The Good: Basic idea is marginally clever, Moments of performance
The Bad: No character development, Dull as dirt b-plot, Baffling sensibility, Context in the series
The Basics: When Kirk goes missing and finds himself on a duplicate Enterprise devoid of people, Spock looks for him and the audience gets bored.
Every now and then, episodic television gets itself into a serious problem; it makes anyone who looks at the body of work step back and realize that the overall story does not work. Because episodic television essentially restarts with each episode and there is no continuing storyline, every writer and director who contributes brings their own ideas to the project. The result is sometimes brilliant, but more often than not, the simplest, one-trick pony idea can completely gut the big picture of a television series. "The Mark Of Gideon" does that for Star Trek.
The U.S.S. Enterprise arrives at Gideon, a reclusive planet that is suffering from massive overpopulation. The ruling council of Gideon requests that Captain Kirk beam down to their planet and soon thereafter, they contact the Enterprise to repeat their request. The problem is that Kirk beamed down from the Enterprise, but materialized on the Enterprise! He finds himself alone aboard his starship, baffled at the lack of a crew. Searching the ship, he finds Odona, a naive young woman who does not understand where she is. She and Kirk work to figure out what happened to Kirk's crew, getting closer in the process. Meanwhile, Spock, Scotty and McCoy desperately try to locate the captain without violating the sanctity of Gideon's planetary laws. At the mercy of the ruling council of Gideon, Spock tries his hand at diplomacy.
Evaluating this episode becomes virtually impossible without discussing what the episode is actually about. If you want to be surprised but have a review that is not terribly helpful for making the decision of whether or not to pick up this episode, then the review has to end here. For everyone else . . .
Getting Kirk and Odona together is the whole point of this episode and it is a machination orchestrated by the Gideon Ruling Council for one reason. Kudos to the Council for knowing how easily Kirk will get with a hot blonde! Kudos as well for them knowing that he is a carrier of Vegan choriomenengitis, a lethal disease that the Federation can cure. As a carrier, though, Kirk is still able to spread the disease. Yes, here we learn that our man Kirk has an STD. Kinda' takes the heroism out of him and his casual sex, doesn't it?
But wait! (I hear you cry) Doesn't that mean . . . Yes, Kirk is happily spreading a lethal STD every time he has sex. Now, this is episode 72 and if we assume that Kirk practices safe sex whenever possible and that StarFleet officers he's had sex with over the years were inoculated instantly after their encounters (or protected from it to begin with, sensitive guy that Kirk is) that still leaves a pretty sizable population that Kirk must have infected before now. After all, in "Bread And Circuses," he is stripped of all his belongings before he hooks up with Drusilla, if he and Edith Keeler actually got that far it becomes even more essential she died, and just a few episodes ago, poor Deela was trying to use Kirk to repopulate her people in "Wink Of An Eye" (click here for that review)! Did Kirk really stick it to her?! But Kirk being a bearer of a lethal STD is most problematic in "The Paradise Syndrome" (click here for that review!) where Kirk impregnated Miramanee. Witnessing just how fast the disease has an effect on Odona in this episode, it's inconceivable that Miramanee would have survived the months she did!
This is why I hate episodic television.
Interestingly enough, the only woman Kirk has a relationship with after this one (and it's not sexual) in the series is a robot, so maybe this was his wake-up call.
The tremendously bad idea that sold this episode looks ridiculous in the context of Star Trek. Had it been a less promiscuous character, it would have been fine. Scotty, for example, or Uhura would have been better choices. Heck, Chekov has only been with one woman in the series at this point and she disappeared abruptly after one episode, so he would have been a great candidate for it. "Mark Of Gideon" fails because Star Trek is obsessively devoted to telling stories about Captain Kirk or Mr. Spock.
The further problem is that there's no character development for a large portion of the episode. Captain Kirk wanders the empty Enterprise and nothing happens. As soon as he and Odona meet, after a brief period of suspicion, he's all about giving her comfort . . . which is more within the bounds of his established character than actual character growth.
The b-plot with Spock is closer to growth, though the growth does not occur within this episode. Spock and Scotty present several painful scenes where they try to negotiate with the Gideon Council to try to find out what happened to Captain Kirk and where he ended up. Unfortunately for all concerned parties, Spock is met with diplomatic double-talk and a series of complex negotiations while the Gideons stall, conduct their own investigation and evoke their sovereign rights to keep intruders off their soil. Spock and Scotty end these exchanges with many frustrated words about diplomats and all they (usually do not) do. For a man of logic, Spock openly criticizing the diplomatic process is problematic at best, but it establishes a clear viewpoint for him. His character, therefore, grows when he is represented in Star Trek: The Next Generation as an ambassador in "Unification, Part II." But here, Spock and Scotty just complain.
And it's tiring to watch. Kirk wanders, Scotty and Spock are stonewalled, they complain, Kirk finds Odona and gets angry, Scotty and Spock are stonewalled, they complain, Kirk has sex with Odona (nothing terribly explicit, folks), Scotty and Spock are stonewalled, they complain, Odona begins to die, Scotty and Spock are stonewalled, they complain, Odona's still dying, Scotty and Spock are stonewalled, they complain, Odona's near death . . .
Yup, this is one of Star Trek's worst one-trick ponies and it seems like the cast and crew new it. Sure, it's not a bad mind that came up with, "What if a planet was so overpopulated that it needed STDs?!" But the answer is far from satisfying and given how painfully Odona seems to be dying, it seems especially cruel. But basically, once one knows that the whole point is for Kirk to infect Odona, the episode is just a long wait to the end. It's unbearable to watch a second time.
As a result, Nimoy plays Spock as uncharacteristically bored. Nimoy forgets to act with Vulcan cool and foregoes it for a presentation of his own apathy toward the story. Similarly, Shatner brings nothing special to his performance of Kirk either alone or with Odona. When Shatner phones it in, it shows and his performance is particularly lackluster.
Only Sharon Acker gives a good showing as Odona. She is young and enthusiastic and she brings those qualities to bear as the young woman sent to seduce Kirk. She is convincing as someone who seems to have no memory and she plays her delight at being able to roam the corridors of the Enterprise with startling realism. As well, she plays the portrayal of dying painfully in a way that is uncomfortable to watch. Yes, Acker's performance stands out and she truly shines.
But the one good idea and the one good performance are not enough to sell this episode that suffers dramatically from dragging out a story that is so simple it could have been a ten minute short film to get the point across. And there is something troubling about a series willing to make the rest of the episodes disturbingly messy as a result of simply creating one story!
[Knowing that VHS is essentially a dead medium, it's worth looking into Star Trek - The Complete Third Season on DVD, which is also a better economical choice than buying the VHS. Read my review of the third and final season by clicking here!
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4.5/10
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© 2010, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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