “My dear girl, I’m a doctor. When I ‘peek,’ it’s in the line of duty.”

    Hallucinations? That’s a rather spectacularly dumb line of reasoning, McCoy, as that Yeoman has ditched her uniform and is wearing a dress that doesn’t seem to be an hallucination. Certainly not something I’d use as a basis for standing up to a knight on horseback aiming a jousting lance at my chest.

    So if the planet is capable of creating truly lifelike constructs — already seen in the form of Alice, Finnegan, the Samurai, and (offscreen) Don Juan — why “cheap out” on the knight? He looked almost as artificial as the mannequin Spock was examining on the frozen base in The Naked Time. 😉

    This also marks our first visit to Vasquez Rocks, I think. It’s amazing how many alien planets (in a number of different franchises) look suspiciously like that stretch of desert. (Someday I really should go there, just because.)

    When the yeoman goes back for her tunic, it’s right shoulder has been repaired — but then Don Juan appears again, and apparently his only tactic is to quite literally start tearing the clothes off of her. Which could be read as fairly horrid by any number of interpretations (from general 60s sexual relations to the yeoman’s own ideas of Don Juan, given that these constructs are drawn directly from the minds of the people they appear to).

    I do love the stick-on fluffy showgirl costumes.

    This episode does have one of my all-time favorite Kirk lines: “The more complex the mind, the greater the need for the simplicity of play.”

    All concerns about the general lackadaisical acceptance of Weird Shit Happening aside, the basic concept behind the “amusement park planet” is a neat one, and — as the crew found, with proper planning and a bit of mental discipline — could be all sorts of entertaining. As a whole, the episode is a fun little bit of fluff, but I can’t see reading much more into it than that.

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  3. Kevin Black Avatar
    Kevin Black

    I also noticed that if Ruth hasn’t aged, she was much too old for Kirk 15 years ago (Shatner was 35 years old in 1966, although I believe the character is somewhat older–it’s been 20 years since he saw Kodos). This would be consistent with Kirk dating one of his instructors at the Academy, although you would imagine an Starfleet Instructor would have more to say than to simper moonily in his general direction. Our memories age in our minds though, don’t they? When I think about my high school crushes, I don’t think I’m committing mental pedophilia.

    I didn’t like McCoy with the showgirls because I didn’t believe Dr. McCoy in that scene for one second. All I saw was DeForest Kelley smirking  and having a laugh with the writers/producers.

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  4. Kevin Black Avatar
    Kevin Black

    On another note, we are officially more than halfway through Season One. Episode 15 of 29!

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  5. Michael Hanscom Avatar
    Michael Hanscom

    According to Memory Alpha, Kirk was born 3/22/2233, and Shore Leave takes place in 2267, so he’d be 34 at the time of this episode. Ruth does seem to be far more age-appropriate for Kirk at 34 than at 19. Since this episode is the only time Ruth has ever been mentioned, Memory Alpha doesn’t have any more information on her.

    The Tarsus IV crisis took place in 2246, when Kirk was 13. I think I remember there being some dialogue in The Conscience of the King (edit: This was apparently scripted, but not used in the final episode; I probably am remembering reading it in the Blish adaptation) stating that Kirk was a midshipman during the Tarsus IV crisis, but I think that that’s simply been retconned away.

    Here’s what Memory Alpha has to say: “A line scripted, but cut from the episode established that Kirk was a midshipman, fresh out of the Academy when he was stationed on Tarsus IV and witnessed the massacre. Since it happened twenty years before the events of this episode, this would have indicated that Kirk is somewhat older than what was later established in “The Deadly Years”. (It should be noted, however, that while Academy cadets enter as midshipmen, they graduate as ensigns.)”

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  6. Katharine Bond Avatar
    Katharine Bond

    I actually think that this episode shows that nuTrek’s portrayal of Kirk as a brawler is really well established.

    I strongly suspect that this episode is enhanced with either pot or acid. And, while I agree that McCoy’s initial reaction to the White Rabbit was the most believable reaction of the whole episode, I also don’t think he really reacted in a believable way.

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  7. R. Alex Reutter Avatar
    R. Alex Reutter

    Catching up. Most of my thoughts have already been covered.

    Great job suckering Kirk into going on shore leave.

    Oh, it’s another things are not as they seem episode. If this had been the first such episode, I’d be more impressed, but it’s becoming a little tired at this point.

