Star Trek Retro Review: "The Paradise Syndrome" | Other Earths
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#startrek #startrektheoriginalseries #startrektos - บันเทิง
I find it hilarious that subsequent Star Trek content has turned Spock's 'two months staring at a monitor to translate the Preserver language" into kind of a joke. He should have just talked to Uhura.
Yeah, if they ever update the TOS era, Uhura really needs to take center stage in some of the shows for all the stuff happening in Strange New Worlds.
It's frustrating how underutilized the supporting bridge crew tend to be in their fields of specialization. I understand that it's usually down wanting to spend the limited budget on the most popular characters in the eyes of the audience (and the egos of those cast members.)
But it's also a result of casting a wide net to garner scripts from writers that only contributed a few stories here and there -- writers that don't always have a good knowledge of the show's canon so they focus on those characters that are already mainstream and familiar.
Gene Roddenberry has often been criticized for adding superfluous script edits to rewrites (probably to just earn a writing credit,) but this is an area where it would very much be warranted in order to give Uhura some of Spock's time. But it usually went the other way.
@@HermanVonPetri It had more to do with the nature of television in the era than anything else. True ensemble casting and writing wasn't commonplace, because the sponsors wanted 'bankable' stars that attracted viewers. TV was driven by celebrity thinking, using or creating a few popular leads people flocked to, and building the show around them with supporting actors.
Writers were tasked with making showcases for the leads.
Several Indian groups in the American Southwest used irrigation. And the Andeans certainly knew a few things about making water go where they wanted it to go.
Yup. The canal system in Phoenix - which once stretched across much of the valley, and formed the basis of the area's original large agricultural footprint - was an expanded version of what the Hohokam had built hundreds of years before.
Also, in the 1200s there was a Native American city near modern-day St. Louis that was as big as London during the same time period. You can’t support a population that large with hunting & gathering.
@@sunspot42ancient canals (and aqueducts) has got to be one of my favourite niche technical/historical subjects.
yeah i immediately thought of the Nahua people (Aztecs) whose Tenochtitlan was likened to Venice, so they must have known a thing or two about artificial waterways.
technically they admittedly belong to the Mesoamerican cultural space but at the very least have linguist ties way further up North.
besides using irrigation is a somewhat straightforward idea once you decide to stay in a place and cultivate crops, and that's probably another reason for bias bc we can reconstruct the advent of agriculture for Eurasia fairly clearly to the Mesopotamian area those 10k ish years ago and love to treat it as if this was a singular event that all agriculture ever harks back to, but that view is probably rather reductionist (i love when people misapply Occam's Razor)
to be fair to him its fairly clear that the show is showing groups north of the rio grande... but irrigation was still present in some of those communities just not all, like bluntly it comes down to if they are sedentary they will likely have it if they are migratory probably not, and that's true of every group across the world , because if you dont have irrigation large scale communities are not really possible, and there are enough large scale communities present pre 1492 that it must have been at least somewhat widespread
That obelisk was a pretty dang cool set piece, especially for the original series
More so given the season 3 budget
It gives off SG-1 vibes, too.
"Hello Starfleet? We're having some trouble. In the next two months could you send a few more ships to help us?"
Are you making sense? Blaspheme! How dare you expose already gaping plot holes that anyone with a brain and familiarity with the series can see. Now, how do I resume suspending my disbelief? Oh, hey, cool obelisk. (activates communicator) ... (falls in) ... (zaps brain). Whoa, who am I? Ahhhh, bliss.
@@uvp5000
Whoah we're going to Tahiti...
I mean, the warp engines are still irreparably burned out at the end of the episode, right? Hopefully someone at least sent a tug.
It's the notion that these transplanted peoples wouldn't have advanced at all in the 700ish years since their arrival that I find most galling. The little we know for sure of pre-contact North American history tells that their progress wasn't particularly slower than Indo-Europeans, it was just delayed due to a later development of crops suitable for each region since there wasn't a large band of east-west cropland that allowed for easy transfer of crops and domestic animals. The North American peoples were well on their way to sophisticated trade networks and regional governments, they just had so much available space and abundance of resources that there was never the population pressure that created the Eurasion pressure cooker for advance.
I totally agree. That's why people need to study history and geography. And Native American cultures as well, along with European and American history.
I often wonder what they might’ve done had they not been subjected to (concertedly attempted) genocide. If they came and said hi and traded with Europe on their own terms, much like India and the Middle East had done for a few millennia.
