1.24 — “This Side of Paradise”
Plot: The Enterprise travels to Omnicron Ceti III on a rescue mission, expecting to find a crew of agricultural colonists dead from a fatal bombardment of Berthold rays. Instead, the settlers appear to be in perfect health–too perfect. What is the planet’s secret, and why will it cause Mr. Spock to fall in love?
Thoughts: A fine teleplay by D.C. Fontana produces a fine episode, most memorable for its focus on Spock and his transformation into a laid back, lovelorn hedonist, but also having great character beats for Kirk, as he deals with loneliness, isolation and exclusion–the rewards of duty and command. It was striking to watch him deliver his Captain’s logs on camera, for the first time I can remember, underscoring his utter despair.
Leonard Nimoy’s acting is particularly fine while Spock is under the influence of the spores. Undergoing mind control on camera can be a tricky business–as can unfortunately be seen in the performance of DeForest Kelley, who turns Bones into a pseudo-Southern caricature. Nimoy makes it seem very natural, and gives the impression that he understands exactly what he has gained, and even how the situation must appear to Kirk, who has not been infected. Although Spock doesn’t care anymore about his duties, he does care about his friend, who doesn’t yet understand how their lives have changed.
The episode turns tragic, of course, as Spock comes out of the influence and both he and Leila face what they have lost. I was surprised to hear Spock confess that his nature places him in Purgatory. I always thought there was an aspect of choice to his emotionless, logical path. If the spores brought him some measure of enlightenment (like Timothy Leary’s experiments with LSD), surely he can carry forward the lessons and learn to better integrate his emotions? Does Spock’s biology limit his emotional capacity? Is that why he alone experiences pain when first infected by the spores?
I’ve been reading Marc Cushman’s episode-by-episode account of Season One (in These Are the Voyages, which I will review once I get through all 541 pages), and Cushman has a different take on Spock. To him, Spock is a proud man who has all along experienced emotions all the more keenly than the rest of the crew, but nevertheless suppresses them out of a sense of duty to the ship and perhaps to his heritage. Once the influence of the spores subsides, this sense of duty (and pride) returns. That may be the more correct view. At any rate, “This Side of Paradise” is the most fascinating Spock episode since “The Naked Time”–enough to make it a minor classic.
The episode also takes on charged subjects. The effect of the spores references public anxiety about drug use–it could be an extreme parody of the case against marijuana, although in the 60s they were thinking more about psychedelics. Meanwhile, the end dialogue about the rightness of walking away from Eden is quite a direct slam on religion (the other willful walk-out of Heaven being Satan’s rebellion in Paradise Lost). If these subjects were addressed straightforwardly, the 1960s censors certainly would not have allowed the episode to air. Even today, it is refreshing to examine these topics through a science fiction lens.
What I didn’t care for was the episode’s score. I mentioned before that I’m over the need to hear wah-wah music when the obligatory young Caucasian blonde female walks on screen. I understand the nature of television calls for the casting of a lot improbably beautiful young people (of all genders), but putting young women on a pedestal in this way to me is disempowering and wrong. I found the rest of the music to be heavy-handed, overbearing, and trite. Memory Alpha says that much of the score was recycled from “Shore Leave”–unsurprising, since that was the last time I disliked another episode’s score as much.
Four and a half out of five Berthold ray detectors.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Side_of_Paradise_(Star_Trek:_The_Original_Series)
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