Comments

1. Jared Insell says:

   January 31, 2010 at 9:23 am

   Vol­ume 34 of the Star Trek DVD series con­tains two episodes that have been con­sid­ered good cause they were sup­pos­edly very risqué dur­ing the time they aired. Partly because each has it’s own “land­mark moment in Amer­i­can tele­vi­sion”. In real­ity these moments are barely not­i­ca­ble and these two Trek episodes are just as mediocre as the rest that came out of the third season.

   PLATO’S STEPCHILDREN opens this one. Yeah I know. I’ve heard it a thou­sand times: “tv’s first inter­ra­cial kiss” between William Shat­ner and Nichelle Nichols. The truth is (accord­ing to Shat­ner him­self) that two scenes of this were shot. One that was actu­ally a kiss and the other that wasn’t. The lat­ter was cho­sen in the orig­i­nal air­ing and they have never both­ered to put the actual kiss in any reruns. There­fore tech­ni­cally there is noth­ing spe­cial about this one. The plot is typ­i­cal Star Trek and this episode show­cases some of the actors most embarass­ing moments. Still this is good for a laugh. Espe­cially when the dwarf Alexan­der mounts Kirk like a horse and our good Capt. begins to ‘neigh’. Apart from those embarass­ing moments and a few touch­ing act­ing scenes between Kirk and Alexan­der this episode is pretty forgettable.

   The sec­ond episode here is WINK OF AN EYE which fairs lit­tle bet­ter than PLATO’S STEPCHILDREN. For what­ever rea­son I have always felt the sound in this one was muf­fled. Maybe it was just me? Any­ways the sup­posed off cam­era sex scene between Kirk and the girl isn’t very note­wor­thy. As a mat­ter of fact I didn’t even notice it until another Ama­zon.com reviewer men­tioned it! The plot to WINK OF AN EYE is inter­est­ing but in the long run it’s merely the Star Trek crew being invaded by bizarre aliens once again. As I said many times before, it’s been done! Any­body else notice that the cam­era work of this episode was almost always on a slant? Just a thought…

   Over­all these two episodes are definetly watch­able but I find nei­ther them are as spe­cial as they claim to be. Keep in mind these were released in 1968 so per­haps they were con­sid­ered more shock­ing back then but I find it hard to believe since Star Trek’s rat­ings and pop­u­lar­ity were at an all time low when they aired. Not the best but it’s clas­sic Trek so go on try it! Rec­om­mended!
   Rat­ing: 3 / 5
2. Hank Drake says:

   January 31, 2010 at 10:19 am

   Vol­ume 34 of Paramount’s com­plete reis­sue of Clas­sic Trek con­tains two episodes which could best be described as fair-to-middling in quality.

   Plato’s Stepchil­dren made his­tory of sorts by con­tain­ing the first inter­ra­cial kiss (inter-ETHNIC, really, since Kirk and Uhura are both of the same race–the HUMAN race) on net­work tele­vi­sion. But William Shat­ner, in his book Star Trek Mem­o­ries, pointed out that TWO ver­sions of the kiss were filmed–one as a full-on kiss, and one where the actors’ lips didn’t actu­ally meet. The sec­ond take was used, which means the highly touted kiss is actu­ally a fake! (Watch the episode and you’ll see what I mean.) Per­haps the pub­lic­ity mavens con­nected with Trek actu­ally are refer­ring to the smooch between Spock and Nurse Chapel when they refer to an inter­ra­cial kiss–which would fit the bill since Spock is half-Vulcan. The rest of the episode is a mix is sil­ly­ness, some cringe­wor­thy moments from the actors, and light­weight sermonizing.

   Wink of an Eye is a bit bet­ter. The idea of life-forms exist­ing out of sync with each other has served Trek well and often. Gen­er­ally, this episode is well made, although there are incon­sis­ten­cies. It is never fully explained how the accel­er­ated Scalosians can func­tion on the Enter­prise (the doors to the tur­bo­lift and cor­ri­dors remain con­ve­niently open for much of the episode). Unchar­ac­ter­is­ti­cally, after the Scalosians have been defeated, Kirk does not extend the hand of friend­ship and offer them a cure for their ail­ment, but rather sends them on their way. NBC’s cen­sors must have been asleep dur­ing the infa­mous scene where Kirk–after a coital romp with the Scalosian queen–pulls his boots back on. There is an inven­tive touch late in this episode, where some stock music is played at the wrong speed to increase the dis­ori­ent­ing effect.

