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Catspaw -- The subconscious
posté par sukhisooSTAFFMOD le 1 novembre 2018 à 10h27
Catspaw, an occasional Halloween tradition of ours, is an imperfect episode. The "science" is kind of left behind in the "science fiction" but I kind of like it anyway.
The earliest recollection, from the primordial soup of my childhood memories, consists of images: The giant cat. Kirk going mano-a-mano with martial arts "expert" Sulu. Kirk, Spock, and McCoy chained to the dungeon walls. Images meant to evoke emotional responses rather than to further along a cohesive story.
In the early 90s, the story became a little clearer. I was hospitalized for a fractured vertebra, temporarily paralyzed, and hopped up on Demerol. When this episode came on the television, my cognitive functions were almost completely suppressed while many of my subconscious receptors were enhanced. Kirk is exposed to stimuli meant to evoke fear, lust, greed, and gluttony. When he finally destroy's the magic doohickey, it all goes away, leaving the barren reality of and empty alien landscape and two laughably ineffective life forms. Fin.
There's an interesting message here, but it gets lost in the cheese. This is one of the few episodes where a movie type budget would have enhanced the story considerably. I'll bet you credits to navy beans that high tech special effects, realistic Gothic sets, dissonant music assaulting the subconscious, a Hitchcock type director, and a month or two to get the blocking and reaction shots just right would have elevated this into prime television viewing. The basic story is just fine.
Réponse de Jetfire59
le 1 novembre 2018 à 14h13
Check these out. Irrelevant to your point, but fun.
https://trekkerscrapbook.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/catspawhd0573.jpg
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/4a/78/53/4a7853a28cdf8354ab8504efb3f16eff--all-seeing-eye-cinderella.jpg
Réponse de sukhisoo
le 1 novembre 2018 à 15h14
Haha. This does indeed belong in another thread. The Gilligan's Island and Trek thread, perhaps?
Réponse de Jetfire59
le 1 novembre 2018 à 16h33
That's where I got it.
What can I say? I like repetition. I'll delete it if you want.
Réponse de sukhisoo
le 1 novembre 2018 à 17h28
I was the one who gave it a thumbs-up. It would be silly of me to ask you to delete it.
Réponse de Jetfire59
le 1 novembre 2018 à 17h33
Oh, didn't see the thumbs up. Thanx.
Réponse de Nexus71
le 3 novembre 2018 à 17h44
It's a free mason symbol the "All Seeing Eye of God" just shows how evil Hollywood has always been .
Réponse de jxh13
le 5 novembre 2018 à 06h09
Yep.
Robert Bloch knows his way around the human psyche (witness Norman Bates) and was a veteran television writer; the episode certainly feels rushed, and the concept is not satisfactorily explored. My own interpretation is that the Production Team wasn't particularly excited to be doing a Halloween themed episode demanded by NBC. The episode would undoubtedly have benefited from a sympathetic creative team.
Réponse de Nexus71
le 6 novembre 2018 à 18h59
I was more of a fan of Robert Bloch's A Wolf In The Fold ,I thought the idea making Jack The Ripper into a murdering feeding of fear serial alien an interesting and intriguing concept.
Réponse de jxh13
le 7 novembre 2018 à 06h04
Agreed; "Wolf" is an interesting idea competently told. Although, of the three Bloch scripts, I prefer "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" The question of what makes us human is generally intriguing, and Ruk's moment of clarity ("That was the equation! Existence outweighs programming!") anticipates dangerously self aware AIs from Colossus: The Forbin Project to Skynet.
Réponse de sukhisoo
le 8 novembre 2018 à 10h19
I see the concept of Jack The Ripper in this story as being a metaphor for our own predatory nature. While it is necessary to our survival, we need to be able to control it to advance as humans. It will, of course, follow us into space.
The episode itself leaves me cold, though. Let me think about it and maybe I can figure why I disregard this one while warming to the objectively weaker Catspaw.
Réponse de sukhisoo
le 8 novembre 2018 à 10h21
Me too. It is, by far, the best of the three Robert Bloch scripts.
Réponse de Knixon
le 8 novembre 2018 à 19h07
Also the later TOS episodes "Return Of The Archons," "The Ultimate Computer"...
Réponse de Nexus71
le 10 novembre 2018 à 21h15
and The Changeling...
"Star Trek The Motion Picture : Where Nomad Has Gone Before .."
Réponse de wonder2wonder
le 29 décembre 2019 à 16h54
This was the first episode with Chekov (broadcast out of order to coincide with Halloween), so no mention of a Minsk cat.
Réponse de znexyish
le 29 décembre 2019 à 20h19
Chekov would say that Korob and Slyvia were the last of the Romanovs who escaped the revolution and made their way to the planet. Or maybe Korob was a future relative of Rasputin