{"id":4174,"date":"2013-11-07T06:08:53","date_gmt":"2013-11-07T06:08:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/25-The-Apple"},"modified":"2013-11-07T06:08:53","modified_gmt":"2013-11-07T06:08:53","slug":"25-the-apple","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/relivethemajesty.com\/index.php\/2013\/11\/07\/25-the-apple\/","title":{"rendered":"2.5 — \u201cThe Apple\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n \n

2.5 — \u201cThe Apple\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Plot:<\/strong> Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Chekhov, a Yeoman, and four redshirted security guards beam down to a \u201cparadise\u201d planet, Gamma Trianguli Six. Soon the ship in orbit starts breaking, and the redshirts start dying. The landing party survivors are taken to a village, where they discover natives in happy thrall to a strange being named Vaal. Although the ship is in terrible danger, there is still time for Chekhov to teach the natives a thing or two about love. Now let’s break Vaal so we can go home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Thoughts:<\/strong> Did I miss it, or did they never explain anything about Vaal? How did it get there? Who built it? What does it eat again? How does it control the natives–just through radio communication with Akuta? I’m afraid, unlike so many of the other episodes, that thinking about “The Apple” does not make it better. This episode could have been a first or second season episode of The Next Generation<\/em>. Not in a good way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The sensibility may recall early TNG<\/em>, but the content is all ripped off from better episodes in Season One. The set-up with the computer controlling a subservient population is pure \u201cReturn of the Archons.\u201d The prime directive received its first mention in that episode, and they develop the idea a little more here with the debates between Spock and McCoy and the metaphor of exile from the garden of Eden. But, just as in “Archons,” the argument for noninterference is severely undercut by the fact that the supercomputer is actively trying to destroy the<\/em> Enterprise. All countermeasures are therefore acts of self-defense. Besides, I think the Enterprise<\/em> crash landing on the planet like a meteorite would also provide a slight disruption to society, yes?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The spore-firing plants recall \u201cThis Side of Paradise\u201d (also a show with mind-controlled villagers, but with copulation allowed–I choose the spore planet!). And, of course, the seemingly idyllic but secretly deadly planet hiding an underground network of machines is taken from \u201cShore Leave.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Vaal is powerful enough to suppress the Enterprise<\/em>‘s warp engines and transporters, and pull the ship out of orbit, but it permanently blows its fuses under 20 seconds of phaser fire on only one of its external outlets to the surface? Okaaay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This episode makes me mad. On the one hand, it’s not that<\/em> bad… watchable from one moment to the next. But it’s also\u00a0lazy twaddle that cannibalizes earlier episodes\u00a0for its parts and\u00a0doesn’t begin to hold together. Give me an episode like “The Alternative Factor” that reaches high and falls flat on its face. Star Trek<\/em> is at its worst when it tries to play it safe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I believe this is the episode that started the meme about redshirts being walking dead men. Plus Spock gets shot, electrocuted, and attacked by natives, and it doesn’t mean a thing. Oh my God! You killed Kenny!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I think the best part was the jokes–Chekhov on Eden being near Moscow, and some other fun lines. The natives also look striking–implausible, but striking. But then this slow-moving episode comes down to being about nothing but sex, and prurience about sex, and it\u2019s just so damn heteronormative. NEXT.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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1.5 uncomfortable floral wrist garlands out of 5.<\/p>\n\n\n

http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_Apple_(Star_Trek:_The_Original_Series)<\/a>