75. Requiem for MethuselahFORMULA: What Are Little Girls Made Of? + Elaan of Troyius + Plato's Stepchildren + Catspaw + The Squire of Gothos + ½ a NOMAD
WHY WE LIKE IT: The mystery surrounding Flint is interesting and well played by James Daly.
WHY WE DON'T: Kirk is positively loopy in this one. His love for Rayna just isn't credible.
REVIEW: Hey, I'm a big fan of NOMAD, as you know, but seeing him cannibalized to make M-4 isn't enough to make me recommend an episode. Now, Requiem for Methuselah has some severe problems, not the least of which is that there is no explanation for why a human being from Antiquity would be immortal, or how some of the greatest figures of history could really be the same man, the core of that story works. Flint is an immortal who has grown so lonely that he wishes to create an equally immortal android to keep him company. James Daly plays Flint's plight believably and with assurance. And Rayna (mispelled Reena in the credits, tsk, tsk) is a compelling young woman as well.
It's therefore too bad that the episode was so badly written. Its main problem is that there's no reason for Kirk to fall so deeply in love with Rayna. None. The entire crew is dying from a plague and he's that preoccupied with a girl? Don't forget that the episode takes place in the span of only a couple of hours if McCoy's deadline is to be believed (and he seems to forget about that too, at times). Kirk is so distraught over the loss of this 2-hour-long love that Spock makes him forget his pain with a telepathic touch. This would have been a good and sensitive moment after Elaan of Troyius, for example, but here, it's wasted. I don't even see why Kirk would be taken with Rayna when the first words out of her mouth is technobabble meant for Mr. Spock. All this passion for a physical connection? The whole thing is dreadful, over-played and out of character!
Spock isn't much more than a chorus in this episode, suddenly quite the expert on emotions (he's even poetic about affairs of love), on art, on music, anything the script needs him to comment on, in fact. Why he has to explain the plot even to Flint at the end is a mystery. Speaking of deus ex machinae, the pat resolution as related by McCoy (who does get a good speech about Spock never knowing love here) is a rather boring reset button. "Yeah, turns out Flint isn't immortal anymore, and he's gonna play nice." I hate being told things instead of being shown them.
There are other problems: The magical way in which Flint turns the Enterprise into an advert for a model kit (wasn't it enough that he was immortal, super-strong and super-intelligent?); the shaky camera work; the dull and over-long dancing scene... But that's all par for the course, it seems, in the series' final death throes.
LESSON: History can be summed up into a single, complete biography of Flint. I need that book.
REWATCHABILITY - Medium: Watch it for Flint and Rayna and their story. Try to ignore Captain Kirk's out-of-character behaviour (if you can). Pretty much on autopilot.
Comments
I was reading in Wizard one time that Daredevil had been revamped in the early 90's due to poor sales. They were selling 80 000 copies a month which made it a in the lower percentile in the top 100 comics. Today 80 000 copies is considered a best seller!
I miss the comic book racks at every store. I miss the newspaper print it was made out of. I miss the one comic storyline. I miss buying a comic with pocket change. I miss the Robert Bell and 100 000 Comix ads. I miss the covers that had dialogue. Hell! I miss the comic book period.
I admit though that because they tend to write for a more mature audience now I probably wouldn't buy any today, much like I haven't bought an Archie comic in ages.
Kids today don't really buy comics anymore and that's sad. Nobody ever said or proved that comics led to obesity in kids. Man are kids spoiled today. I've never owned a video game console and I got by first Walkman as a Xmas gift when I was 12. It's not because my parents couldn't afford it, they're from the old school where if you don't need it then it's a waste of money. Nowadays kids have all of this plus a cell phone. Come on parents wake up!
No, but they've said that comics are violent, disrespectful, and cause children to rebel against society and become gay. And I'll bet they've probably said that they make kids fat too, at some time or other. They won't have proved it, but then they've never proved that video games make you fat, beyond the obvious "sitting still rather than running around is likely to make you fatter if you consume the same amount", which applies to the sedentry activity of reading comics as much as anything else.
Anyway, if we followed the "if you don't need it it's a waste of money" argument, no-one would ever by comics. Who NEEDS to read all about Wonder Woman's new costume, or how DC has rebooted continuity again, or how many times Wolverine can appear in different comics in one month?
(See, this is what happens when I trawl through your archives. I start arguments with 3 year old posts.)