I’m your nerd host, Chris Hardwick
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Nerdist is a place where we nerds come together and share the nerdery that we find. It's also my home to various elements of the Nerdist Empire. You might recognize me from TV. You don't realize that's where you know me from, but it is. You think you went to college with me or I look like your cousin's friend, but that is not the case. At one time or another you stumbled upon me on your moving picture box in such cerebral gems as MTV's "Singled Out" and Noam Chomsky's "Shipmates." and so much more...
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Anyone notice Sulu was rather calm throughout the show? Like he didn’t make any mistakes or seem rather flustered. He was very much akin to Spock this episode. Whats up with that?
Remember, the network wanted “Wagon Train in Space”, so, for this to be ripped from the pages of Bonanza, and to be considered as the second pilot, is very understandable. For the script to be all over the place speaks to a lot of re-writes to fit it into the network’s desires, perhaps.
Thought this episode was great fun despite it’s flaws. The parallels to the old western TV series was clear but that was true of lots of Star Trek.
In the podcast, I think one issue was overlooked: Was the source of Eve’s resurgent beauty her Belief In Herself, or residual Venus Drug chemicals in her system? Since the show chose not to take a SF tack on the biochemicals involved, through medical technobabble or what was known then about endocrine science, it left the ethical source of her ‘belief’ vague.
I bet I could get someone coming off a cocaine or heroin binge to look mighty fine and capable… if I promised them one more hit as a bribe. Eve’s bribe was both revenge (see, guys, how I fooled you?) and bitterness (see, guys, how you need *to be fooled*). All those women were as old and as capable (mostly farm workers, as I recall)as they were, in a galaxy of hardworking, single men… who preferred to choose girls with a bit of pageant training, for a baldly sex-worker marriage contract.
If I were Eve, I’d be just as bitter as I’d be before my looks came back, in that her worth was still determined by how pretty she was. If ST took away the Lucille Ball glamour lighting, and left her as haggard as she was after the storm, but she still *acted* that awesome sfter swallowing that placebo, would that narrative daring be less science-fictional? Or something an audience used to the Hollywood glamour = Good equivalence couldn’t swallow?
So, I call foul on the purity of the lesson, because the men in that climax had their cake (pretty women!) and ate it, too (no drug dealer to support!). And, guys, it’s still hella sexist — just because the women we see did not get raped by the miners, or groped by the crew, doesn’t mean they’re not treated as objects to be traded and adulterated for faster sale.
It’s dang near *pure* sexism — if it weren’t, why were female crewpersons so scarce? Because the narrative couldn’t afford such critiques by women who at least had some protections about the captain getting handsy.
Eve’s rant in Kirk’s quarters, just when she’s supposed to sell herself enough to distract him, is the only part of the episode, other than just before she takes the placebo, when a MW tells a sucker the truth: It takes a lot of effort to look that cheap, all for an end that sees her abandoned when looks fade, either chemically or by time’s passage. And, as par for the episode’s course, no one listens to her until she’s too ugly to ignore. That’s the takeaway lesson, and by doing the handwavium over the placebo effect, it’s the lesson that sticks.
Was that an XTC reference I just heard? Sweet. I could live with one every episode. This week’s could have been, “All You Pretty Girls.”