When Kirk and Co. found that they would have to stay on the planet for some seventy-two hours, why didn't they have some food, water, etc, beamed down? There was no guarantee that they would find anything, especially since they had not heard from Linke and Ozaba.

Who took the record tape from the machine and laid it on the table for Kirk to find? The Vians? Why not just leave it in place?

Just what were the Vians doing to Gem while the trio were in the force shield? It looked like they were hurting her.

Gem adapted to the men's presence very quickly. When the Vians first showed up, she was very frightened. The second time, she didn't appear to react at all.

Spock said that they were something like 121.something meters below the surface, and later commented on people like miners who spent their lives deep underground. Yet, when they made their escape attempt, they walked for a short time (at least it seemed short) and came right out on the surface. (And they didn't seem to be walking on an upward slope, either.)

If Spock, a Vulcan, could be driven insane by the experience, why didn't McCoy face a similar risk?

Spock claims not to have emotions, but I noticed that when Gem came up and touched him, she smiled at what she experienced. Hmmmmm.....

Apparently the director, producers, whatever, decided that DeForrest Kelly's chest wasn't manly enough to be exposed like they did Shatner's. Phooey on them.

This may be the most underrated and misunderstood episode of the entire original series.

The musical score of this episode at least may be the most hauntingly beautiful score ever composed for a TOS episode and enhances it considerably. In fact, music was one area where the entire third season excelled.

How come the Vians didn't give any of the inhabitants of the other endagered planets a chance to prove their worthiness to survive?

Scotty says something about measuring solar flares on a "Ritter" scale. Named after John Ritter, perhaps?

If it's the "Richter" scale he means, isn't this designed to measure Earth tremors, not solar flares?

Is there a police siren mounted in the Vian's underground lair? What's the deal with this red light that keeps passing over the Enterprise men when they first arrive there?

When McCoy takes a reading on Gem, it looks like his tricorder goes on the fritz. His screen gives him back a bunch of static and gobbly-gook. Yet out of this, McCoy somehow gets the data that Gem has no vocal chords.

For some reason, Todd, Trek also refers to a Richter scale of culture, most notably in "Errand of Mercy."

So...according to this episode, the ends justify the means?

When they first find Gem she is laying on a 'bed' with a rectangular section and across it is this red section that looks like a triangle with the top cut off. When I saw it this last time I thought, 'Was that the inspiration for the communicator change in Star Trek Generations?'

When McCoy scans Gem, he states that she doesn't match any previously known species, but later the Vians indicate that she comes from one of the other planets orbiting the Minaran star. So Starfleet knows this star is going to supernova and destroy all life on the planets orbiting it and they build a science station on Minara II to learn all they can about it, but they don't bother trying to find out about the life on any of the Minaran planets?

Are the Vians and Talosians related? They both have big heads, mental powers, an affinity for wearing robes and living underground. Maybe the Vians are a long lost colony?

After the torture, McCoy discovers that Kirk is suffering from the bends, then he makes an incredibly dumb statement for a doctor. He wonders how Kirk could get the bends "down here." The bends occur when your body goes from a high pressure environment to a low pressure environment too quickly. One could get the bends in the water, in caves, in the air and it can even be induced artificially with air compression chambers.

With all of their technical sophistication, why do the Vians need to use ropes and chains to hold Kirk and McCoy?

Toward the end of the show the Vians reveal that they were hoping to use Kirk, Spock and McCoy to teach Gem about self sacrifice, helping others, etc., but weren't they afraid that Gem might learn from the Vians how to be an arrogant, duplicitous, torturer?

Throughout the show, the Vians use the matter scrambler to make people disappear in a flash of colored lights, but at the end the Vians and Gem just shrink into the distance.

I think the message of this episode sucks.
Torture is never justified.

I don't think the message of this episode was that torture was justified. The message of the episode, to me, was that the Vians had become so clinically detached from their experiments that they had lost sight of the values that were supposed to be the reason for their efforts in the first place (hence they thought nothing of using torture to achieve their ends, it was all just a lab exercise to them). I think the episode makes gives a clear message that torture IS never justified, whatever noble purpose it may serve.

Here's a line that should have been spoken by McCoy if Kirk asked what the Empath's name was.

"Jim, it's Gem!"

On a further note....The sequel....

"Jim, Gem's in a jam in the gym because
of the jam on the floor."

Kathryn Hays, the actress who played Gem, played Kim Hughes in "As The World Turns" in the 70s.