@@kaitlyn__L Europe and Asia are fascinating because while similar climate allowed a lot of technological transfer East-West and back, all the individual areas were pretty crowded. North America is so large it would have taken quite a long time before they felt real population pressures, and even then a lot of their needs could be resolved by internal trade. Whether they'd feel the need to navigate the oceans in less than a millennia is an open question.
Also, long-distance communication, and therefore widespread trade networking and alliances, were naturally slower in the Americas because there were no horses to provide fast transport until the Europeans brought them over.
@@kaitlyn__L The Years of Rice & Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson plays out what might have happened if European plague had been bad enough to prevent their age of exploration. China and Islam become the world-spanning civilizations, but it takes a bit longer so you get an imagined answer to something like your line of questioning.
One key aspect of "The Paradise
Syndrome" that wasn't mentioned in
your review was Gerald Fried's much
admired and hauntingly beautiful musical score that accompanied
this episode. It plays a key role in
delivering the emotional impact that
"The Paradise Syndrome" has been
known for. It is also is why I consider
"The Paradise Syndrome" to be one
of my favorite episodes of Star Trek.
Gerald Fried passed away in February
2023 and is worthy of a review of his
life and musical contribution to Star
Trek. I hope you seriously consider it.
Live long and prosper. 🖖
"Tahiti, it's a MAGICAL place!"
Great line.
Agent Coulson is my absolute hero.
"Not wanting to hurt her feelings, Kirk reacts as though this is actually good news" 😂
That was a tad mean. Kirk was genuinely happy to hear the news, unaware of his duties and responsibilities on the Enterprise.
@@rickjohnston2667
I think it was a joke against himself, because he's on record as not liking children and hating the idea of being a father.
This episode also doesn't respect any actual Native American culture, but rather defaults to "Generic Hollywood Indian". Spock drops the line about it being a mixture of different NA cultures, but that just feels like their excuse to fall back whatever tropes they like and to just use whatever costumes and set dressing the studio had lying around.
For all its faults, I think this is actually more sensible than a lot of Hollywood stuff on the matter - we have an explicit acknowledgement that the mishmash is exactly that. How many productions use totem poles, teepees and igloos all in one place (and worse, sets them in Ontario or something)?
@@logiciananimalYeah honestly it also makes sense from an anthropological sense, maybe there were multiple NA cultures on the planet and over generations they syncretized to a degree. There could still be variation but over time there’s been some melding.
@@DaoFAQit's not that the idea of cultures melding is implausible - we have all sorts of cultures that stem from syncretism of more than one progenitor culture in real life history after all: prominently Anglo-Saxon, Norse, and Norman French influences coming together to form the English kingdom(s) and language. it still warrants some cynicism to look at the convenience the writers took her though.
Amusingly, if they had just packed up and left, nothing would've happened, and the asteroid deflector would've done it's job. The asteroid deflector only failed because Kirk screwed it up by pushing a bunch of buttons.
Short episode though
Ah, the “Raiders Minimization” conundrum. If Indiana Jones had never gotten involved, the Nazis would have never found the Ark.
i mean ... what actually IS the Prime Directive?? am i right??
Actually, the asteroid deflector wasn’t automatic. The Medicine Chief was supposed to enter the Obleisk and activate it when necessary, but Salish’s father died before he could pass the knowledge of how to do that to his son.
Almost. If Indy hadn't gotten involved, the nazis would have killed Marion, taken the headpiece and found the Ark -then- all died. So, there's that. She seemed nice, glad she lived.😀@@queenannsrevenge100
Reminds me of the Stargate SG-1 episode A Hundred Days. Similar concept, the SG-1 team leader O'Neill ends up stranded on a planet cut off from Earth. We go back and forth between O'Neill being taken in by the natives (not native americans though, they did better here) and slowly losing hope of rescue, and the rest of the team on Earth planning and overcoming obstacles to his rescue over a period of a hundred days.
Enjoy your insights. Note the episode says Salish’s father knew how to work the temple (and presumably the symbols) but died before teaching his son the secret.
You forgot to mention that every single native American character in the episode was played by an actor who was *anything* but. Which was standard operating procedure in Hollywood (and almost everywhere) then.
Also, apropos of absolutely nothing, even when I saw this episode as a child, I couldn't help noticing how that big, round, shiny medicine chief's badge on the forehead was strangely reminiscent of a modern physician's head mirror, used to reflect light into a patient's nose or throat during exams.
