While the idea of cultivating an alien virus on a particular planet makes sense within the plot and themes of the episode, it also seems rather indirect for the Organians considering what is at stake. At the climax of Errand of Mercy, the Organians are able to prevent Starfleet and the Klingon Empire from going to war by making their weapons literally too hot to handle. It also seems a rather indirect application of their powers.
This seems quite malicious for a species so eager to avoid bloodshed in Errand of Mercy. A Klingon ship blew up a contaminated shuttlepod to prevent infection. Sometimes entire ships are lost, sometimes just a handful of crewmembers. Alien species land on the planet featured in the episode, become infected with a native virus, and then the Organians watch what happens to determine if the aliens are acceptable to them. In Observer Effect, it is revealed that the Organians are staging an elaborate and sadistic test to determine whether species are worthy of first contact. More than that, their behaviour and purpose in Observer Effect is hard to fit within the template established by Errand of Mercy.
#Alien apple warp strain full#
The budget restrictions imposed on Observer Effect force the two Organians to hop between the bodies of various crew members, which is something quite distinct from their behaviour in Errand of Mercy, unless they’ve been keeping a village full of dead bodies around just in case. This is true on both a superficial level and a broader level.
The Organians in Errand of Mercy bend over backwards in order to avoid any bloodshed on the part of their mortal guests, assuring Kirk that they are perfectly fine if the Klingons line them up and shoot them or threaten to destroy the village.Īs such, this is hard to reconcile with the Organians portrayed in Observer Effect. If anything, the Organians were pandering to Kirk or Kor just hoping that the poor stupid mortals didn’t accidentally kill one another. However, while this is a familiar Star Trek trope, there was no sense that the Organians were “testing” Kirk or Kor in Errand of Mercy. Spectre of the Gun forces Kirk to relive the shootout at the O.K. Arena is one such example, with the Metrons forcing Kirk to fight a Gorn with the lives of his crew in the balance. Perhaps the most iconic example is the way that Q seeks to judge humanity in both Encounter at Farpoint and All Good Things… Although Q might be the most obvious example, it was fairly common on Star Trek for god-like beings to “test” the crew to determine their worthiness. Observer Effect plays on the familiar Star Trek trope of god-like entities “testing” the crew. Injecting a little continuity into the plot. In fact, the Organians went to a lot of trouble to put on a show for Kirk and Kor just to prevent them from killing one another. Kirk and Kor were not portrayed as threats to their existence or even as minor irritations. It was not that the Organians were disdainful or suspicious, they just existed above it all. In that episode, the Organians were presented as detached and isolationist, with no real interest in corporeal life. In fact, it seems quite hard to reconcile the Organians presented here with the Organians who appeared in Errand of Mercy. However, what is the value in casting the aliens as Organians, beyond slipping in a reference to the original Star Trek show? The episode closes with organian!Reed remarking that the Organians have “five thousand years” to prepare for first contact with humanity, an ironic reference to an encounter that arrives only a century removed from this particular story. That story was scrapped by Brannon Braga, and the pair were asked to deliver another story.Ĭasting the two observers as Organians adds little of value to the script beyond adding an obvious call out to Errand of Mercy. In fact, Observer Effect was something of a last-minute replacement for another story idea suggested by Judith and Garfield Reeve-Stevens that would have focused on Colonel Green and Starbase One. Daedalus and Observer Effect arrived at the end of what had been an expensive run of episodes for the show, even allowing for the clever decision to amortise costs by doing epic multi-episode arcs. As such, Daedalus and Observer Effect stand out as something of an oddity in the larger context of the season unfolding around them the only two standalone episodes airing back-to-back. Indeed, there are only five stand alone stories across the entire twenty-two episode season, and two of those five ( Home and These Are the Voyages…) effectively serve as bookends on the year. Observer Effect is a rare stand alone episode in the midst of a fourth season that is largely dominated by two- or three-episode arcs.
0 kommentar(er)