She was also on "Guiding Light" as Leslie Jackson Bauer Norris Bauer.

Last time I looked, she was still on ATWT.

Jason Wingreen (Linke) also played Harry, Archie Bunker's partner at his bar, in the last few seasons of "All In The Family" and all of "Archie Bunker's Place."
I am a fan of George Duning's "Trek" music, and this was his best score.

The identical-sounding "Gem" and "Jim" is a bit confusing - I wondered if the writer realized this would be a problem when she selected the name? I can still remember seeing this episode for the first time, when McCoy said "I'm going to call her Gem", my first thought was "He's going to name her after Kirk??"

Futuristic Fashion Nit: Gem wears tourquoise tights with stocking feet in the uderground lair. However, when they escape to the surface, she is wearing what appears to be mules with a small heel. She also appears to be wearing tourquoise trousers, as the leggings no longer are form fitting. When did she have time to change? Or are the Vians hyper-sensitive about thier floors? "Shoes off at the door please!"

In order to save money, the creators decided to darken the background so you can't see any walls.

NIT: Kirk gets put into suspension with his shirt off but McCoy gets to keep his shirt on.

Gem looks very intensely at Kirk when she sees him in suspension with his shirt off.
(Hmmmm..., I'll go slip on my lingerie, grab a hold of the end of the rope and lower him down....)

When Spock scans for the unknown objects, his tricorder does not make any noise.

Uhura is missing in this episode.

The nova sfx is from "Operation: Annihilate!"

The shots of the backsides of Kirk & McCoy in suspension does not match the shots taken in front
(arms at different angles)

McCoy explains to Kirk that Gem is an empath 2 TIMES in this show (deaf, Kirk?)

The closeup of McCoy after the torture is over is completely out of focus.

A lot of the healing sequences are done very sloppy. They've done better than this in the past.

Ozaba & Linke disappear from their tubes later in the show.

The tubular lights hanging over Gem is from "The Deadly Years" (They were hanging over Alvin)

When Kirk is zapped, he goes into slow-motion, it's kinda amusing. (but good anyway)

GREAT STUFF:
Vian makeup is good.
Ozaba quotes from the book of Psalms after the earthquake occurs.
Scott mentions "the pearl of great price" from the Bible

GREAT LINE: "Well, that's better than 'Hey, you!' " McCoy to Spock upon choosing the name for the empath.

ANOTHER GREAT LINE: "You have a good bedside manner, Mr. Spock"...McCoy as he is dying from his torture.

Kathryn Hays REALLY deserves an Oscar for her portrayal of Gem. It must have been real hard for her not to make any noise.

You mean an Emmy, right?

Luigi---BOTH! It was that good!

I'll never figure out the Vian departure. Why did they choose to do that? The effect looks KIND OF lame.

I thought that Hays was a mime and therefore by her very practice was used to working without making a sound.

CONTINUITY ERROR....

When Kirk's small wound heals, there's a tiny flash of light.
However, when he's severely wounded, TPTB decided to use time lapse photography. (And lousy time lapse photography at that!)

Kathryn Hays commented at a convention in 1976 that the time lapse shots took hours to shoot.
The nova fx was also the last time that a stock shot of the viewing screen from the first season was used. (The shots of the view screen that were done in the second and third season were better lit.)
The music used during Kirk's slo-mo run was very cool. George Duning's score adds to the dream-like (nightmare-like?) quality of this ep.

When Kirk falls off the stairs, he lands on his back with his hands outstretched. The dustprint underneath is consistent with this effect. However, after Kirk vanishes, the dustprint looks like he had his hands at his side.

There's the question of how measuring Gem's self-sacrifice tells anything about the rest of her race. Although empaths, there's no mention of them being a single mind. All testing Gem does is prove Gem herself is worthy. It proves nothing about the rest of her race.

Exactly, Alan.
Imagine an alien race coming to Earth to decide if we're worthy, but they 'test' somebody like a world leader (pick a country, any country), instead of somebody with a compassion for people and selfless in their day to day lives. Earth would bite the dust for sure.

John said: A lot of the healing sequences are done very sloppy. They've done better than this in the past.
Agreed, John. However, this was the third season, and they were operating with severe budget restrictions. The matching of shots in the time lapse photography was far from ideal, but I tend to give TPTB the benefit of the doubt. Under the circumstances, this was probably the best they could do.

In plenty of angles, it is easy to see that Kirk and McCoy are held up by wires, and are not really hanging from their chains.