I miss those mirrors. Modern head mounted LEDs get in my eye way more.
you know i never questioned what the head mirror in stereotypical doctor portrays was for... so thanks ive learnt something new
Yes, this one was off-the-scalrs awkward to watch, even as a kid. Like, you knew that the Lone Ranger image of "Indians" was a cartoon, and didn't know anything about the reality of genocide, but ... what's that cartoon doing in this show? It's like a little Godzilla was in there ... oh, whoops, right, that happened too.
I felt so bad for Salesh! First, he loses his position as medicine chief, then he loses his fiancee
He didn't have a good episode.
Really sucked that they went with a King Solomon's Mines ending.
I'd have liked him to be co - parenting the Kerok offspring with Miramanee.
As a teenage girl in the 1970’s, I loved this episode. I really wanted to BE Miramani. 😂
What truly amazes me about "The Paradise Syndrome" is how rarely it is broadcast. I have been watching Star Trek since TOS in its Prime-Time first run, and I've only seen it twice...the first time only 20 years ago. It was strange to see a TOS episode I had never seen, having seen most of them multiple times. I had seen Spock's Brain a dozen time by the time I saw this episode for the first time.
I haven't seen many full TOS episodes. I started with TNG while it was first airing and rarely went back. About a year ago I was getting a new TV set up and this episode was about 5 minutes in on a local broadcast channel so I let it play. I don't doubt it's rarely played so it's funny that this was one of the few I've watched all the way through. My 9 year old daughter, who's 47% Native American, said something along the lines of "wow, that's racist" at some point while we were watching. Like this review points out, it's a bit more complex than that, but I couldn't really disagree with her statement. It's just an interesting coincidence that this was her first episode of _any_ Star Trek.
Now we know why William Shatner got tired of being asked about playing Kirk
@@MichaelDerryGameitecthow well do you trace your family history that you can reconstruct that your daughter is exactly 47% Native American? xD
@@fariesz6786 We have records for 7 of 8 of my wife's great grandparents for tribal membership and citizenship purposes. I simply assume none on my side, so our kids are 7/16 (43.75%)... oh, woops. I must have gone one too many generations, not 15/32 (46.875%).
I should have just said "half" but it didn't feel right at the time.
Since noticing my bad math, I asked my wife about it to confirm. The membership office only does the research back to great grandparents. She has documentation back to 2 or 3 greats for most of the family tree. The official paperwork only says 7/8 because an office somewhere was closed that day and we never bothered to update it. Percentages like this only really matter to the government, I just got out of hand.
I'm not sure why I never got notified of your response.
The story element of the Preservers reads like it was originally part of a harsher critique and later watered down for the network. It states openly that this population of humans was under a dire threat, and stops just short of identifying it explicitly, when the audience would hardly even need to guess.
That's a good point.
US guilt about genocide is hovering in the background of a lot of its culture.
Thanks Steve. Your TOS reviews had me start watching the show and I fell in love. Had a crappy few months, the show and these reviews always cheer me up.
I got sucked into VOY and ended up reading a bunch of articles about the representation of indigenous people in Star Trek. I had completely forgotten about this episode and reading about it had me going "what. The fuuuuu." (General consensus is that all Trek allows almost all cultures to advance into the future, but indigenous people are relegated to the past and aren't allowed to advance. I think I've done more research to write Voyager fanfiction (sorry Steve) than any Trek writer ever did for an actual episode.)
Yes, unfortunately you are correct. Even though this is one of my favorite episodes of TOS, I have to agree with Steve. And you are correct about Star Trek's "hit and miss" record regarding Native American characters. In TNG, they encountered Native American people that were being relocated due to a Federation/Cardassian treaty, which spawned the Maquis. And the character of Chakotay on Voyager, even though I like the actor, Robert Beltran, is Mexican, not Native American. And the advisor for his character was also mired in controversy and wasn't a Native American either. 🙁
But they tried to get it right in an episode of the Animated series called "Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth," which had a guest character named Ensign Walking Bear. Also, the Enterprise encountered Kulkukan, the Mayan/Aztec serpent god, whose back story was similar to Apollo from the TOS episode, "Who Mourns For Adonais."
@@rickjohnston2667hm.. not sure if in making an explicit distinction between indigenous people from Mexico and those from the USA along modern national borders isn't also at least unhistorical if not portraying significant bias.
don't get me wrong, Chakotay wasn't a very well designed/written character and in terms of representation is mostly just a miss. and yes, there is sad fairly recent history that unites those cultures that were treated badly specifically by the US as an entity.
but still, throwing for instance Shoshone and Navajo into one box and explicitly says Nahua do not belong in that box even though they and Shoshone are both an Uto-Aztec ethnic group is just as much reflecting of an artificial bias effectively brought along by the European colonisers.
i hope this doesn't come across too aggressive. it's just i feel like this is a case where possibly one distorted perception is rejected only to be replaced by a different distortion.
