I Am Not Herbert
In which we are headin' out to eden
Welcome to Star Trekking, my attempt to share points of interest and random intersections in the final frontier.
As a kid, watching reruns of Star Trek after school, my friend Ronnie and I decided, quite logically, that we should PLAY Star Trek. One of our primary methods of play utilized 12” GI Joes and other similarly scaled toys (Ronnie’s sister’s Barbies became Penny and Judy Robinson when we played Lost in Space).
All well and good if you’re dealing with, well, humans. A couple GI Joes for Captain Kirk and Dr. McCoy, a Cub Scout pocket knife to carve points into the ears of another and, bingo, there’s our heroes. But what about the REAL aliens.
Well, my first thought was, again, to do something to the ears. But something temporary, so the figure could become an all purpose antagonist. Change out the ears and hat and outfit and he’s a whole new alien. And my inspiration was not Mr. Spock. It was Dr. Sevrin.
I cut out odd shapes from paper and, with a little loop of scotch tape, attached them onto Sam Cobra, turning him into a whole new villain.
I guess what I’m saying is that The Way to Eden lodged itself deeeeeeeep into my brain as a young impressionable child. So when Scott Mantz asked me to appear on the podcast he does with Steve Morris, Enterprise Incidents, to talk about the space hippies episode, well, brother, I thought the idea was REAL NOW.
Scott and Steve take TOS seriously and are taking deep dives into each of the original episodes. They’re going through the series in production order and each podcast covers an episode scene-by-scene, commenting and highlighting what happens, bringing in historical asides and influences, and trying to identify the through-lines. TOS was a product of its time - that is, not serialized, not telling an overarching multi-season story, not even creating season-long arcs. And yet, by examining episodes in close detail they begin to spot character traits and arcs that maybe do show growth and movement of the characters over the course of the series. The podcast is well worth listening to, even (especially?) on episodes that aren’t your favorite. My friend Laurie Ulster guest starred on their look at Day of the Dove, and she recommended me to Scott and Steve as someone who might enjoy talking about The Way to Eden. And that I did. I had as much fun as anyone can have talking about Star Trek for two hours. And I think I managed to bring out some connections Scott and Steve might not have picked out on their own.
Do listen to the podcast when you get a chance.
1) APPLE: https://podcasts.apple.com/.../enterprise.../id1559296756
2) SPOTIFY:
3) GOOGLE: https://podcasts.google.com/.../aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vc...
And let me know what you think, Herbert!
Ahem.
I want this shirt except Captain Kirk instead of that football player.
Still my favorite reaction pic, found on Twitter or FB itself a few years back.
Until next time, remember -
The human adventure is just beginning.
I listened to the podcast on Sunday. Great show!
I wish I could do this—deep dive into something and connect it to other works—or that you'd do it for a movie I loved 😉. The best I can do is discuss a theme in the same movie or across many and leave it at that.