[For the purposes of this experiment, replace DR. ADAMS with THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION, KIRK with VOTER IN AMERICAN HEARTLAND, HELEN with AMERICAN INTEGRITY, and "Enterprise" with DETERMINATION TO TAKE BACK WASHINGTON.]
DR. ADAMS: “Now Captain Kirk is going to have a complete demonstration. I want there to be no doubts whatever in his mind.”
KIRK: “Mmmmm.”
DR. ADAMS: “You’re madly in love with Helen, Captain. You’d lie, cheat, steal for her, sacrifice your career, your reputation.”
HELEN: “No, Doctor! No!”
DR. ADAMS: “The pain — do you feel it, Captain? You must have her, or the pain grows worse, the pain, the longing for her.”
KIRK: “Helen.”
DR. ADAMS: “For years, you’ve loved her, Captain, for years.”
KIRK: “For years, I’ve loved you.”
DR. ADAMS: “You must continue to remember that, Captain. And now…she’s gone.”
[The mind machine is turned up to a dizzying level.]
KIRK: “Helen! Helen, don’t go! I need you, Helen!”
DR. ADAMS: “Now, Captain…you must take your phaser weapon and drop it to the floor. Captain, the pain increases unless you obey me.”
KIRK: “I…must…drop it.”
[KIRK drops phaser.]
DR. ADAMS: “Very good, Captain. Very good indeed. And now your communicator. Drop it to the floor.”
[KIRK desperately flips open communicator.]
KIRK: “Kirk to Enterprise.”
[The mind machine is amped up further.]
KIRK: “Uhhhhhhhhhh! Kirk…to…Enterprise. Ahhhhhhhh!”
HELEN: [shrieking] “No!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
[KIRK laughs maniacally in pain/torture/confusion, as camera fades out to commercial break.]
The Call by Yannick Murphy: The always interesting author of Here They Come and Signed, Mata Hari returns with a novel that whips up a worldview from a rather quirky set of limitations: namely, the call logs that a veterinarian maintains as his son is unexpectedly put into a coma and an unforgiving economy denies him work. What emerges is a surprisingly optimistic, often funny, and very moving account on how one family uses acceptance and forgiveness as a way to atone for hard knocks. (
Birds of Paradise by Diana Abu-Jaber: Forget Franzen and Eugenides. If you're looking for a social novel that counts, Diana Abu-Jaber is the author you're looking for. Building from the free-form exploration of consciousness and identity in Crescent and the gripping procedural structure of Origin, Abu-Jaber's latest novel is her finest, equally fluent with gutterpunk culture and smarmy real estate men. It has been suggested by The Washington Post's Ron Charles that you will likely gain some pounds while reading this novel. This is certainly true. Abu-Jaber's description of food is so precise that it often made me want to do more cooking. But I very much admired the way in which Abu-Jaber presents all her characters as unwitting victims of rough capitalism, which permits them some dignity even as they perform terrible acts.
The Last of the Live Nude Girls by Sheila McClear: This memoir isn't so much about the decline of the Times Square peepshow, as it is about one young woman's efforts to pull herself up by by her bootstraps when presented with few economic options. Filled with self-introspective candor and a quiet dignity, McClear's story is one that might befall any of us in these volatile times. While McClear does get back on her feet, her book leads one contemplating the terrible fates of other young women now moving to New York and falling into deadlier vocations. (
So true. Beam us the fuck out of there/here.
I can’t remember–does Kirk ever get inside Helen’s tunic in this episode? Certainly, we know “Shagner” banged every yeoman actress from here to Rigel 7.
Beck: Oh, it’s even better than that. This little exchange comes AFTER Helen had used the machine to implant a memory in Kirk’s head that she was swept off her feet by Kirk and taken to his cabin at a Christmas party! So in this case, it was the hot brainy officer who took the initiative, which keeps the allegory true to current standards.
Hey, if Trekkies can maintain the whole Klingons as Soviet Union allegory, we can keep up this allegory, no?
So timely, what with the release of Trekkies 2 coming up – watch for Mickie in this upcoming documentary. And brilliant. An utterly brilliant entry. We need more like this.
When are you going to review “Medicine Man” and “Road House”?
Fantastic.
That Dr. Adams was very hot.
There might be another swell allegory for Amer. in 2004 in the TOS. It’s been on my mind since I read yours. It’s the ep. where superpeople hijack the Enterprise. They need to go back to Kelvin. And the material that makes up the bars on the planet where the crew is imprisioned is “similar to diburnium.” Anyway, Kurt has a discussion with an amazing blonde he is only hitting on to make the leaders of the Kelvin’s jealous. She has been ‘reading through human lit.” and learning that humans put a lot of “emphasis on love” in their lit. She asks why we devote many pages to a “simple biological function!” And Kurt is all, “well, we enjoy it.”