Star Trek - "The Man Trap"

  Although I talked a bit about "The Man Trap" in my posting about the 45th anniversary of Star Trek last week, I decided to start writing about each episode along with the anniversary of its original airdate.  Also, for my sanity, it seems wise to talk about something as culturally important and exciting as Star Trek instead of just the horrible state of affairs in America and around the world.  Spoilers will follow, so if you haven't seen this yet in 45 years and don't want to be spoiled, read at your own risk!

Written by George Clayton Johnson

Directed by Marc Daniels

Guest Starring: Jeanne Bal as Nancy Crater

Alfred Ryder as Professor Robert Crater

Grace Lee Whitney as Yeoman Janice Rand

Photos from the amazing Trekcore.com

  "Captain's Log: Stardate 1513.1  Our Position: Orbiting Planet M113.  Onboard the Enterprise, Mr. Spock, temporarily in command.  On the planet, the ruins of an ancient and long dead civilization.  Ship's surgeon McCoy and myself are now beaming down to the planet's surface.
  Our Mission: routine medical examination of archaeologist Robert Crater and his wife Nancy.  Routine, but for the fact that Nancy Crater is that one woman in Doctor McCoy's past."
-Kirk, through voice-over, delivering the opening lines of the series.

And so it begins! 

While on a routine mission, the Enterprise comes under attack from a murderous creature that can assume the form of anyone, real or imagined in order to drain the hypnotized victims of their salt!

We're introduced to McCoy and Kirk on the planet surface along with Darnell--a science officer, who ends up the first dead crewman of the series (and not a red shirt!)


Crewman Darnell:  He died how he lived....on Planet M113

McCoy sees Nancy, as he remembered her from years ago, while Kirk sees a more age-appropriate woman--and Darnell, that doomed sack of hormones sees a young blonde woman.  Darnell is sent outside before the differences could be compared, but they blame McCoy's initial perception of Nancy on his feelings for her.  At one point, Kirk scolds McCoy and says to stop, "thinking with your glands, Doctor."  He should have listened to Bones.  While Darnell was the first corpse over which McCoy said, "He's dead, Jim," he was not the last.

To hell with "Let's Move", We Need Salt!



One of the first clues for Kirk and McCoy--or Plum, as Nancy calls him--is the repeated request for more salt from both of the Craters.  Of course, by the time they figure out something is wrong, a third crewman is pushing up straw-like alien daisies on M113, but they only know of two deaths because Green was replaced by "Nancy", the Salt Creature before beaming back up to the Enterprise in order to engage is some salty rendezvous, no doubt.

Meanwhile, back on the ship, we start to learn about the other officers that populate the world of the Enterprise.  Spock and Uhura's conversations on the bridge show us how different Vulcans are, from showing no emotion even when your friend might be dead, to having no sense of humor.  For some reason, and I've never figured this out, Yeoman Rand delivers lunch to Lt. Sulu in a science lab filled with interesting flowers (made from tissue paper covered hands!)  Sulu thanks her by saying, "May the great bird of the galaxy bless your planet."  Eventually, fans began referring to Gene Roddenberry, the creator, as the 'great bird of the galaxy'.



Hailing frequencies...hypnotized!



Green pops in to see Sulu and Rand, and is not drunk on Saurian brandy, but in fact a murderous salt monster.  Thankfully the flowers scare him off.  Uhura has a close encounter with the beast as well as it reads her thoughts and appears to be a man from her home in Africa--even speaking Swahili.  Luckily, the door opens and Rand and Sulu inadvertantly save her life.

Meanwhile, on the planet Professor Crater is proving particularly prickly as he tries unsucessfully to fight off Kirk and Spock.  It is then they learn Nancy is no more--rather the last of its species, the salt creature, had killed her and assumed her identity.  As they warn the ship, the creature has already drugged McCoy instead of killing him, and assumed his appearance.



The Wonders of the 23rd Century, plus that's not McCoy...



This is an interesting development for the creature.  Although Crater likens the murderous beast to a Buffalo, having seen its numbers drop radically and face extinction, it chooses to kill people instead of ask for help.  It is obviously intelligent enough to do so since it cares at least a little for McCoy.  Crater says the memories McCoy feels for Nancy are so strong, it in essence has created a special bond between the two.  That certainly doesn't say much for Nancy's husband's...abilities or overall relationship with his wife, but the stronger the memories and emotional bond, the more the creature can connect with a person.



I guess he has a red gash and green blood because he's half
Vulcan and half human? Or?



Starving for salt, the creature kills Professor Crater and attempts to kill Spock, but we get a glimpse of his "vulcan heritage" in the form of green blood! 

The creature as Nancy attempts to get a groggy McCoy to protect it/her from the others, but Kirk shows up and things get ugly fast---for Kirk.



