Star Trek: The Original Series - "Errand of Mercy" Full Reaction!
Added 2024-01-06 18:00:08 +0000 UTCWatch along with your own copy of the episode by syncing up with me!
Comments
Kor is the basis for how the Klingons are portrayed, his makeup, his manner even the sash he wears, not sure how much you know of TNG but the head makeup was made to make them more alien
Michael Matthews
2024-10-26 17:50:09 +0000 UTCYeah, this is an all-around great episode. Well-written and well-acted. For me the climax moment is when Ayelborne asks Kirk, "Is that what you are defending?" There are so very few "good wars" and even then it's been when one side is truly, truly evil. I love the Organian attitude, "Nothing has changed. We are in no danger." Today people get worked up and think it's the end if the world if a politician we don't like gets elected. Humans are silly, silly people. Hey, one thing that is interesting for me is as I rewatch every episode with you I am seeing many of the CGI remastered versions for the first time. They've done a really goid job with that. The effects are certainly better and less cheesy, but they are non-intrusive to the stories or flow. Perhaps one of the worst consequences of the original strained budget was the constant re-use of the same footage. The same handful of views of the Enterprise, 90% of the "orbit" photos were always the same brown planet, and so much was never shown at all. For example, in this original episode there were NO space battle scenes. The look of the Klingon ships hadn't even been established yet. It really adds to the visual interest when we can see the ships getting closer and getting destroyed versus just seeing shots of Sulu saying, "here he comes" or "we got 'em alright."
John DiGiantomasso
2024-08-31 05:54:54 +0000 UTCIf I'm to continue to hold up Balance of Terror as the exemplar of my own personal top tier, I don't know that I'd quite put this one along side but not much more than a pip below it. Really great episode. Not exactly filled with action, outside of our raid on the munitions dump (big boom 💥!) and a little hand to hand, but more of a simmering stress that ends up working really well. The actors playing the Organians do such a great job pulling off the ubiquitously friend yet slightly unnerving vibe. Others have pointed out the political parallels of the time so I won't expand on that other than to say I very much enjoy it for the biting critique of imperialism that it is. Back when I was getting into TNG as a kid I remember asking my dad about the Klingon makeup and his answer was something like "Yeah it was the 60s and now they're able to do more stuff with TNG so they did" lol A very pragmatic "yeah that's tv for ya" sort of answer. I always took that to heart as way to explain inaccuracies and retcons. Some later iterations of Trek make an attempt at an in-universe explanation but I've been very comfortable with "the writers had a vision/story they wanted to tell and with such an expansive world sometimes you have to adjust some things along the way" That's all I can think of for now, B, so I'll just say see you in the next one! 🖖
Absolute0
2024-01-08 23:12:45 +0000 UTCStar Trek ToS had a lot of political commentary. And as you may or may not gave guessed, the Klingons were an allegory for the Soviet Union. To say that the Federation (USA) and the Klingons (Russia) would be friends in the future was radical for the time, but thankfully it turned out to be true (for a little while, at least lol.) So I think Organia was intended to represent whatever country the Soviet Union may have been invading at the time. (ie. Bulgaria). Kirk actually mentions that country by name in the episode.
SuicuneSol
2024-01-06 23:49:59 +0000 UTCI'll be waiting!!!
bunnytails
2024-01-06 22:48:43 +0000 UTCAs in "A Taste of Armageddon," in which Ambassador Fox somehow beams down to the planet despite Scotty's refusal to lower the shields, we discover once again that writer/producer Gene Coon was not above bending the story's internal logic in order to move the episode along. If it was necessary to have automatic deflectors in order to protect the Enterprise from a surprise attack, then that's what happened. It also served to speed up the plot, the goal of any experienced television writer.
Lee
2024-01-06 21:23:07 +0000 UTCThe statement that the Organians made at the end when they said that in the future the Federation and the Klingons would become friends and work together is a theme that the Next Generation picked up when that show was being developed.
George Taylor
2024-01-06 20:44:13 +0000 UTCThis one is a top episode for me. In fact, I think it even makes my Top 10. There's plenty of holes in the episode, but it's fun, action paced, moves at a great clip, and has some great acting in it, so that you don't care and are just here for the ride. Yes, this is the first time the Klingons are introduced. And yes, they look VERY different in later movies and shows. The original idea for the Klingons was to make them look like they do in future shows, but Star Trek didn't have the budget for that, so they did what they could. Michael Dorn, who played Worf in Next Generation and Deep Space Nine, said in interviews it would take 3-4 hours for the make up crew to get him ready for filming due to HOW MUCH work was done on him, so it's understandable that with the original series and their shoe string budget that wasn't possible. John Colicos played Kor, the Klingon Commander, and did a great job in it. He was a seasoned movie and TV show actor, and many years later he would return to play a much older Kor in three episodes of Deep Space Nine. The biggest 'hum' moment for me is the very start, when the Enterprise is suddenly attacked by a Klingon cruiser and the shields (called screens here) snap on automatically by themselves just before the attack. As you know from Wrath of Khan, that's NOT a thing that happens later on -- in fact, this is the only place you see it. It seems like a case of a writer trying to make a plot point work and not looking at what had been 'established' already for Star Trek lore. But as we've said, in the first season, there was no Bible for anyone to go by, and people would make things up as they needed to. The Organians are a fun concept and a very interesting idea, and you figured it out before I did upon first seeing this episode as a kid. The last half of the first season has some of my favorite episodes -- since I know you finished watching all of them I can say that. LOL
Greg Polander
2024-01-06 20:32:48 +0000 UTCI'm very interested to see your reaction to this one, especially since it starts to lay the groundwork for the greater "politics" of the STUniverse, similar to Balance of Terror. I'm not able to watch it quite yet but I'll try and pop back in later with some commentary. Although goodness knows I've said that before, with mixed results 😆
Preaching to the Horse's Mouth
2024-01-06 19:53:39 +0000 UTC