Yeah, The Noble Savage trope was pretty accepted back then & just shows how biased modern people were & still are towards pre-industrial /stone age societies. That same bias is at the core of Ancient Aliens built the pyramids or Atlantis seeded all the great civilixations of the past since "primitive people couldn't have done that." But they did. Really, they did. And stone age technology was pretty fuckin sophisticated for thousands of years.
Stone age technology was the norm for so long, that I often think that everything we've developed since the industrial revolution might be the exception to the rule. 2.6 million years of stone age technology versus 12,000 years since the agricultural revolution (though I suspect agriculture was used in more limited ways before that) and only about 300 years since the industrial revolution.
@@notkenstoke Hmm, I read exception to the rule as always having a positive connotation. Because of the rules there were, none probably governed how technology was being harnessed. So I would say the stone age was an exception to the unjust rules that immediately followed, because of the arms race. The arms race because of the sweet dank valleys and the Holocene making everyone incentivized to kill Neanderthals or something.
It hasn’t aged well, and I wonder if the planet had been populated by new aliens if it may have aged better. Some of the same issues would still exist. It is a mixed bag, as pointed out.
And on a minor note, it’s actually the sound of the communicator that opens the obelisk. The episode is clear about that.
But either way it’s somewhat of a convenient coincidence
I disagree. "Aye Captain." was the Open Sasame.
It isn't a coincidence. The Preservers had knowledge of the future. It was foretold of your arrival. The Preservers knew that Salesh's father would die before giving him the secret of the temple. They knew Kirk would be there. So they planned for the musical key to trigger with Kirk's communication.
@@indetigersscifireview4360
The musical cue is very Close Encounters.
I've always felt like this episode was unlike any of the others in the series. It would have been more at home in a Western series than a sci-fi series. In fact, "outsider joins the Native American tribe" is a Western genre meme.
I believe the series was originally sold as a "space western," so that might have been what they were going.
@@AlexA-zi3bf
Cowboys and aliens describes a big chunk of US SF.
bonus ; continuing the Very Bad Costumes on Trek; the head band stretches instead of being tied on. Thanks , man . I love these retro review.
Maybe the Native Americans there had advanced a bit, and discovered how to make them that way.
@@rickjohnston2667
There you go!
Who says their civilization was static?
A really sad story, both because of the contents and because of the failed intentions behind it. And, as is typical of most of the episodes of the era, we never revisit the ramifications of the Preservers (who, given their intentions, could have set up their planetary defence system to be a bit more automated, and why drop the Terrans on a planet in a system that makes such a system as frequent as it appears to?) or Kirk's feelings following his loss.
A bit of rewriting could have solved the problem.
My handwave is that The Preservers were Social Darwinists.
They set The Space NAs a little puzzle.
If they didn't solve it they'd go extinct and good riddance to bad genes.
Star Trek Continues at least revisited Kirk and Miramani's connection and did an amazing job at that imo.
but yeah, that's a fan production and a sort of recent one at that.
Would love to see you do a Reto Review on TOS Shore Leave. Dunno what category you could put that into to have a group of episodes reviewed but would love to see your take one the episode. For me, it was one of those crazy silly episodes you can turn off to for an hour, yet very entertaining at the same time.
I'd call it a proto-holodeck episode.
I saw this episode when it was aired in Germany for the first time. I must have been 12 or 13 years old then and - man - did I have a crush on that girl :D
Thank you, Steve, for these retro reviews. I grew up watching TOS, both first-run and syndication. I don't have access to them anymore, so reliving them as you review them is wonderful!.
Not to mention the tiny detail to show that much time has passed - Kirk growing out his pointy sideburns.
Happy New Year, Steve! I’m sorry I’ve missed your last few videos. I’m not a big fan of the Original Series, but this episode did make an impact on me when I saw it however many years/decades ago. It was nice to see Kirk in a story that provided him with some emotional depth. I felt sad for him when Miramanee died. Wisdom and life experience have allowed me to see the obvious flaws with the episode, but I still appreciated this walk down memory lane. 🙂
The Hohokam, who dwelled in what is now Phoenix, had a massive irrigation system that supported a population of thousands. Much of the current irrigation in the valley of the Sun follows the original Hohokam pattern.
Need to Photoshop that kiosk into an episode of Land of the Lost.
It probably inspired the creators of that series. I wouldn't be surprised.
