Some notes about storytelling
Always hit the reset button
One thing that certainly stands out when watching the series over again was the static nature of the characters. Kirk, Spock, McCoy and the rest of the crew don’t grow or develop over time. If they do, at the end of the episode the writers hit the reset button and wipe out any development the characters have gone through.
I know this from when I originally watched the series, but it stands out even more when compared to more modern shows. Today we get character arcs that last for an entire season, along with story arcs. Each episode is still mostly stand-alone, but there will be small segments that continue the story or character arc sprinkled throughout.
One very significant example of resetting is in the episode Requiem for Methuselah. Kirk, Spock and McCoy go down to a planet that has a rare element used to cure a plague that is decimating another planet. No one is supposed to be on the planet containing the element, yet one man, Flint, and his female companion, Rayna, are living there. The man is effectively immortal and came to the planet to get away from everyone else. It turns out that he was some of the greatest minds on our planet – Da Vinci, Brahms, and others. Kirk, of course, falls madly in love with Rayna, but it turns out she was created by Flint to be his perfect companion. Having never encountered anyone other than Flint, Rayna is of course attracted to Kirk as something new and different. It comes down to the final showdown between Kirk and Flint and Rayna must choose between them. The stress of the decision kills her.
At the end of the episode, back on the Enterprise, Kirk is distraught over his loss. He is so distraught McCoy questions whether the good Captain will be able to continue his command. Spock, in an effort to aid his friend, mind melds with the Captain (after he has passed out at his desk in his quarters) and tells him to forget Rayna. Reset.
Had the series not kept everything strictly episodic and unchanging, this could have been a significant storyline. Not just this, but other things, like Spock almost getting married in the episode Amok Time. It would be interesting to see how Spock handles a wife in addition to his other duties. It wouldn’t be until Star Trek: The Next Generation that we started seeing more advanced storytelling in the Trek universe.
Toys left on the floor
There were many stories that could have been spun out from the episodes of ST:TOS. I’ve mentioned before that the children in the episode Miri had more stories that could be told.
Holly Lisle used to talk about such hanging threads as “toys on the floor”. These are the things in a story that the author could pick up again later on in a series and continue the story. ST: TOS had a lot of them.
Mirror, Mirror could have spun off a whole series. Kirk, McCoy, Uhura, and Scotty end up in a parallel dimension where the Federation is a warmongering dictatorship instead of the peaceful explorers we’ve come to know and love. By the end of the episode Kirk has convinced the evil Spock that the regime was not stable, someone had to bring about change, and Spock was the man to do it. It could have been Game of Thrones in Spaaace!
The Organians in An Errand of Mercy certainly had the power to stop a war between the Federation and the Klingons. There could have been more stories with them. Then again, being so powerful it would be hard to write good stories for them. Could they send a emissary to the Federation and the Klingons to teach them how to live in peace, or do they have some type of Prime Directive too that keeps them from interfering with the development of lesser cultures on their way to cultural advancement?
Plato’s Stepchildren opened up a can of storytelling worms. Not because of having the first interracial kiss on TV but because of handing over telekinetic power easily to the characters. The inhabitants of the planet developed telekinetic power by eating the local flora which absorbed some element that gave them the power. Kirk and company figure this out, get McCoy to inject them with twice the level as anyone else on the planet and boom, instant telekinesis. If it was that simple someone in Starfleet would be yammering about it as a tactical advantage and making sure it is developed into a military weapon.
Things didn’t get better over time
The first season was the best and gave us some excellent stories that hold up well even today.
The first season contained stories that were thought provoking, well told, and dramatic. The City on The Edge Of Forever is considered one of the best, if not the best, episodes of Star Trek within the whole canon. At the time it was both new and old. New in that we had a science fiction series that was not an anthology (The Twilight Zone was telling good sci-fi stories nearly a decade before Star Trek) and not cheesy (I’m looking at you, Lost in Space, and nearly every Irwin Allen series of the time.) Old in that it was shackled by the storytelling conventions of the time.
The second season was uneven in its storytelling, with highs (The Trouble With Tribbles, A Piece of the Action) and lows (The Omega Glory, The Deadly Years).
The third season had some true duds. Spock’s Brain is considered one of the all-time worst episodes in ST canon. In it, an alien culture steals Spock’s brain to keep their cultural computer going, then McCoy has to put it back in Spock’s head after having his own brain amplified so he can do the task. If you believe in the dualistic nature of the universe I guess something had to balance out The City on the Edge of Forever.
I wonder if the writers weren’t shackled by network censors and break out of the strict episodic storytelling if the quality of stories would have kept up. There are certainly lots of stories to tell within the Star Trek setting. If the quality hadn’t dropped in the third season I wonder if we would have gotten the complete five seasons of stories with the original crew of the Enterprise. Nine (and counting) spin-off series, not to mention multiple movies, prove that more stories could be told.
I guess ST:TOS was a product of its times. It brought a sense of hopefulness that the human race would get its act together and we’d make it out among the stars. Given all the societal turmoil of the 1960’s with the Viet Nam war, the hippie movement, facing off against Russia in the Cold War, we needed something to believe that we could do better. We found it in Star Trek and that vision has continued on until today.
Well done, Mr. Rodenberry, well done.
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