emily k(nits, watches, and writes)

If you remember from my previous entry, I have decided to dedicate my final three days of Ten Days of Trek to my three favorite, and arguably the three best, Star Trek episodes. I am talking strictly TOS, not any of the spinoffs. This has proven quite difficult, as I love so many episodes from TOS. So after hours of toil and internal debate, here is the third best episode of Star Trek.

3. Mirror, Mirror

S2E10, originally aired October 6th, 1967
Written by Jerome Bixby; Directed by Marc Daniels

“Captain’s log, stardate… unknown. We are trapped in a savage parallel universe from which we must escape within four hours, or I will face a death sentence at Mr. Spock’s hands.”

Uhura, Kirk, McCoy, and Scotty in the Mirror Universe

Evil Spock & Kirk in the Mirror Universe

Perfect story, and well executed. A landing party consisting of Kirk, McCoy, Scotty, and Uhura is zapped into a parallel “Mirror” universe when being transported back to the ship during an ion storm. The USS Enterprise is now the ISS Enterprise, the entire ship is filled with henchmen and mercenaries, and Spock is evil because of his stylish beard. Spock’s logic prevails across both universes, however, as he’s the one that figures out that the returned landing party are fishes out of water.

The SF community can thank this episode for the establishment of bearded doubles being evil, and that baddies in general have beards. Two obvious examples are The Master from Doctor Who and Flexo, Bender’s identical brobot, in Futurama S2E11, “The Lesser of Two Evils.” Check out the commentary on that Futurama episode to hear the writers and producers support this claim.

Sulu & Uhura in the Mirror Universe

It’s really fun to see the actors play bastardized versions of themselves, especially Sulu and Chekov. As you may know, besides his role as Chekov in Star Trek, Walter Koenig is most well known for playing baddies. This may have been the logical starting point.

“Jim, I think I liked him with a beard better. Gave him character. Of course, almost any change would be a distinct improvement.”
“What worries me is the easy way his counterpart fitted into that other universe. I always thought Spock was a bit of a pirate at heart.”
“Indeed, gentlemen? May I point out that I had an opportunity to observe your counterparts here quite closely. They were brutal, savage, unprincipled, uncivilized, treacherous — in every way, splendid examples of homosapiens. The very flower of humanity. I found them quite refreshing.”
“I’m not sure, but I think we’ve been insulted.”
“I’m sure.”
- McCoy, Kirk and Spock

Stay tuned for #2.

Today is the last day that a feature film will be part of my Ten Days of Trek. I’ll get to why in a moment.

Star Trek Generations

I’ll forgo bullet points so that I can just rant for a minute. The movie started out like the rest of the Star Trek films up until this point, which was awesome, because I like the Star Trek films. But then it turned into a prolonged episode of TNG, which was really boring. And then Kirk ended his Trek tenure in the worst way EVER. I know everyone and their grandmother has complained about it, but that’s not stopping me. I mean, really. The only thing I’ll give them is that they stuck with what he said in Undiscovered Country. That he’d die alone. And he did, considering that McCoy and Spock weren’t there. Also, neither of them were in the film at all, and were only briefly mentioned.

A brief point about my reaction to this film. Did I cry for Kirk? No. Did I cry for the Enterprise? No. Did I cry when Data found Spot? Yes. Like a little baby. So there you have it.

I also decided that I was going to stop re-watching the Trek films at this point. It really was the final send-off for the original cast, even if it was a disappointing send-off. So for the next three days I will highlight my favorite episodes. Tomorrow will be #3, the next day #2, and I’ll end with #1, my favorite and arguably the best episode of the original Star Trek series. Because I know how much you all want to know.

As a heads-up, there is a strong possibility that my judgment will be swayed by episodes parodied by Futurama. Just saying.

Here are the videos for my presentation titled “Representation of Genre in the Music of Doctor Who (1963).”

The Twilight Zone Intro (1959)
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ny7uGEPgoXk]

The Outer Limits Intro (1961)
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CtjhWhw2I8]

Doctor Who Full Opening Sequence from “An Unearthly Child”
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLYSfWzKilI]

Doctor Who, Into the TARDIS
Our first look at the interior of the TARDIS
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRNUpeGu9a4]

And just for fun:
Futurama‘s spoof on The Twilight Zone/The Outer Limits
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ma2Hqq0PVbU]

Abstract.

When the BBC premiered Doctor Who on November 23rd, 1963, they foresaw the program as a low-budget, teatime filler program on Saturday evenings. During the planning stages of this new show, the internal discussions surrounding Doctor Who’s development show that the BBC did not want a categorically science fiction (SF) show. As stated in documents from the BBC’s Script Department:

We are not writing science-fiction. We shall provide scientific explanations too, sometimes, but we will not bend over backwards to do so, if we decide to achieve credibility by other means. (BBC WAC T5/647/1)

The BBC believed that the British public was not ready for a mainstream SF show, nor that the SF writing community was prepared to produce stories that could reach to a wider, mainstream audience.

The highly eclectic, dissonant, and avant-garde sound design of Doctor Who tells a different story. Although the scriptwriters wanted to avoid making a SF show, the musique concrete and electronic techniques developed by Doctor Who’s freelance composers and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop utilized tropes and coded musical idioms associated with SF. This generic tension between the show’s dramatic intent and musical signifiers mirror the tensions found within literary SF, most notably the dialectic between estrangement and cognition. This article will examine the power of music in Doctor Who, and how the show’s sound design provided coherence of narrative and an aural link to established SF music conventions that helped define Doctor Who as SF.