Give Mama your salt!  This is for calling me a
HANDSOME WOMAN!

Kirk ends up hypnotized and about to be salt sucked by the M113 creature, when Spock arrives and blasts some sense into McCoy.  After Spock is hurled about by a scary, impervious Nancy McCoy is forced to raise his phaser in a POV shot that reminded me of Hitchcock's Spellbound and finish her/it off.

The episode ends on the bridge with a pensive Kirk saying, "I was thinking about the Buffalo, Mr. Spock." 

The buffalo didn't try to murder/impersonate people, though.  I'm glad no one from Sci fi (erg, syfy) reads this or that would end up being a saturday night movie.

The remastered images looked nice.  They expanded the landing site & Craters' home beyond the close-up of the structure we got in the original.

Overall, this episode introduced us to most of the core characters, save Scotty and Nurse Chapel and gave us a sense of the unknown the crew of the Starship Enterprise will face each week.  "The Man Trap" works surprisingly well as a premiere outing, considering it was the sixth episode produced. 

One last question I'd like to pose is, "Was it the writer's and costumer's decision to put something on the dead salt creature, or was that what NBC censors thought every respectable and fashionable salt creature should wear?"



Nancy sporting a special modesty shroud.



A Decade: Frozen & Forgotten

It's hard to believe it's been ten years since the September 11th attacks.  Hard to believe because it feels like so much longer, yet also as if we're forever frozen in those moments.

The smoke rising high above New York, the screams, the sirens, the jumpers, the anger, the sadness, the heroism...

In many ways we've forgotten so much of that day which is so etched into our collective consciousness--either selectively or by accident.  Not many politicians actually feel the weight of that day--and the death toll--as much as President Bush.  His reverence for the dead, heartfelt sympathy for their loved ones and acceptance of his responsibilities as commander in chief when it came to taking the war to them earned him respect, albeit brief respect.

So many people talk of those who died--and either through training or just by accident fail to refer to them as having been murdered by terrorists.  We also don't care to discuss how gleeful random people were in the Middle East who took to the streets to celebrate the attacks and all the bloodshed.

I still remember that touchy-feely story, "My Name is Osama" published a year after the attacks to try and quell blow-back against Muslims in America--a blow-back that never existed.  Jews are victims of hate crimes, ten times more than Muslims.  In the story encouraged for 9/11 lesson plans by the National Council for Social Studies, a character named Todd made fun of a boy named Osama.  Completely coincidentally, someone named Osama had ordered his co-conspirators to hijack a plane (United 93), but a brave group of passenger-heroes, including a Todd Beamer retook the plane, sealing their fates but saving countless lives.  I guess that was back when they thought kids knew Osama Bin Laden's name and all the other terrorists involved.  Now they know even less about history, even recent history.

As we move forward we must consider how much life has changed in America and throughout the world as a result of September 11th--and we must never, never, never forget what happened that day and those since.  The Islamo-facists still hate us and nothing we can do will change that.

We must be vigilant, awake, honest and never let the truth ride away on a plume of smoke like the ones that filled the empty skies on September 11th, 2001.

 

9/11 Project

 

The Final Frontier Turns 45 Today!

On Thursday, September 8th, 1966 at 8:30 PM, NBC aired its first episode of Star Trek and no one could have predicted the phenomenon they were launching.  (If they had, perhaps scraggly-toothed bean counters wouldn't have had their fingers on the kill switch each season of its three season run, ultimately shooting Trek out of the sky mere weeks before the moon landing.)

45 years ago today, also a Thursday, NBC decided to air "The Man Trap", despite it not being the first--or second episode produced.  From a character standpoint, the decision seems to make sense.  We are introduced to the "big three"- Kirk, Spock and McCoy, fellow bridge officers Sulu and Uhura as well as Yeoman Rand.  Uhura gets a little extra screen time, bantering with Spock about his logical Vulcan approach to life (and death).  To audiences in 1966 that hadn't really seen many strong black leaders on television before, it highlighted Lt. Uhura as a senior officer on the bridge!

The episode takes place on planet M-113 and the Enterprise is tasked with doing a routine check-in with an archaeologist and his wife--Nancy Crater, an old flame of Dr. McCoy's.  Instead, the crew comes under attack from a shape-shifting creature that wants to drain them of their salt to survive! 

With the first of 726 episodes (so far) in the franchise, Star Trek proves out of the gate it's a new, more adult science fiction.  The series even got 2 Emmy nominations for best Dramatic Series, and 3 nominations for Leonard Nimoy during its 3 year run.  What does that tell you about the quality of the show--and its message?

While we might have to wait years for more quality Star Trek on television or at the movies, we can at least look back at where it all started, drink a little Saurian brandy and continue to boldly go where no man has gone before.

*Photos from trekcore.com