Thursday, July 21, 2016

17 to 01: Let That Be Your Last Battlefield


This one is political. It's not really funny. It's just not. I'm proud of it though. We laughed at a few things, but it might not be as entertaining 'cause Derek and I kinda get on one of our "two liberals agreein' with each other" grooves. 

If you don't wanna hear it, I suggest reading up on those times from sources then and sources now. Star Trek--at its best--runs parallel to the American culture its spawned from and it gets real close to the source in "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield."

It's a great episode.

17 to 01 is available on iTunes. It updates Thursday mornings at 2:00 AM ET / 1:00 CT. We're also amazingly on Stitcher.

4 comments:

SkilTao said...

Liked the historical context, though I've nothing to add or commentate there.

This season does have a few high-concept eps to make up for its extreme-low-budget scripts. Neat that we get to see both sides of that here.

The Enterprise's mission is to seek out new life and new civilizations, so when Kirk claimed to have no protocols for extraditing Lokai in the absence of treaty, it took me a bit to realize it's mainly an excuse to put Bele in his place and to pass the buck to StarBase.

Good point about the main cast being sidelined plotwise to prevent them from taking sides in the conflict. I'd bet the parallel between Loki sacrificing followers in the fight for self-determination and Kirk's bid to sacrifice his ship to preserve self-determination is a deliberate substitute for more overt sympathy.

If Bele is the Riddler, then Lokai is what Batman becomes after a thousand years under Mayor Two-Face? Or is that vice-versa.

VanVelding said...

That's a good point. Starfleet should have some protocols for that kind of thing.

Bele as the Riddler fits. The Riddler has to be a fairly orderly character; there's a rigid logic to what he does, right down to his pathological obsession to help Batman defeat him.

The strongest counterpoint to that would be a version of The Joker whose charisma and anarchic plans involving everyone's deaths--which are always just not-anarchic enough to not involve The Joker dying--are turned to issues of justice after Batman's death. Even his prodding about the hypocrisies of Starfleet justice are in The Joker's idiom.

SkilTao said...

Joker vs Riddler would be perfect. Toss in Harley sidekicking for Batman in Barbara's costume, and we've almost got a movie.

VanVelding said...

That totally should've happened the last time Batman was dead.

Guess we'll have to wait until the next time Batman is dead.