{"id":5527,"date":"2014-08-10T05:38:53","date_gmt":"2014-08-10T05:38:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/22-Bem"},"modified":"2014-08-10T05:38:53","modified_gmt":"2014-08-10T05:38:53","slug":"22-bem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/relivethemajesty.com\/index.php\/2014\/08\/10\/22-bem\/","title":{"rendered":"2.2 &#8212; \u201cBem\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n        \n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>2.2 &#8212; \u201cBem\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Plot:<\/strong> Kirk and a landing party beam down to explore a planet inhabited by aboriginal life forms, taking with them a guest alien observer, Honorary Commander Ari bn Bem, who has been visting the <em>Enterprise<\/em>. \u201cBem\u201d turns out to have his own agenda, which mostly involves exasperating the Captain. On top of that, the aborigines turn out to be dangerous, and there\u2019s a strange power on the planet lurking unseen\u2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Thoughts:<\/strong> This episode has quite a bit of droll humor, courtesy of screenwriter David Gerrold, of \u201cTribbles\u201d fame. I like \u201cHow do we always end up like this?\u201d and \u201cThere are times, Mister Spock, when I think I should have been a librarian.\u201d He is very good at writing interplay between the main characters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Bem\u2019s legs separating from his body is certainly a memorable idea, although I don\u2019t know how the body parts float through the air (or water). Gerrold reveals in an audio commentary included with my DVD set that his original conception was to create a character so illogical that Spock would become \u201cprejudiced\u201d against it. This seems to have shifted in the writing, as Bem spends most of the eipsode aggravating Kirk instead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This is the episode that establishes that Kirk\u2019s middle name is Tiberius. Gene Roddenberry said that he didn&#8217;t think events in TAS should be considered canon (although I believe a new consensus on this point has developed since his death), but this delicious middle name was confirmed when it was used again in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Despite the middle name and the teleplay&#8217;s authorship by David Gerrold, I don\u2019t think this is a great episode. Part of the reason may be that, according to Gerrold, Gene Roddenberry told him during the story development process that he should include a scene in which the crew finds \u201cGod\u201d on the planet. Gerrold says his reaction was to groan&#8211;haven\u2019t we done that idea to death already? I agree. To make matters worse, the artistic execution of the God entity, while creative, also wound up looking just like the (arguably less powerful) entity in TOS 3.18, \u201cThe Lights of Zetar.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">2 out of 5 cages made out of sticks.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.hulu.com\/watch\/638126\" class=\"embedly-card\" data-card-recommend=\"0\" data-card-width=\"100%\">http:\/\/www.hulu.com\/watch\/638126<\/a><script async src=\"\/\/cdn.embedly.com\/widgets\/platform.js\" charset=\"UTF-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n      ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>        2.2 &#8212; \u201cBem\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[18],"class_list":["post-5527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-star-trek-relive-the-majesty-tas-episode-threads","tag-kevin-black"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/relivethemajesty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/relivethemajesty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/relivethemajesty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/relivethemajesty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/relivethemajesty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5527"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/relivethemajesty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5527\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/relivethemajesty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/relivethemajesty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/relivethemajesty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}