Phillip Thorne
underbase.org> writes:
>_Enterprise_ is sent to investigate a newly-discovered world at the
>periphery of the galaxy, where they encounter a plantoid non-humanoid
>race, the Phyllosians. They appear to be friendly, but soon Spock is
>captured.
Isn't that always the way on the edge of the Galaxy? Still, it
is at least a change that Spock's special half-Vulcanness is what gets
him into trouble instead of what saves him (as in quite a few episodes).
(Unfortunately, I don't have the Animated Series on DVD yet, so my
comments are based on memories of whenever it was I last watched this
on tape.)
>It seems that the natives are dedicated to one they call "the Master"
>-- a giant human who identifies himself as "Stavos Keniclius 5." They
>surmise that he's the fourth clone of a geneticist who vanished during
>the Eugenics Wars, two centuries earlier, who'd had ambitions to clone
>a master race once he'd found a perfect specimen. Now that he has
>one, he's ready to implement his plan to bring peace to the galaxy --
>which happens to have been the Phyllosians' plan as well, until his
>arrival wiped most of them out. (He found a cure, although the few
>survivors are sterile.)
If this were an episode of the live-action series, I'd have
expected there to be some brief comment on the irony that Spock, being
not-quite-human and not-quite-Vulcan, turns out to be the perfect
specimen of physical and mental achievement in at least one person's
eyes. Considering how Spock fretted about his shortcomings relative
the Vulcan Ideal, you'd think he would appreciate being judged all that
superlative.
>Kirk & Co. re-enter the Phyllosian compound, use herbicide-sprayers to
>repel the aerial "Swoopers," and encounter Spock -- whose mind has
>been drained to activate his new giant clone. (A limitation of
>Keniclius's equipment.) Obviously, they want their own version back.
And come 'The Search for Spock', they start to realize what a
good idea it is to have off-site backups for their essential player
characters.
>There's a tense moment while Spock-2 integrates his new memories, but
>he's easily able to copy them back to Spock-1 by mind-meld.
He's not called perfection for nothing ...
> Keniclius
>has a crisis of purpose when they tell him his goal has already been
>attained, but suggest a new mission (with Spock-2's help) can be to
>restore fertility to the Phyllosian race.
Keniclius isn't all that hard to convince that the galaxy is
in pretty good shape, all things considered, either, although that's
no doubt partly because they only have 24 minutes for the whole story.
>Plot comments:
>The Phyllosians speak of encountering humans before, which is why
>they're able to cure Sulu; presumably they mean Keniclius, although
>the connection is never made explicit. Keniclius, of course, did not
>bother telling Starfleet of his discovery.
Or is it possible Keniclius took some staff with him? I don't
remember if there's anything saying he arrived alone. He may also have
brought in promising-looking human specimens before.
Here's another point, though: if this was achievable at all by
any means from a survivor of the Eugenics Wars -- presumably, at least
to some extent, by sleeper ship -- then how is it on the limits of space
the Federation is now exploring? Unless it's *that* far off the trade
routes that attract all the interest it's hard for him to get that far
off the beaten track.
>The plague occurred when Agmar was "very young," an indeterminate time
>before. Has Keniclius been there the whole time, just waiting for his
>perfect specimen to happen by? Did he decide to stay and study the
>natives' biological knowledge? Did he make it his home base, and has
>traveled secretly to other stars? Did he perhaps learn of Spock and
>plant appropriate rumors, hoping Enterprise would be dispatched? Or,
>since he left Earth before contact with Vulcan, maybe he'd be happy
>with any Vulcan specimen.
He is aware of Klingons, Romulans, and Kzinti, though, so he
must be keeping up with the newspapers. My impression had been that
the First Keniclius had been the one who first discovered the Phylosians
centuries ago, but I don't remember if there's anything to show that it
couldn't have been Fourth or Fifth Keniclius. Certainly it was nice
that he was able to find a planet that was all geared up for the mission
he hoped to unleash on the galaxy.
>How exactly does Keniclius plan to convince Spock-2 to join his
>mission? Or is he so monomaniacal that he can't imagine anyone *not*
>joining him?