I equate this with analogies with procrastination when Spock does the parallel with the rocks. You get to learn CPR (sort of ?). Most things I need to know I've learned by watching Star Trek !
I hope you have a great winter break!
I really liked this episode when I was a kid.
It's pretty cool.
Unless your name is Miramanee in which case it really sucks.
TNG did a cringe Native American episode too. Oh yeah, friggin Voyager and everything they did with Chakotay. Oof. Best intentions gone awry. Happy New Year, Steve!
Funnily enough, the best Native American episode the classic Treks have brought us may be from The Animated Series.
I love your commentary on this one. Thank you!
Very good analysis Steve.
The Paradise Syndrome is the first Star Trek episode that attempts to explain why there are so many humans on alien planets in the Star Trek Universe. Out of universe it is of course because of budget, but finally we have an in universe explanation:
Mr. Spock: The obelisk is a marker, just as I thought. It was left by a super race, known as the Preservers. They passed through the galaxy rescuing primitive cultures, which were in danger of extinction, and seeding them, so to speak, where they could live, and grow.
Dr. McCoy: I've always wondered why there were so many humanoids scattered through the galaxy.
An essential contribution to Star Trek Lore.
One of my favourite episodes, as we get to see Kirk relaxing and at peace with himself, innately showing his command leanings. My personal opinion, Miramanee is one of the most attractive women in the series.
Hey, it's just not possible to go wrong with a buckskin go-go dancer dress.
Sabrina Scharf is really beautiful in this. I've also seen her in an episode of Banacek.
Sacheen Littlefeather may have fooled us, but I knew right away that was a white chick with bronzer. Perhaps Sabrina is attractive not Miramanee.
Happy New Year! 🎉
The sheer improbability of the magic words to open the obelisk being "Kirk to Enterprise" is so immense, it makes me wonder if the astroid deflector uses an Infinite Improbability Drive.
Happy new year Steve
Your analysis is on point, of course. I saw this episode twice. The first time, I was very young and had NO patience for it. The second occurred much later and I was able to appreciate it's poignancy (racial stereotyping notwithstanding).
Can't get scammed by a consultant falsely claiming to be a Native American like Voyager's production did if you never hire any kind of accuracy & sensitivity consultant in the first place.
But aside from that, there's some wonderful behind the scenes footage of the location shooting for this episode. Shatner brought his dog to let run around between takes.
Funnily enough, I watched a Western with my mom earlier today and BAM Leonard Nimoy was playing a Native American. I was kinda horrified, TBH, tho' I knew he did that already. Uh...yeah. So that happened.
EDIT: I'd forgotten some points of this ep (I've only watch it once and it was very painful), but now that I remember, it seems like ep 2 of SNW season 1 took a lot of "inspiration" from this...
Leaving out the sex tourism it's actually a pretty neat idea for an episode.
I remember this episode in images only, mainly of Kirk wearing indigenous garments. I know I must have watched the entire episode at some point, but I've retained no memory of having done so.
Probably for the best.
I think of this ep partly because of the Preservers, one of the few examples of precursor societies we get in TOS, which winds up being complicated by the subject matter you mention. You get a lot of godlike figures, especially in the first season, but I think these civs with fancy toys they left behind are more interesting. I guess the Guardian of Forever is another example, possibly the Planet Killer.
loving the varaity lately
Happy 2024
Alway one of my favorite episodes, it's only fair to note that the woman who wrote it (like many Star Trek writers) had been a writer for TV westerns, Kirks wife dying was like a crossover from Bonanza.
What is really interesting, is that the Enterprise had to proceed to the asteriod at maximum warp and knowing the time it took the asteriod to reach the planet, by doing the math...the asteriod could not possibly be traveling at less than the speed of light! This has alot of sciency implications that got overlooked which is what you can expect from people who make TV westerns.
Yeah, 2 months at high impulse is, call it 80k light minutes, or 40 times the orbit of Pluto, they could have diverted it with an Estes model rocket.
Man I forgot this episode.
Better go find an alien obelisk to forget it again. XD
It is very odd that the people haven't progressed at all in 700 years and the real world explanation is exactly what you point out. My in universe theory is that they didn't progress because they weren't supposed to. They were preserved at the point they were collected with the only change being the mixing of cultures explained by the aliens seeing Native Americans as a monolithic culture the same way the 20th century people do and just scooping up people from several areas to have a diverse enough population to avoid inbreeding issues. The obelisk might have something to do with the stagnation the way Vaal does in The Apple.