Sir Rhosis

Interestingly, in this episode the Vians refer to humans as 'Earthlings'.

It was either that or, "Hey, look at the freaks with the little heads with fur on top!"

I wonder what it would cost my medical insurance to cover that sort of treatment?
In the beginning of the episode, after the Vians depart following their first appearance, Gem heals a wound on Kirk’s forehead. From this Bones realizes she’s an empath, in that her nervous system is so sensitive that she can feel other’s emotions. What does this have to do with healing a wound?

She can feel Kirk's pain. (Despite how small the pain may be)

Again, what does that have to do with healing a wound?

Some wounds cause pain. Therefore, need to be healed.

Um, no, wounds need to be healed because they're wounds. From Bones' POV, the wound was visible, and seeing it, Gem healed it, indicating that she had healing powers. This does not give any evidence to him of empathic ones.

It's the manner in which she heals the wound. She actually physically takes the pain upon herself and then uses her own body's healing powers (which are apparently more accelerated than that of humans) to heal them. This why why the term "empath" was used.

Well, Luigi, (before Troi) Empathy usually meant to feel/take on someone's pain, so I think Bones (actually the writer) got carried away with the idea of Gem literally taking on Kirk's pain.

That's as near as I can figure.

If IRC that is how it is explained in the Blish adaptation. She takes the wounds into her system, healing it in Kirk's and then healing her's with her own vastly accelerated healing factor.

Todd Pence: It's the manner in which she heals the wound. She actually physically takes the pain upon herself and then uses her own body's healing powers (which are apparently more accelerated than that of humans) to heal them. This why why the term "empath" was used.
Luigi Novi: But Bones had no way to know that. All he witnessed was a physical healing. There was no evidence from which he could deduce that her powers also had an empathic component.

The wound disappearing from Kirk's forehead and then appearing on Gem's isn't visual evidence?

Thinking about it maybe Bones should have said psychic healing but empathic during the 60s was close enough to psychic and all.

When Kirk touches the wound on Gem's head, he uses his right index finger. But, when we see the close-up of Kirk, it's his middle finger that has the blood on it.
In the scene on the bridge, where Scotty is conversing with Sulu, the woman at the communications console looks a lot like Barbara Baldavin. Unfortunately, we only see the left side of her face. And the actress (extra?) had no lines, and got no credit.
On a personal note, when I was playing this episode this afternoon, I realized that sooner than later, I may need a new DVD player. My poor old Sony may be giving up. Time will tell, though. Thankfully, prices have dropped drastically since I got mine in October, 2000

This is a terrible episode! Bad Bad Bad! I hate the slow motion! Whoever thought of that should be shot! And WHY name her Gem? Did they not realize that sounds just like Jim! Did the writer of this episode never see and episode of this show before he wrote it? Star Trek at its absolute worse here guys! UGH!

The writer of this episode was a SHE, Joyce Muskat.

ok, well did SHE ever watch any episodes of this series before she wrote this trash?

I believe is is one of those eps that was produced as a result of the show's slashed budget. They were trying to make do with what they had.

They shouldn't have bothered

IF they ever catch Bin Lodden, they should make him watch this episode! He'd be confessing to everything hes EVER done by the end of the first act! ROTFLMAO

Okay, Mr Crusher, we get the point. You don't like the episode.

Although this is a terrible episode, im sure its still better than the best episode of Star Trek Enterprise!

Oh, I dunno. Enterprise had some good ones, far better than TOS's worst, IMO.

Wasn't Joyce Muskat a fan, who wrote this script on spec? This ep is her only writing credit.

Yes, just like David Gerrold and Jean L. Aroeste.

The third season uniform shirts were made from double-knit material, not the velour used in seasons one and two. When we see McCoy when the Vians are through with him, his torn-up shirt looks like his old velour one.

This is the last episode that Jerry Finnerman was the director of photography on. Al Francis took over for the next episode filmed, "The Tholian Web." IMHO, Mr. Finnerman went out on a high note; the photography here is first rate.
This is also the last episode where Jimmy Doohan had that slicked back hair style. Prior to shooting "Tholian Web", he got that short and combed down hairstyle that, with small variations, he'd have for the rest of his life.

According to the "Memory Alpha" website, this was DeForest Kelley's favorite episode.

More "TV Land" editing. The first commercial break was moved back to the scene where our friends try to get to the surface of Minara. The music was re-edited to accomodate the change.