    Awesome shot of them running to investigate the gun noises. I love the yeoman’s expression as Sulu explains the pistol he found. I also prefer this one to Rand.

    The yeoman wants to meet someone who will attack her?

    “When I peep, it’s in the line of duty” is my new favorite bad Star Trek pickup line. If Shatner tried to deliver that line, he’d sound really creepy, but Kelley almost pulls it off.

    I really, really hate Kirk’s fight sequence. Dull, dull, dull, and there are absolutely no stakes.

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  8. Bill Testerman Avatar
    Bill Testerman

    I seem to be the only one here who likes “Shore Leave” quite much!! I like the playful atmosphere about it, the comedy segments, as well as the shifts back and forth from comedy to drama. Also, I’m a big fan of Alice in Wonderland, so I like the similarities to that in “Shore Leave.”  

    A couple of people here mentioned that the reactions of the Enterprise members to strange events and characters were too lackadaisical after McCoy’s encounter with the White Rabbit and Alice. However, it was established early on that the planet was very weird, so it seems natural to me that they soon stopped acting amazed when the next weird thing happened.

    It’s very unfortunate that Emily Banks never returned as Yeoman Barrows since she was a delight, and I’ve never read why that was. Someone commented here that Barrows was a replacement for Yeoman Rand in this episode, but I had always thought that there were several yeomen on the Enterprise, assigned to various officers. Rand was Kirk’s yeoman, and presumably Barrows worked in the medical section. Maybe I’m wrong. And no, Emily Banks did not play the widowed crew member in “Balance of Terror” – that was Barbara Baldavin. However, Baldavin in “Shore Leave” is shown with a new boyfriend, although her character is sometimes referred to as “Martine” and sometimes as “Teller.” The Nitpickers’ Guide for Classic Trekkers by Phil Farrand points out that she is shown collapsing near a tree, then never turns up again, even at the end when everyone is together!!

    I read somewhere, maybe in Shatner’s Star Trek Memories, that Theodore Sturgeon’s original script for “Shore Leave” included some scenes that were very surreal and psychedelic, but that NBC had those deleted because they feared that such scenes would confuse a lot of the audience. I think it would have been better if those scenes had been left in, to make the happenings less concrete and even weirder.

    I do think that “Shore Leave” has some weaknesses, such as the lack of speculation by the crew about what is happening until near the end of the episode. At one point Spock almost tells his theory, but holds off, and I guess they didn’t want to spoil the big revelation at the end. I also think that the romance scene with Kirk and Ruth went on too long. And the scenes of Yeoman Barrows unable to control her emotions until Kirk chastises her were sexist.

    Yet overall I find “Shore Leave” to be lots of fun. By the way, there was a sequel to this entitled “Once Upon a Planet” in the animated Star Trek series in the early 70s. As I recall after several years the sequel was pretty good, although I need to buy that DVD set and see it again.

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  9. Kevin Black Avatar
    Kevin Black

    I’m finishing up my review of These Are the Voyages: TOS Season One by Marc Cushman–he thinks “Shore Leave” is one of the best of the series. While I disagree with him, he’s definitely no dummy.

    It’s funny, as I read the Memory Alpha and Wikipedia entries for each episode as we go that you fun across a lot of comments “So and so says this is his favorite episode of Trek.” And a lot of them are not the episodes you would think of. E.g., who knew that Jason Alexander had a favorite episode of Trek, and that it would be 2.2 — “Who Dreams of Adonais?” There’s a lot in these episodes, and “Shore Leave” is a good example of what misfires for one person may be the standout thing that really reaches another.

    Still don’t care if I never see Finnegan again.

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  10. Allen Knutson Avatar
    Allen Knutson

    I have no idea why I was looking up Finnegan, but if you want to see his beefcake model pictures, they’re at http://srfblacklist.yuku.com/topic/455#.UpWoCRJlEVJ

    On what he did afterward:

    “Elvis Presley reportedly visited the Self-Realization Fellowship in the late 1960s, commenting to Brother Paramananda, a monk who had left an acting career to devote his life to the fellowship, “Man, you made the right choice. People don’t know my life or that I sometimes cry myself to sleep because I don’t know God.”

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  11. R. Alex Reutter Avatar
    R. Alex Reutter

    Now I definitely don’t need to see Finnegan again. Those images are forever burned into my subconscious.

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