Probably he expects that people just can't help seeing the logic
of his mission. After two centuries and four clonings he may well have
a distorted view of what is regarded as a normal and sane process.
>Milieu comments:
>The Phyllosians are green and approximately radially symmetric, with a
>ring of tentacular two-fingered arms and four legs. They have
>berry-shaped heads with two eyestalks and no orifices, and communicate
>by means of "voders" hung around their necks.
The 'Voder' is probably taken from the inventions of Homer W
Dudley, of the Bell Telephone Laboratory, of the voder and vocoder which
would synthesize human voices, as debuted in the 1939 New York City
World's Fair:
http://davidszondy.com/future/robot/voder.htm
> The race was wiped out
>by "gram-positive bacteria," e.g. "staphylococcus," which McCoy
>surmises are not native to this planet. Their leader is Agmar, and
>there may be only five of them.
-- So that the animated series allowed larger planetside
populations after all ...
>Among the other lifeforms are: A tribble-sized mobile bush (the
>"retlaw"), purple in color, with a venomous sting.
The Retlaw is, naturally, just Walter backwards. Koenig
similarly named the Good Sleestak Enik originally by taking the name
of Gene Roddenberry and writing it backwards. Somehow it evolved
from Eneg to Enik in the production. He was following advice of
somebody for an easy way to make a strange-sounding name. I forget
just whose advice it was, though.
Makes me wonder if Agmar is an acronym or near-acronym, though.
There is Agway, a chain of plant-and-pet-food shops, for example, and
if you turn that second syllable upside-down you're not far off Agmar.
> ("It's a mobile
>plant ... I think it likes me," explains Sulu excitedly to Kirk. "We
>always encourage our officers to make friends with the natives.") And
>the "Swoopers," large purple flying dragon-like creatures with eyes,
>beaks, two wings, and two coiled tentacles. Swoopers are vulnerable
>to Earth-style herbicides, e.g. a formulation by one of McCoy's
>ancestors.
Tom Servo: Ah, back to the days when DDT was good for you!
>Keniclius-5 is approximately ten meters tall and has taken to going
>bare-chested, wearing an ancient Greek-style skirt and sandals;
>possibly an adaptation to the square-cube law and heat dissipation.
>(He has a replica Starfleet uniform made for giant Spock-2.)
I missed if there was ever an explanation for just why it was
necessary for the clones to be ten meters tall, unless it was an
attempt to impressive the poor natives who'd be suppressed for their
own benefit. I got the impression the native Pylosians were giants
from our point of view anyway; perhaps Keniclius was just expanding to
fit his new quarters, the way some fish species will.
I've got the vague feeling there's probably an A E Van Vogt
riff going on in the giant clones, but I tend to avoid close examination
of his writing.
> He alludes to the depredations of the Klingons, Romulans, and Kzinti.
The name-drop of the Kzinti must have caused some jaw-dropping
among the written science fiction fans who were watching the cartoon.
This appeared well before 'The Slaver Weapon', and I don't know what
rumors of what would be in forthcoming episodes were leaked out to the
eager fans in those days.
>Production comments:
>The actors can't decide whether to pronounce Keniclius as
>"ken-ik-lee-us," "ken-ek-lee-us," or "ken-ik-you-lus." This happens
>when you encounter an unfamiliar name by sight instead of sound, and
>the voice director neglects to correct you, and it's not the only
>offense in ST:TAS.
Oh, like there's any way of telling Shatner how to pronounce
someone's name. Usually when the pronunciation is important the
script will include a pronunciation guide, but given the circumstances
of Filmation production maybe nobody was paying attention to that.
This episode often gets slagged as proof that the animated
series was a silly and juvenile and foolish footnote to the Trek canon,
but it doesn't deserve that. The only thing silly about it is making
the clones giants, which strains biology, but also gives some really
striking, memorable images. I'd rather take a slightly silly but
memorable thing over plausible yet unremarkable. And besides, the rest
of the story, the accidentally extinct species, the master plan to
bring peace at the barrel of the gun ... these are all quite within the
norms for Trek of any era.
--
Joseph Nebus
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