When they get around to remastering this episode, a couple things should be obvious to fix, particularly the time-lapse injuries on Kirk, McCoy, and Gem's bodies. They just need to show a single still, and then morph an injury onto and off the skin. A glow on Kirk's cut forehead would be better than the weird star sparkle he and Gem display. And I'd also have McCoy's body glow from the Vian mechanism, because just pointing a prop at Kelley and expecting us to assume that the Vian was repairing him needs to be improved. As well, none of us would be sorry to see the Vians and Gem simply dematerialize at the end, rather than flying backwards (!), and winking out.
I'm assuming that the Vians don't have a ship to transport the survivors of Minara, because one would have to ask why they couldn't simply make more than one trip and save a portion of every population. Perhaps they actually transport the rescued planet in its entirety, shifting the sphere in time and space. It also raises a question; after the Vians have rescued one population, which we can probably assume was Gem's world, what would Starfleet do about the other doomed races? Would they break the Prime Directive, and institute a massive space-ark mission, transporting whatever other races in Minara to a new home or homes? It would make sense, since the Enterprise was expected to save the Indian culture in The Paradise Syndrome. However there's one problem, and that's at the end of the episode Kirk orders warp 2 for Sulu, so they're apparently leaving the system, and quite soon after they've returned to the ship. Kirk's words about compassion to the Vians seem to have slipped his mind, if he's turning his back on the other races of Minara.

Also, it would be a good idea to have a glow or beam when the Vians are torturing McCoy. As far as I can remember, there were no visual effects in that scene. It would add a lot to the effectiveness of the scene, similar to the added effects in the agony booth scene in "Mirror, Mirror."

In "The Paradise Syndrome," the Enterprise wouldn't violate the Prime Directive (I think) if they diverted the asteroid. The inhabitants would never know anything had happened. But with Minara, they would have to evacuate the population. Maybe that's why Kirk left; it would be too much interference. However, that makes me wonder what they were planning to do on Sarpeidon in "All Our Yesterdays."

Wasn't Joyce Muskat a fan, who wrote this script on spec? This ep is her only writing credit.

Yes, just like David Gerrold and Jean L. Aroeste.

But, Gerrold's writing career sprung from the Tribbles. Misses Muskat and Aroeste never wrote anything beyond their respective Trek episodes. I wonder what happened to them...

Shatner pronounces "Vians" as "Vi-ons" at least once.

This may be the most underrated and misunderstood episode of the entire original series.
Hear Hear! I've always liked this episode, and can't understand all the vitriol against it. And it shows the Kirk-Spock-McCoy relationship especially strongly.
Kathryn Hays had a small role in a recent episode of Law & Order - Special Victims Unit. She's still lovely, even after almost 40 years.

Although the Vians are credited as "Lal" and "Thann", they are not called by name in the epsiode.

As a useless note, 'Lal' means 'to play'in Sanskrit.

It's also a palindrome, although an infantilely simple one.

Hey if anyone who cares, Empath was scratched from Tvland for Elaan of Troyious.(sp),(again).

Empath was actually on TVLand yesterday.

Kathryn Hays looks remarkably like a contemporary actress of hers, Barbara Barrie. So much so that the two could be taken for identical twins. The hairstyles of the two women are quite different, but the faces are strikingly similar.

well, not in my area!

Anyone ever notice how similar the end scene of this episode is to the ending of Star Trek: The Motion Picture?

so how did I get Elaan while Empath was shown in other areas on tvland?

Maybe you were in an alternate universe where tommorrows episodes are shown today!

If Elaan did air in your area instead of Empath, you should just consider yourself lucky that you didn't have to sit through this stupid episode and go on with your life!

your tv set was empathic and could sense your discomfort.

lol Torque and Mr. Crusher.

I think Bones said it was his favorite episode!
(rumor).

(I'm in a good mood).

Here is the episode's original outline. Little was changed when it was filmed. And, it's more than a rumor that this was DeForest Kelley's favorite episode. I've heard that from several different sources.

The remastered "The Empath" airs next weekend. Not much to do here, just an orbital shot of the planet. They might add in the nova effect while leaving, but probably won't.

Or, they can change (or enhance) -
The solar flare on the viewscreen,
The vanishing effects,
The force field that feeds on emotions.

But, I don't think CBS Digital will either.

Too bad the enhancement project is winding down. Only one more episode ("Turnabout Intruder") and "The Cage" left to go.

or the Star trek the Motionless picture was like the Mute!(my title)

In addition to the orbital shot of the planet, a new image of solar flares on the star for the viewscreen was done. The Vian's matter scrambler and force field weren't changed.

