2x05 The Apple

[5.4/10] Well, we’re back to the “I like the idea, but the execution was pretty underwhelming” train with this episode of Star Trek. As the title, “Apple,” portends, this episode is all about paradise, and whether living in peace and relative immortality is worth the amount of stifling that comes with it, or whether Eden is a gilded cage where it’s better to suffer a little and give into one’s weaker nature at time so long as it involves true freedom. That’s a solid thematic jumping off point, it just gets overly simplistic and, yes, a little racist when Star Trek explores that idea here.

Any episode is going to get off on the wrong foot when it features our protagonists encountering a childlike, “primitive” people who are portrayed by a bunch of very Caucasian people in loincloths, dark makeup, and ivory scare wigs. The whole shtick of running into these overgrown Oompa Loompas is a little uncomfortable from the beginning, and while the episode wants to show them as unspoiled, albeit a little repressed, the implications are unfortunate and the way they’re depicted, at a minimum, warrants an eyebrow raise.

It also doesn’t help that this returns to the well of some standard Star Trek problems and solutions. As I talked about with “Mirror, Mirror,” it’s a little churlish to complain about the show’s tropes. It has a style and a formula and there’s not necessarily a big problem in that. Still, once again, the ship is being held in the grips of the local planet and once again, the answer is for Kirk & Co. to find away to deplete the energy reserves of the uber-powerful force that is holding them in place.

It’s also yet another episode where we have a philosophical and practical debate between Spock and Bones, with Kirk playing referee in the middle. Bones sees these people, who take their orders from a big giant machine (that looks like an evil snake to lay the biblical references on even thicker) who forbids them to touch or to love, as hopelessly repressed and not even able to enjoy the pleasures of being human (or Vaalian, or whatever you want to call it). Spock sees them having a peaceful society for a millennia where they have all been happy and healthy and objects to Bones imposing his view of what life should be like on a people who have figured out something that works for them.

The problem is that, as Star Trek is wont to do, it only pays lip service to making this a real debate and mostly leans on the side of “gosh, isn’t this terrible?” In fairness, we get conflicting scenes -- one where two Vaalians engaging in a harmless peck (after imitating Chekov and the latest interchangeable female away mission member), that suggests this is a repressed society where these people are denied pleasure and passion. But Vaal also instructs the Vaalians to kill the Federation interlopers, something they previously had no knowledge of. Spock points out that this is the reciprocal danger of disrupting their paradise, that it introduces conflict and death in a way that was missing before.

But the episode eventually glosses over that, and over Spock’s objections, has Kirk come in and essentially blow up these people’s society because it didn’t fit his ideal. Folks like Kirk are why the prime directive were invented. It’s especially galling that when Spock points this out at the end of the episode, Kirk and Bones basically make fun of him for looking like The Devil. (As an aside, how many episodes of TOS end with Kirk and Bones being kind of a dick to Spock?)

Still, I do appreciate the parallel that for however much Kirk pities these people for not having true freedom and taking all of their cues from a big, nigh-inscrutable machine that only talks to one leader, he too is taking orders from the similarly opaque Starfleet Command and parceling them out to his own people. I assume the juxtaposition is intentional, and it adds a little depth to the idea of not just following orders but following your own ethics and passion that even the nominally free members of the federation have to contend with.

His speech to the Vaalians at the end of the episode, however, is pretty rough. The line “That's what we call freedom. You'll like it, a lot,” is just so, so patronizing. Granted, the Vaalians are made out to be so naive that maybe it fits, but it’s another brick in the wall of James T. Kirk -- Smug Bringer of Self-Assured Truths. And the cheesy sitcom chuckle at the ensuing description of how the Vaalians will soon figure out how to make children is all kinds of cringey.

It also doesn’t help that, as I’ve mentioned for prior Star Trek episodes, this one was semi-spoiled for me via parody, in the form of Futurama’s “Amazon Women in the Mood.” The notion of our heroes ending up stranded on a planet of seemingly-primitive people who take orders from a giant machine can’t help but seem silly to me after that sort of (hilarious) priming. I kept waiting for it to be revealed that Vaal is actually a fembot femputer fleeing a manbot manputer’s world. (“What?”)

And it’s at this point where I wonder if I’ve seen all of The Original Series’s tricks by now. I still intend to watch the rest of the series, but there is a definite sense of the show reverting to familiar story beats over and over again at this point. There’s still the charm of the setting and some pleasant character work, but without more variety beyond set dressing and a slightly different theme, the show loses its ability to surprise me or engage me from episode-to-episode. There’s still plenty of classics to come, but I hope in the future, the show uses the endless possibilities of its premise to explore new, different things than the same sort of planet of the week shenanigans it’s already done several times at this point in its run.

I, too, am a bit uncomfortable with this story. They literally force Federation views and values upon a culture that knows nothing about them. Kirk and McCoy claim this is done for the good of the people and only Spock is a voice of reason. Now, this is of course very similar to what western civilization has been doing for a long time to what they think of as "lesser" cultures. But this episode doesn't take a stand against that but rather promotes it. There is the point made that the influence of the landing party turned the peaceful inhabitants, that didn't know the concept of killing, into murderers. But it is again shrugged off, even laughed off, by Kirk and McCoy.

Furthermore, what exactly is/was Val? Where did he/it come from? Was he evil in forcing the inhabitants to serve him or benevolent by caring for them? Is this another case of a civilization building a machine to help them that then turned against them ?

Plot holes over plot holes.

What I found interesting was that Kirk told Scotty to seperate the main section of the ship. I missed that detail before. I also missed David Soul (of Starsky & Hutch fame) being in this episode.