   Pic­ture and sound are fine.
   Rat­ing: 3 / 5
3. Zagnorch says:

   January 31, 2010 at 11:26 am

   You know, when it comes to big-time over-the-top sci-fi cheese­ball, the third sea­son of clas­sic ‘Star Trek’ really hits the spot! In “Plato’s Stepchil­dren”, you’ve got Spock danc­ing the mamuschka around Kirk’s prone body; Spock show­ing his ‘tal­ent’ as a singing sen­sa­tion, and some of the more over-the-top Kirkian heavy-handed mono­logues out there! Oh yeah, this eppie’s also got a midget… or is he a dwarf? I don’t know the diff myself. Maybe I’ll research the con­trasts some­day, but for now I’m too lazy, and basi­cally couldn’t care less. Oh yeah, let’s not for­get net­work prime-time’s first inter­ra­cial kiss-which wasn’t nearly as gra­tu­itous as some of Kirk’s other liplocks. G-Rod & Com­pany def­i­nitely did their best to make this ‘infa­mous’ moment as sub­tle as possible!

   Then there’s ‘Wink of an Eye’, where ol’ Jim­mers catches the eye of Deela, the comely leader of a race of hyper­ac­cel­er­ated beings. It’s not too bad as far as third-season ‘Trek goes, but it does have its silly moments. The over-done ‘Jim-gets-romantic-with-the-babe-of-the-week’ plot ele­ment is given yet another show­ing here. In fact, there’s more than kiss­ing going on in this instance– there’s a moment where Kirk & Deela are in his quar­ters, and he’s putting one of his boots on! Does that mean…? Hmmm.
   Rat­ing: 4 / 5
4. yarborough says:

   January 31, 2010 at 12:43 pm

   Plato’s Stepchil­dren has an intrigu­ing set-up, but the episode sim­ply goes way too far in silli­ness when Kirk and Spock are being forced to per­form. Appar­ently this was nec­es­sary in order to fill up time, but it’s an insult to the view­ers and an exam­ple of how the creator’s abused the end­less pos­si­bil­i­ties idea of the future. It has inter­est­ing moments, though, but for­get the infa­mous inter­ra­cial kiss–it was forced and com­pletely unemo­tional. In this episode, Nichelle Nichols is absolutely gor­geous, gor­geous, gor­geous in that clas­sic gown, but she is out­done by the more stun­ning Bar­bara Bab­cock, who gives a won­der­ful per­for­mance here.

   Wink of An Eye is also very intrigu­ing, and supe­rior to Plato’s Stepchil­dren, but it bites off more than it can chew. The sit­u­a­tion with hyper­ac­cel­er­ated exis­tence and nor­mal exis­tence is very inter­est­ing and fun, but it is care­lessly done, and the episode becomes more con­fus­ing than any­thing else. An aver­age, but pass­able episode.
   Rat­ing: 3 / 5
5. C. Gerace says:

   January 31, 2010 at 3:16 pm

   Arguably the most laugh­able — but not nec­es­sar­ily the stu­pid­est TOS episode. Kirk & crew are phys­i­cally manip­u­lated by tele­ki­netic jerks to per­form the most embar­rass­ing acts. Only one act sur­passes Spock’s depress­ing ode (singing) “Bit­ter Dregs” — and that is the sight/sounds of Kirk “win­nieing” and rear­ing like a horse with a midget on his back. I laughed so hard — I cried. Wink of an eye was mar­gin­ally good — espe­cially the alien blonde hot­tie in the skimpy out­fit. Aliens move so fast in time, it’s like Kirk & crew are stand­ing still. Typ­i­cal 3rd sea­son medi­oc­rity. But again, a must have for TOS purists!
   Rat­ing: 3 / 5

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