As a kid this was one of my favorites. The location filming makes a great change from the kind of sets used for alien worlds. The concept of the Preservers opened up a lot of potential for speculation. Who were they? Are they still around? What other cultures had they saved? Miramani is so beautiful and the end is so tragic. Before I was aware of the concept of fridging it was very romantic.
Bottles show in a few weeks! Will DS9's "Duet" be one of them?
No, "Duet" won't be in the next batch, though it does qualify as a bottle show.
This episode feels like it came straight out of a Karl May book. Karl May was a german 19th century author who wrote famous books about the Apache chief Winnetou and his white friend Old Shatterhand and their adventures etc. Its the exact same romantization of native americans and the wild west. And even though May lived in the era of the Wild West he never even visited the US at all. All the stories and the idealized world and people he described came from second hand or his own imagination
Three things to note:
1. It only took 2 months for Kirk and Miramie to have a child.. ???
2. Their child would technically be David Marcus's (younger) half-brother.
3. If there was another parallel dimension, where Kirk could save his wife and child...then find them a new home (like on another planet)..it'd be interesting seeing an altenate-universe version of Star Trek 2 (or a subsequent sequel), where Meets up with 2 of his kids. It doesn't really matter to me, what this second child does as a grownup, maybe another scientist? Or maybe a junior officer??
No, duh! She knew she was pregnant. But the child was prenatal at the point when she was stoned. She had internal injuries from the stoning that threatened the child's further development.
Interesting concept.
It only took two months (or less) for Kirk to get Miramanee pregnant.
She was pregnant within two months of meeting Kirk, not that they already had the child.
Definite fanfic possibilities here.
I’ve enjoyed Steve’s. ‘Other Earths’ reviews including this one. I don’t particularly disagree with his insights. But I think we have understand it was made in the sixties.
This episode was my entry point to doing a stupid William Shatner impression.
I'm going to go to bat slightly for this episode. It's not great but when you compare it to For The World Is Hollow, this episode is far more competent at what it's trying to do. While Miramanee is no Edith Keeler, we at least get a glimpse of her relationship with "Kirok" and why they love each other so much. Everything in For The World Is Hollow happens so quickly that we don't get a sense of Natira or why Bones loves her.
The Preservers were like the Asgard, Stargate, saving a culture on another planet
This was the only Season Three episode to have on-location footage, and it ate up the entire location shooting budget for the season!
The fact that the writers chose death for Kirk's partner and child, as a fitting solution/conclusion of Kirk's time with them, points to how insidious and nefarious benign racism operates. It's borderline scary. They're Indigenous, therefore disposable.
261,these are-TROPES-from the westerns on tv shows and films of that time.Indians were either on the warpath or peaceful and co-operative.This episode is a product of it's time: the mid 1960s. Most Indian actors could mostly play native americans in movies and tv westerns when they needed them.
@@user-be7tc2bd6e
Dances with Kerok.
I always think it's interesting that those of us who are not Native Americans have to avoid saying the "I" word unless we're quoting someone else. My perspective is informed by the fact that I work on a "Cherokee Indian Reservation," as stated on one of the welcome signs. Similar terminology is used on various municipal buildings on the reservation. Part of what I find interesting is that (at least as far as I can tell) nobody forced the tribal government to choose the word "Indian" over "Native American" or "Indigenous American" or simply "Cherokee." Having stated that, some of my coworkers who identify as Cherokee, have said that they find the "I" word offensive when non-Native people use it, but consider it a term of endearment when they use it with each other.
Edit: Typo
I just keep thinking of Crow T. Robot saying "I am Kirok" in this completely nonchalant way and it's driving me nuts that I can't remember which MST3K episode that was in.
It's one of the great Trek moments.
I think he says it in "Manhunt in Space". Servo also sings "Heading Out to Eden".
Across many lands and many worlds it is often James Farentino who is the jealous ex-husband.
I know this wasn't planned, but having this review come out the day after Marvel's What If? animated show did an episode about a Mohawk woman getting super powers, done completely in subtitles... the difference is...Stark.
With the exception of Tonto, and this episode of `Star Trek, most 1950s/60s depictions on TV of Native Americans had them as wild people, the enemies of frontiersmen. In that context, this episode seemed progressive for its time.
That said, your critique of it is on point.
When I first saw this episode on reruns in the early 70s, I was super sad that Miramanee died. Kirk seemed happy, in a way, it was kinda out of character for him, but good.
Best wishes for 2024.
This reminded me of Sacheen Littlefeather and problems that Hollywood had with its portrayal of Native Americans in TV and movies.
