Overdue Star Trek review: Whom Gods Destroy

Kirk and Spock are held captive on a penal colony planet when the inmates take over the asylum. Adding to the drama is the main inmate is a shape-shifter.

This episode has two problems, one minor, one major. The minor problem is the show did this plot already. Serious? They have the entire galaxy to explore, not to mention countless allegory plots about the human condition, and they were running out of ideas by the third season?

The major problem is everything the writers knew about mental illness was learned from watching "Arsenic and Old Lace." The difference is Star Trek had the decency to play mental illness as a drama instead of "Arsenic" which played mental illness as a laugh-riot!

I'm talking about the whole delusions of grandeur trope. Shorthand for mental illness in pre-70s was to put a Napolean hat on someone. Instant crazy! "Arsenic" did this by making a character think he was Theodore Roosevelt, "Whom Gods Destroy" did it by making Garth think he was Lord commander of the universe.

The other disturbing thing was the other inmates passing time by doing wheelbarrow races. It's as if the writers were thinking that the insane extras had to do something, hmm, what do the mentally ill do, yeah! they do wheelbarrow races! This of course comes off as awful, insensitive and really amateurish.

We really don't portray mental illness like this anymore.

This is a pity, if the writers had done actual research, a real story about real mental illness could have been made. The viewers could have actually learned something. Star Trek classic took on the Vietnam war, it could have taken on mental illness.

Some good points. I never tire of two William Shatners wrestling each other. Star Trek 6 would steal this 25 years later for a hilarious moment.  Yvonne Craig was beautiful and sexy and back in the 60s always got saddled with the girlfriend-of-the-week roles, though she deserved better. On the other hand what's not to like about her as an Orion slave girl? And speaking of Orion slave girls, the episode used a bunch of formerly introduced alien races; this might have been a cost-saving maneuver, but it perhaps unintentionally brought some uniformity to the ST universe.

One technical point: The Star Trek classic reruns shown now are the special-effects enhanced episodes where, for the most part, all the model starships have been replaced by CGI ships. That being said, the scene where the Enterprise is firing photon torpedoes at the Klingon ship should be awesome. It's not. It's only slightly better than the original effect. Further, they missed an opportunity to CGI the scenes where Garth is shapeshifting instead of leaving in the cheesy '60s effect. Speaking of Star Trek VI, the shapeshifter in that film changed form while talking, how cool is that?

Blasphemy: How "The Wrath of Khan's" centerpiece showdown could have been better

I don't have to tell the Trekkies among us that the scene where Khan ambushes Kirk in "Wrath of Khan" is the most exciting, suspenseful and hands-down the best sequence in any "Star Trek" film even to this day.

Every "Star Trek" film since then has tried to insert a mid-film showdown similar to the Khan sequence. And it's never as good.

They even tried to remake the whole film with Benedict Cumberbatch playing Khan.

I remember sitting in the theater on opening night. As the sequence unfolded I was dumbstruck. "The Enterprise is done! Kirk's going to beam over and Khan's going to kill him! And then he'll blow up the Enterprise just for laughs!" My mind was racing all over the possibilities, I had no idea how Kirk would get out of this.

We've seen this a million times. There's always a bad guy holding a gun over James Bond, and you think, "ehh, he'll throw sand in his eyes, he'll kick him in the shin, the love-interest will shoot the villain from behind." I've never thought James Bond was ever in real peril.

But this was the first time the villain was pointing a gun (or phasers) at a hobbled hero and I thought, "Crap! The movie is over!"

But then ... Kirk calls up the Reliant's command code, and orders the Reliant to lower its shields. The imperious Khan is suddenly stunned and clueless, and the audience gets this amazing release when The Enterprise starts firing on the now-defenseless Reliant (the audience opening night was cheering!)

(not to mention that for everyone in the audience, this sequence  more than made up for the dull, listless "Star Trek: The Motion Picture").

Brilliant!

But could the sequence have been better?

Yes, and it would have been easy and made more sense.

While delaying Khan, Kirk asks Saavik for the command code for the Reliant. Saavik is confused, "Command code?"

Kirk then explains to her (and the audience) that every Starfleet ship has a command code "to keep an enemy from doing what we're about to attempt."

Oh, OK, that makes sense. Even in 1982, we had computer passwords to prevent hacking, so this wasn't an especially new concept. It had really never been introduced in the TV series.

But, why was this concept introduced as the sequence is progressing? It would have been super easy, and more enjoyable if the concept was explained at the beginning of the film.

Think about it, in the beginning, while Enterprise was in space dock, the Starfleet air traffic controller could have easily said, "Should I use your command code to steer you out of dry dock?" and Saavik would have said, "No thank you, I don't like handing over control of the comm," then the film would continue where Kirk looks shocked and Bones offers him a sedative.

And the audience would have enjoyed the scene, not realizing they were being set up for the big action sequence an hour later. And when the sequence unfolds, there would be no need for exposition.

Think of the CAT ekto-skeleton in "Aliens." James Cameron didn't introduce that thing at the end of the movie when Ripley needed it to defeat the Alien, he introduced it at the beginning, and turned it into a red herring by convincing the audience that the CAT's only purpose was to show that Ripley was a badass in front of a male chauvinist. It worked for me, and everyone else in the audience. Meanwhile, we learned it existed and how it worked early on.

What do you think?