Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Simple Possession Makes "The Lights Of Zetar" Reek Near The Bottom End Of "Star Trek!"



The Good: Not a completely terrible idea...
The Bad: Overdone concept, Mediocre acting, Nothing stellar in the character category, Mediocre effects
The Basics: When Scotty gets a crush on an officer from the Science division, he has to tell her how to act when she becomes possessed by killer lights bent on survival.


It seems appropriate that I have the Massive Attack song "Possession" lodged in my head on repeat play as I sit down this afternoon to write my daily allotment of reviews. I'm sitting down to write a review of "The Lights Of Zetar," which is pretty much a standard possession story in the Star Trek franchise and what makes it less common than its plot is its execution; this is the last of three episodes where Scotty gets the love interest! Having struck out with women before (one pals around with a god, the other gets killed pretty much right away) Scotty being attracted to a woman, in this case Lt. Mira Romaine, comes as a nice chance for him to get some airtime and attention.

Scotty, having fallen head over heals in love with Lt. Mira Romaine, is working at a slightly diminished capacity and Captain Kirk has begun to notice his uncharacteristic inefficiency, though he takes it in stride. Kirk's flexibility on the matter changes when the Federation central library on Memory Alpha is attacked by a cloud of deadly lights, which Spock soon figures out are sentient. Romaine, having had a vision of the deaths on Memory Alpha, confides in Scotty, who advises her to keep quiet about it. Knowing that space sickness or other mental illnesses that result in it are grounds for dismissal from StarFleet, Romaine concedes and her silence works out fine until the Enterprise encounters the killer lights again and when they use the ship's weapons on them, Romaine is injured. It is not long before the lights have entered Romaine and taken her over, leaving Scotty with the difficult choice of whether or not to sacrifice his young love for the lives of the others the creatures will no doubt kill in the future!

Fortunately for Scotty, the attention he gets in the episode is merely a pretense, window dressing for Captain Kirk to step in and be heroic. In other words, when the chips are down and the big decisions need to be made, Kirk will be the one to make them. After all, it is his (mostly) show. It is that type of typical aspect that drags down "The Lights Of Zetar."

Yes, in many ways, it is a very typical possession story and the Star Trek franchise is full of them, usually executing them too early in the series to be fully appreciated. Star Trek had already dealt with noncorporeal possessions in "Return To Tomorrow" and the franchise would make a standard of possession stories, always including them early in the spin-offs, as it did with Star Trek: The Next Generation's "Lonely Among Us," Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's "Dramatis Personae" and Star Trek: Voyager's "Cathexis." And if none of those episode titles sound terribly familiar, there's a reason for it; none of those episodes are in the shining stars of the Star Trek pantheon. Why? Usually, they hinge on some form of reversal to determine who is possessed and why, but mostly because the concept has been done before. To death!

In some ways, then, it is refreshing to sit and watch "The Lights Of Zetar" now, after other movies, television shows and Star Trek episodes have beaten the dead horse and expected fans to get excited or intrigued by a possession story. "The Lights Of Zetar" does not even put up the attempt at being clever or mysterious or even interesting. Almost immediately, viewers come to realize that Lt. Romaine is not quite right and that what is effecting her is not just space sickness.

But on that subject . . . "The Lights Of Zetar" seems dated in the worst possible ways in the relationship between Scotty and Lt. Romaine. When Romaine begins to succumb to the possession, Scotty plays the old "it's just in your head" card, a pretty insulting bit of archaic nonsense that has plagued women for centuries; the idea that men know what the woman needs or is going through more than they do. Moreover, Romaine plays right into it, with the idea that she does not want to reinforce the feminine stereotypes of being weaker or less in control than the local men, which has an effect opposite her desired one. By letting Scotty convince her with his "you don't want to seem crazy, now do you, woman?" line of logic, she illustrates the standard prejudice that women need a man to tell them how to act.

Sometimes, it is not until we look at something objectively before we realize how very much we dislike it, but the truth is the character elements in this episode are positively ridiculous! Sure, Scotty exhibits a lust for Lt. Romaine, a stated love that later gives him the moral authority to speak for her and make decisions regarding her well-being, though there's no genuine basis for that sudden level of control.

As a result, Scotty comes across as something of a jerk in "The Lights Of Zetar," even if he does not intend to.

The other problem with "The Lights Of Zetar" is that the episode misapplies humor. Beginning with lighthearted notions that Scotty is in love and the Captain is pleased by this, the episode takes a turn for the dark when the citizens working on Memory Alpha are killed. It's hard to play the episode with humor and any sense of goofy after that, but the episode tacks in that direction. In fact, this is one of those episodes where it ends with a little upbeat whimsical Kirk moment and it guts any emotional intensity of the plot conflict.

What does that even more is the performance of Jan Shutan as Lt. Mira Romaine. Shutan is wonderfully coy and flirtatious when the episode opens, playing off James Doohan quite well. Indeed, there are moments that Doohan seems unusually still with Shutan and it is the guest actress who saves the early scenes. But when possessed, Shutan becomes the archetypal science fiction/horror b-movie actress. She exhibits fear with wide-eyed melodramatic shock, she portrays possession as wide-eyed and crazy and she plays tormented as wide-eyed and pained. Yup, you've guessed it, the problem here is that the varied emotions and ideas are all being portrayed using the same terrible and obvious technique. There are only so many times that the camera can rush in on Shutan who is prying her eyes open for effect and the viewer will be convinced and/or care. Her performance goes from passable to pathetic.

In a similar vein, James Doohan opens the episode stiff with a hammy smile engulfing his face, but he never convinces us that Scotty is at all an emotionally connected guy in this episode. Indeed, his stated level of desire and emotion does not match his expression. I'm not saying that Doohan should have played Scotty as over-the-top in love, but some of his deliveries where he expressed his feelings for Shutan's character come out as robotic. Sadly, Doohan seems most at ease with his performance when he is being patronizing in regards to Mira's visions.

As a result, we have an episode that is at best a science fiction standard, at worst a sexist diatribe whose big accomplishment in the Star Trek pantheon is getting another use out of the decompression chamber that was last seen in "Space Seed." It's impossible to recommend this episode to fans of drama in general and science fiction or horror fans are likely to be more turned off by the camp value of this episode than entertained by it. It's one of the few episodes of Star Trek that is entirely skippable; fans will not miss out by not partaking of this adventure!

[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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3.5/10

For other Star Trek episode reviews, please check out my index page by clicking here!

© 2008, 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.


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