In 1973 Marlon Brando won best actor for The Godfather, Littlefeather, wearing buckskin dress and moccasins, took the stage, becoming the first Native American woman ever to do so at the Academy Awards. In a 60-second speech, she explained that Brando could not accept the award due to "the treatment of American Indians today by the film industry."
Some in the audience booed her. John Wayne, who was backstage at the time, was reportedly furious. The 1973 Oscars were held during the American Indian Movement's two-month occupation of Wounded Knee in South Dakota. In the years since, Littlefeather has said she's been mocked, discriminated against and personally attacked for her brief Academy Awards appearance.
From NPR article: The Academy apologizes to Sacheen Littlefeather for her treatment at the 1973 Oscars
I would suggest the video remembering her: (TH-cam) Democracy Now - Remembering Indigenous Actress Sacheen Littlefeather, Who Was Mocked & Threatened at Oscars in 1973
I suspect this and other TV episodes and film depictions of Native Americans is exactly why Marlon Brando asked Sacheen Littlefeather to make a statement at the 1973 Oscar ceremony.
An important moment in Hollywood history.
As with other science fiction that uses a similar setup, there's one huge question: why are the people brought to this planet still in the same cultural and technological state after hundreds of years? Do they realise they've been transported across space? If so, you'd think *someone* would have tried to figure out how and prompted some kind of technological development.
It bothered me in "Wrath of Khan" when that woman said that Kirk had never experienced the death of someone close to him before, after Spock died. This episode is one of several in which Kirk does experience death.
This episode has grated on me since childhood. It's so patronising it makes me want to scream.
Oooo, The Naked Time? SWEET! One of my favourite TOS episodes!
The first Star Trek episode I ever saw! Circa 85 watched in reruns with my mum. Not sure when I first saw TWOK??
the best thing to come of this was the episode of Star Trek Continues where Kirk remembers his relationships and a vision of his daughter with Miramani haunts him and asks what her name is and he just cries and says he never got to give her a name.
made me cry rivers. actually trembling now just thinking about it.
as for the Preservers, my headcanon is that they themselves were blatantly insensitive and just scooped up a couple people from that backwater planet.. they're all basically the same.. ah, maybe just to be safe only pick people from that one landmass in case the ones on other landmasses speak a slightly different language. should be fine. oh and better implant some inhibitor genes into them so they won't like change too much when we transplant them. remember those pretty Deltan butterflies that totally lost their bright colourful patterns when we brought them to our zoo? can't have that, now can we?
I was hoping somebody would mention the Star Trek Continues episode "The White Iris". STC doesn't get nearly the love it deserves; the most faithful-to-the-original fan series there was. Even Rod Roddenberry said he considers it canon.
Can't believe you spent 18 whole minutes discussing "The Paradise Syndrome" without mentioning how crazy Kirk's sideburns get!
The Enterprise's warp drive was knocked out, but presumably the shuttle's worked fine. Couldn't they have shuttled over to the planet and given themselves nearly 2 months to look for Kirk?
This is an early third season episode, so we can blame that.....unless this was a script dropped from the pool of season two scripts because of all the location shooting. It needed input from somebody Native American.
16:48 indeed. Another example of good intentions paving the road to hell: TNG’s “The Outcast.”
Thanks for your outspoken and proud progressivism. 🖖🏼
The HHuhugam and Salado peoples of what would, in later centuries, become the Phoenix, AZ area constructed and extensive network of canals using the Salt River as its source for irrigation. The current canal system in Maricopa County is merely a refinement of it. Be careful what you say, Steve.
The Kurok saves the drowned boy trope is straight outta The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.
Star Trek is a real magpie when it comes to pop culture.
I was also reminded of the end of King Solomon's Mines.
I wonder if this was removed from rotation by the 1980's? I never saw this episode, but I thought I saw them all in syndication (and many of them multiple times) when I was a kid
Pity if they've quietly suppressed it for racial insensitivity because this is a pretty good episode with all the familiar Star Trek tropes (all - powerful computer, Spock and McCoy bickering, Kirk irresistible to women) present and correct).
Also sex tourism is a topic worth exploring.
Season 1 of Westworld did it well.
I saw it many times in the 80s and 90s.
FYI: According to Holling C. Holling's book "Indians", Pueblo peoples of the dry Southwest (Arizona, etc.) knew a great deal about irrigation and fended off climate change for a long time (it got drier and drier to the point they couldn't raise maize, beans, squash, etc. any more in some places).
