Friday 12 March 2010

The Prisoner

While on routine patrol, the Enterprise communication channels are infiltrated by a variety of voices which are completely unrecognizable. The bridge crew can make no sense of what they are saying. Decker has Uhura switch to emergency frequencies, but they too are filled with voices.

Kirk and Xon enter the bridge, and the latter identifies the voices as coming from Earth. The captain has a vague memory of one of them and requests an individual playback of it. Uhura does so, and they hear the voice of Winston Churchill delivering his famous speech during the Battle of Britain. From there they hear the likes of Gandhi and Harry Truman, then the voices stop and the image of Albert Einstein appears on the viewer. Everybody on the bridge recognizes him instantly. Kirk is addressed directly, with the scientist explaining that he is in desperate need of help.

According to Einstein, he and many other Earth scientists were kidnapped from their native world and kept alive on an alien planetoid through the past several centuries. After he explains that he and the others have been sustained by some sat of "storage battery," he goes on to define one of his Basic Laws in response to Kirk's questioning. Xon is impressed by the response. The captain is told that the voice matches perfectly with the computer's record of Einstein. The coordinates for the planetoid are given, with the professor hoping that Kirk will help him out of this dilemma.

Kirk does not truly believe that he was speaking to Einstein, but he is understandably curious and has a course plotted for the planetoid. Upon arriving, the Enterprise begins orbit with phasers armed. There is no communication from the surface and, fearing a trap, Kirk is about to order the starship to break away when Einstein again appears on the main viewer. He wants to have a committee of prisoners beamed aboard the ship, but Kirk insists, above the man's protests, that a landing party transport down to the surface.

The landing party takes its place on the platform and the transporter is put into operation. Nothing happens. Moments later Einstein, with Robert Goddard, Marie Curie, Buster Keaton, M. Planck and Karl Jansky, appear (Keaton is described as looking out of place with his "quaint 1920 knickers and pork pie hat"). Kirk is angry and wants to know what Einstein did to the transporter. He apologizes and chalks it up to their over-anxiousness.

Using his tricorder, Xon scans the group and announces that they are not really life forms at all, but rather perfect illusions. The Enterprise is ordered out of orbit and the six figures disappear. Unfortunately something is holding the ship in orbit and it cannot break free no matter how much energy is exerted. When it becomes obvious that this attempt is futile, engines are stopped.

Einstein's image reappears on the bridge viewscreen. He informs Kirk that he feels responsible for the atomic era and wants to return to Earth so that he can atone for the holocausts that followed. His centuries of imprisonment have given him the knowledge of how he can make life on Earth a paradise again. However, all that is left of Einstein is his mind, and he needs the Enterprise and her crew to get back to Earth. Kirk refuses and the scientist uses his vast mental abilities to assault the entire crew with a variety of voices and information which ultimately proves overwhelming to their minds, causing them to pass into unconsciousness. When they recover some time later, they learn that this attack on their senses has caused no permanent damage.

Kirk beams down to the planetoid, and Einstein's voice welcomes him to Galleas-9. As the captain proceeds down an underground corridor he is informed that the voice took on the image of Einstein because he is such a recognizable personality from Earth history, and was not a threatening presence in any way. The voice gives itself the name Logos, and then explains that it has become obsessed with Earthmen after listening to billions of words that had come from the planet. It is his intention to assume the identity of all human life, beginning with Kirk and the crew of the Enterprise.

On the starship, Xon has been using the computer to analyze the situation, and he finds it odd that each of the personalities they've had "contact" with are from the early 1900s. What, he wonders, is the reason for this?

In true character form, Kirk tries to argue that what Logos plans to do would be a great crime against the human spirit. Most Earth history shows that man had spent a great deal of time trying to break the bonds of slavery and had finally achieved this goal. To take it away from them now would be the cruelest of acts. Logos laughs this off, pointing out that the entire planet constantly lives under the threat of nuclear annihilation, and they are a very savage race. Kirk explains that what Logos knows of Earth is now ancient history. The alien concurs to the extent that most of the transmissions he received came from radio and television broadcast waves. When the form of transmission was changed in the year 2024, he lost contact. But this doesn't matter.

"It does matter!" screams Kirk. "Earthmen no longer war against each other. The Federation outlawed armed space conflicts ages ago."

Logos cannot believe that man could change his basic nature that much. Such a situation would mean that the world would be no fun at all. Kirk is suddenly thrust against an electromagnetic conductor and held as "programming" is initiated. According to Logos, millions of facts from the storage batteries will be fed into the captain's brain. Kirk tries to fight back this assault, but to no avail. A short while later Kirk opens communication with the Enterprise, and peacefully asks that they beam him back aboard. He appears in the transporter room and is greeted by Decker, Xon, McCoy and Scotty. He explains that everything has been straightened out and orders Decker to have a course laid in for Earth. With that said, he departs to his quarters.

Decker is convinced that this is not Captain Kirk, and states that he is assuming command of the Enterprise. McCoy insists on examining the captain, and "making damn sure before his friend's record is smeared with a certification of unfitness to command."

Bones and Decker proceed to the captain's quarters, where Kirk/Logos programs them instantly–thus making them part of the one. Upon returning to the bridge, Xon is surprised to find that a course has been laid in and implemented to Earth. He contacts Kirk and requests that he speak to either the commander or the doctor. Kirk/Logos sidesteps this, ordering him to have the entire crew gather in the recreation room. The communication is closed, and the Vulcan begins a search for Decker and McCoy. He finds them in a corridor, and they strangely turn around and begin walking back to Kirk's cabin as though summoned telepathically.

Xon proceeds to Scott's quarters and requests that the temperature in the captain's cabin be reduced and freezing ozone filtered in. Having already detected that something was wrong, Scott follows through with this request. Moments later it actually begins to snow in Kirk's quarters. Kirk/Logos, Decker and McCoy all slip into unconsciousness. Xon proceeds to the main computer room and tries to devise a way that Kirk's power can be controlled.

Back in the captain's cabin, Kirk/Logos, via a supreme mental effort, manages to stand up and overcome the numbing cold. He slowly makes his way towards the cabin door. Hearing the sound of footsteps on the intercom, Xon gives the order for the temperature to be lowered even more. Scotty refuses to do this (and we are never told why). Then the solution comes to the Vulcan. Since Logos had lost contact with Earth back in 2024, there are over 200 years worth of information that he knows nothing about. The Vulcan has the computer feed all the information in its banks through Kirk's intercom, and the vast amount of knowledge is so powerful that it short circuits Logos' mind and he departs Kirk's body and the ship.

The next day, the affected group is recovering from their encounter as the Enterprise is back on its normal course. Meanwhile on Galleas-9, the storage batteries are humming again, and Logos makes plans to update his laser radio-telescope. His hopes are high that man may some day regress to a more primitive state. The crew of the Enterprise proved to him that there isalways hope.

With all due respect to writer James Menzies, The Prisoner would not have made a very effective episode of Star Trek II. First of all, it lacks the necessary dramatic elements to elevate the story from typical science fiction television fare. Secondly, the plot seems an amalgamation of the original series episodes "Return to Tomorrow" and "The Savage Curtain." The former gave us Sargon and his followers who wished to use the bodies of Enterprise crewmembers as hosts until they were able to create android bodies to house their highly developed brains. The latter began with the image of Abraham Lincoln appearing on the main viewing screen and requesting that Kirk come to a mysterious planet to help him. This too turned out to be a trap to test the basic nature of man.