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Star Trek Thoughts: By Any Other Name
Approaching the end of the second season of Star Trek, I seemed to have again found a bit more to think about than I'd expected in "By Any Other Name." I'd known it involved the Enterprise being hijacked by aliens from the Andromeda Galaxy in human form and the major characters saving the day once more by means including Scotty managing to drink one of the aliens under the table, but it might have been the way the pieces came together that increased my interest in the episode from what I'd been expecting.
There were "callbacks" not just to the "energy barrier" that appeared in the second pilot, but also to "A Taste of Armageddon" having Spock manage to get a guard to open his cell through psychic suggestion. In stepping past suspicions that "this would be so useful they obviously couldn't mention it again," the episode also managed to evade "this would be so useful it can't be allowed to work again." As for the "energy barrier" itself, I suppose I was conscious of an "arbitrary limit" established early on now being got through; the only problem is that once the Enterprise is in the starless void, it'll take centuries to get to the Andromeda Galaxy. I've noticed people insisting the difference in magnitude between stars and between galaxies should be remembered even in science fiction terms (and many works do seem quite content with invoking a whole galaxy but staying inside it), although I suppose I can think that, while any form of speedy interstellar travel that's shown to take some time to get between stars would mean taking a lot more time to get between galaxies, the first velocity is an arbitrary invocation anyway.
This did, in any case, allow for the brief yet resonant invocation of the "generation ship" idea, which was how the Kelvans got between galaxies in the first place. Spock's psychic contact let him intimate them as "other than humanoid" (if familiar enough to science fiction readers) but taking human form; I was sort of convinced their makeup started off unnaturally pale but became more normal as the major characters not converted into cuboctahedrons tried to play on their new senses. This included Kirk getting to flirt with a female character, which did sort of "restore expectations" after the last episode I commented on. In establishing their strategy for neutralizing the crew, a "redshirt" cuboctahedron gets crushed; I was sort of conscious at the time this meant an uncomfortable choice between the black security guard and the female yeoman.
There were "callbacks" not just to the "energy barrier" that appeared in the second pilot, but also to "A Taste of Armageddon" having Spock manage to get a guard to open his cell through psychic suggestion. In stepping past suspicions that "this would be so useful they obviously couldn't mention it again," the episode also managed to evade "this would be so useful it can't be allowed to work again." As for the "energy barrier" itself, I suppose I was conscious of an "arbitrary limit" established early on now being got through; the only problem is that once the Enterprise is in the starless void, it'll take centuries to get to the Andromeda Galaxy. I've noticed people insisting the difference in magnitude between stars and between galaxies should be remembered even in science fiction terms (and many works do seem quite content with invoking a whole galaxy but staying inside it), although I suppose I can think that, while any form of speedy interstellar travel that's shown to take some time to get between stars would mean taking a lot more time to get between galaxies, the first velocity is an arbitrary invocation anyway.
This did, in any case, allow for the brief yet resonant invocation of the "generation ship" idea, which was how the Kelvans got between galaxies in the first place. Spock's psychic contact let him intimate them as "other than humanoid" (if familiar enough to science fiction readers) but taking human form; I was sort of convinced their makeup started off unnaturally pale but became more normal as the major characters not converted into cuboctahedrons tried to play on their new senses. This included Kirk getting to flirt with a female character, which did sort of "restore expectations" after the last episode I commented on. In establishing their strategy for neutralizing the crew, a "redshirt" cuboctahedron gets crushed; I was sort of conscious at the time this meant an uncomfortable choice between the black security guard and the female yeoman.