Something the TOS people failed to anticipate is the effect of Kirk constantly falling in love with almost every woman he gets close to: that we can't feel the full tragic of Edith Keeler/Mirmamaee's deaths on Kirk, because we know he will be fine in about five minutes.
I don’t think our political views align but I sure do love your Star Trek videos. I hope one day we can all get along as well as the humans and other species in Star Trek
Like you said, they meant well, but society has evolved enough that we understand such portrayal are unacceptable. (Although Hollywood is only slowly learning that lesson).
I personally take it as a reminder that we should always be challenging and stretching ourselves to challenge our biases.
I call Kirk, Spock, and McCoy "the Big Three" when I'm reviewing episodes. I feel like I should be taking notes for when I review this one...
A non-problematic interesting fact about this episode is that this is probably the most mainstream sci-fi to depict asteroids causing planetary extinctions, and predates the actual science by multiple years. At the time the episode aired, the dinosaur-killing-asteroid hypothesis hadn't even been put forth yet (it would take over a decade for that to happen), and even the Giant Impact hypothesis regarding the creation of the moon hadn't been proposed.
Hell, even the Tunguska event was only barely gaining acceptance as being caused by an asteroid.
Also, 16:30 I don't think there needs to be any 'reason' to preserve their cultures. Its like questioning why linguists try to preserve languages that are about to go extinct (particularly those of indigenous cultures, whose languages are at most risk of becoming extinct).
Also also, "Indian" isn't a universally hated name. Many individuals, and even entire tribes, prefer it to other labels.
Love the episode, glad Kirk finally found real love (however brief), but he violated the Prime Directive.
Prime Directive- thou shalt not boink the primitive natives?
Could he still be court marshaled? Considering that he had amnesia when he violated it?
@notkenstoke
It was all in service of saving them from annihilation so he gets a pass.
I've never actually seen it, which suprises me as I have the blu ray box set. I've no idea how I missed it.
This sounds like an episode that, as you say, was started with good intentions, but was an episode of it's time. I get the impression that most people probably didn't really know much about Native Americans, and as long as someone wasn't actually criticising another race, they wouldn't have thought it was racism either. The script writers probably thought it was a nice thing showing the Native Americans having a peaceful, idyllic life and wrote in Kirk helping them as a sign he was just being a good person. The script writer probably had multiple scripts to do, so likely didn't have much time for research..
Would you happen to know what the set obelisk is made of?
Just curious: How is the Enterprise coming back home after that mission? As far as I understood it, the warp drive is fried and apparently not even the great Scotty could fix it in over two months time and also no help could arrive in the same two months time...
Maybe The Obelisk can help if it's in a cooperative mood.
Some themes and settings here are pretty typical of 1960s TV and Film. Star Trek was first and foremost a television show. A 40 minute format that had to be shown on network television. It was a business, and definitely not just another page in some social justice Bible called Star Trek. Judging the show for the societal standards of 2023 is rather easy and doesn’t make for excellent content. It instead comes off as a bit ‘reactionary’. However I enjoyed the rest of the review.
Nevertheless, everything Steve pointed out in his analysis was true.
Kirk with an L on his forehead is pretty funny on its own tbh
I think such an episode would have been better handled in the later years of TNG or DS9. I feel like the writers would have seen an opportunity integrate a wife and child to a crew member from engineering or bridge that had been developed over the previous three episodes. ToS was episodic while TNG onwards have always built upon the generating storyline. (I do say the later TNG series and DS9 because that was the evolved format of the show by then)
Kirk has a wife!? You learn something new every day.
Not for long.
See also, On Her Majesty's Secret Service.
I keep forgetting this one for some strange reason.
I hope you do Enterprise's episode "North Star".
Yes, one of my favorites! I loved the concept. "Cowboys versus Aliens."
Where I live in New York City and in Washington DC the Smithsonian has have
The National Museum of the American Indian.
I had always thought the proper and respectful terms were supposed to be
“native Americans” or “indigenous people“.
As an adult I always believed that using the term “Indian” was incorrect and insulting. Considering the importance of this Smithsonian, I don’t understand the official name of their museums being “The National Museum of the American Indian”
I’m very confused about this and I hope somebody can educate me on this. 🖖🏼
The Preservers, isn’t that kind of like caretakers.
I get so caught up in the awful Native American stuff that I didn’t really think about how, had this been set in a 17th century European agrarian community it would basically have been fine. Even if the wife dying at the end would date it today. It almost makes me wonder if that’s how it started and then the Indigenous stuff was added later or something.
Could you review "Masks" and "Clues"?