The healing shots were redone -- it looks like they grabbed a still of the healthy faces, added the wounds digitally, then faded them out and in for the effect.

The "star" effect of healing Kirk's cut wasn't changed.

As I said back in 2003, I still think the Vian's plan was stupid.

The healing shots were redone -- it looks like they grabbed a still of the healthy faces, added the wounds digitally, then faded them out and in for the effect.
Gem's wounds after taking them from Dr. McCoy looked more severe in the re-mastered version than they did in the original.

The "star" effect of healing Kirk's cut wasn't changed.
Nor was the Vians' "Farewell."

It seems like the other planet in the Mianran system didn't get a fair shake in the Vians' competition. We never saw the Vians take a member of their race to prove that they could be noble and self-sacrificing, too.

GREAT ENHANCED MOMENT:

I'd like to add my applause to the healing sequences as well. MUCH BETTER!

When we first get a clear view of Gem, she's lying on a tan carpet, which is on the lower part of the platform she's on. But in the next shot, she's on the reddish carpet on the upper part. The first shot is apparently from a later scene.

Here's the review of the episode from Jeff Bond at Trekmovie.com. Read the posts; one poster (#31) seems to feel that the tubes containing the dead Linke and Ozaba (and the ones reserved for Kirk, Spock and McCoy) are the freezing tubes used on the Jupiter 2 in Lost In Space.

Speaking of which...
I believe that's the reason I'm not really into this episode...it looks and feels too much, in certain aspects, like a Lost In Space episode.
Obviously not the Gem / Vian relationship or the sacrifice of McCoy, and friendship dynamic of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy.
But the black backgrounds, instead of walls, the weird 1950's / Irwin Allen science fiction music, the big-headed aliens in robes, and the now-you-see-them-now-you-don't Vian transporation, just looks too much like Irwin Allen had a hand in this.
No insult to Allen, by the way. His series are my other favorites, but I like my Star Trek to look and feel like Star Trek.

Considering the Vians want to rescue Gem's planet, I wonder if they have any relationship with The Preservers, or are, in fact, the Preservers?

I wonder if they have any relationship with The Preservers, or are, in fact, the Preservers?

I don't think so, Steve. The Preservers probably don't need to torture people to death.

It also occurred to me that the Vian repairing McCoy's wounds might have given him a really strong dose of energy, considering he was still alive in TNG's time.

Surely the Vians could have transported people from other planets in the area during the time they wasted conducting their experiments?

D.K. Henderson on Thursday, December 10, 1998 - 5:23 am: When Kirk and Co. found that they would have to stay on the planet for some seventy-two hours, why didn't they have some food, water, etc, beamed down? There was no guarantee that they would find anything, especially since they had not heard from Linke and Ozaba.
It may not be possible to beam food down to their location.

According to Memory Alpha, John Meredyth Lucas was originally hired to direct this episode. Lucas' involvement was nixed right from the top by Douglas S. Cramer. (Remember that name? It's at the end of every third season episode. ) Cramers' reasoning was Lucas' going over budget and schedule on "The Enterprise Incident". John Erman was hired based on his work for the "Nightmare" episode of The Outer Limits. Also, Joyce Muskat's original title was "The Answerer".

I wonder where the Vians originally came from?

One of the Vians was named Lal.

Data gave his daughter the same name in The Offspring.

Are the Vians actually the Preservers? They're power to save Gem's race sounds like something the Preservers would do.
That might make an interesting debate, both pro and con.

At the end, you can see the glass tubes for Linke and Ozaba in the backgrou8nd are empty. If that's their display cases, why did the Vians remove them?

I don't think the Preservers were into torturing and murdering people.

Who knows? We'll never know what methods they used to decide who should be saved and 'seeded' to other planets, and who to allow to go extinct.
I've always thought of the Preservers as noble with good intentions, but after this viewing I wondered if they weren't the good guys we thought they were.
Sort of like in Doctor Who, where the Time Lords have gradually shown their dark true colors, when once they were thought of very highly.

How many planets orbiting that sun were inhabited? I mean in our own Solar System, Earth seems to be the only inhabited planet.

But for many inhabited planets to be orbiting a dying sun? Talk about bad luck!

George Dunning scored a 1967 episode of MANNIX, "The Many Deaths of St. Christopher", which is very much similar to his score for this episode.

Never seen Mannix myself.

However, it wouldn't surprise me.