By John A. Lang on Friday, October 19, 2001:

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Spock says that he'll interrogate Thelev he goes to the Brig and mentions truth drug and some kind other conventional methods...funny...he never mentions using the Vulcan Mind Meld in the Brig.

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I don't remember about Thelev, but Kirk and Co. were going to use truth serum on Prof. Crater in "The Man Trap."

The one thing that's bugged me about this episode is...why didn't Sarek & Amanda just BEAM UP to the Enterprise? Why take a Shuttle?

Probably for diplomatic reasons. Pomp and circumstance, that sort of thing. Beaming up is so commonplace in the Trek universe, and a shuttle flight provides the opportunity for a grand, showy entrance.

Something I just noticed: The Andorians here, and the one in "Whom Gods Destroy," have their antennae in the back of their head(s). All Andorians in the subsequent Treks have their antennae on their foreheads.

The "enhanced" version has a fabulous new shot of the shuttlecraft Galileo landing in the shuttlebay. We finally get to see the "Columbus". And, if you look carefully, you can see the pilot and co-pilot move.

Not a nit really,but the color choices for the officers dress uniforms are interesting.Both Spock & McCoy have blue,just like their standard blue shirts which they wear,Scotty's is red which is what his normal on-duty shirt is.Yet Kirk's dress uniform is green.I know he had those two green wrap-around shirts,but they only show up in a handful of episodes.The mustard colored shirt is what he wears in the majority of eps.So a mustard colored dress uniform would not have been out of the norm.I've nothing against the green dress uniform at all,just an observation.

NANJAO: I love Reggie Nalder's accent in the episode.

(Reggie Nalder played "Shras", the Andorian Ambassador)

Kirk and Thelev are beating the living daylights out of each other. And - NO ONE walks by to offer aid to Kirk. Not the crew, nor the passengers. Was everyone on dinner break?

No, they went on a 5 minute break to the toilets!

If, as He's Dead Jim claims over on the Devil in the Dark board, some Redshirt meets Sarek as he comes off the shuttlecraft, and the Big Three only meet Sarek as he leaves the hangar deck, this is a nit.

Sarek is one of the most respected beings in the Federation, and Kirk has a redshirt meet him?

at least 3 ,to salute Sarek.ScottN, you better get a tape from someone, or get a rental.



btw Why did Sarek got mad at his son for joining Starfleet? For 18 years, even. I disown my Uncle for the rotten way he treated me when I grew up.

He, Spock and Bones met him and his wife!

lol I fell over laughing when they mnetion the Vulcan teddy bear.(it was in the animated series)

The hanger deck announcer sounds a lot like Gene R. (He may be Com. Travis' voice in Arena too).

Hey, ScottN, we are both wrong. I counted 5 redshirts, Bones Spock and Kirk!

I'm watching Babel now.


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I wonder how different this episode would have been if it were set on a Klingon ship? Would honor towards one's father supercede loyalty to defend ones ship? Would a Klingon be allowed to save his father, and allow a lesser officer to take over in the same circumstances (ship attack, murder and attempted murder on board) ?

I guess this incident prompted McCoy to have Boma, the Vulcan specialist, assigned to the Enterprise. Bones lack of confidence in this episode is voiced many times.

I'm no doctor, but does anyone know if it makes sense for Kirk to lay on his bed in sickbay considering his wound is on his back? Shouldn't he be laying on his stomach?

McCoy says; "I've studied the anatomical types" in reference to Vulcans. Are there more than one kind of Vulcan? Isn't that like saying there are several anatomical types of humans? Yes, we have tall, short, skinny, obese, black, white, yellow, but shouldn't all Vulcans have the same organs in the same places? We are talking just about heart surgery here, after all.

Steve: I think you meant M'Benga as the Vulcan specialist, not Boma.

The hanger deck announcer sounds a lot like Gene R. (He may be Com. Travis' voice in "Arena" too).
I doubt it. The only voice-over Roddenberry did (that I know of) was in "Charlie X." His voice was the one on the com who said that there were real turkeys in the galley ovens.

He mighta done the one liner on Operation annihilate!

"Journey To Babel" is this weekend's re-mastered episode. Followed on the weekend of 11/30 by "The Man Trap."

A lot of nice space shots in the remastered version. You can see city lights on the night side of Vulcan. The entrance of the shuttle shows Vulcan in the background, and you can see the pilots looking around as they land. There are people in the observation decks watching the shuttle arrive. The Columbus also appears in the foreground.

The live shot of the "hanger" deck (see below) has the bottom of the observation deck added overhead.

The Orion ship is now much more detailed, while still reflecting the "spinning" design of the original animation. The battle with it is much more elaborate.

The phaser shot in the brig is unchanged.

It's nice to see they spent the money to do makeup for a variety of races for the ambassadors. The copper-skinned guys with the sponge drinks (unofficially Ithenites) get a lot of camera time as do the Andorians and Tellarites. There are also a couple of tall guys in hooded robes, and a purple-skined woman visible at the reception. There's also two who have feminine-looking clothes and hair, but also have beards. And there's a couple of women in elaborate blonde wigs.

A common misspelling, but a storage area for a flying vehicle is a "hangar" (with two a's). The sign on the Enterprise says "HANGER DECK". This must be where they store the coats.

The cut into the fight between Kirk and Thelev is rather abrupt. I thought it might be due to a syndication cut, but it's like that in the full version. Normally you'd expect to see them brush by each other in the hall before the fake Andorian jumps Kirk.

Spock says he can't give up his command on "personal privilege". Fair enough, but Sarek isn't just some guy -- he's the ambassador from Vulcan, a founding planet of the Federation. "I gave up command to save the Ambassador's life" seems like a pretty good reason.

Jane Wyatt is credited as "Miss Jane Wyatt".

Here are the changes made to the script for this episode from draft to filmed version. Note the filming dates on the clipboard in the still pictures - late September, 1967. Considering that the episode aired 11/17/67, that's a very short turnaround time. That supports my opinion that this episode, once filmed, was rushed to completion to get it on the air quickly, in time for the November sweeps. Thankfully, the quality of the episode didn't suffer; it's one of the series' best.

Isn't it interesting how some of the most rushed & hectic episodes turn out to be some of the finest shows done? I read the background about the episode for Star Trek:The Next Generation "Yesterday's Enterprise,"which is one of the best episodes they ever did.It was a chaotic process that origianlly had a totally different premise that was to involve Sarek,the Guardian of Forever,& an alternate timeline that had the Vulcans as a ruthless,warrior race.It eventually morphed into "YE" but it was far from a smooth process.

Will on Wednesday, September 03, 2003 - 10:49 am: Spock tells Kirk that the intruder ship was travelling at 'approximately warp 10'. Should he be more precise, considering his preference for being extremely specific. Shouldn't he have said warp 9.97 or warp 10.04 or whatever, instead of 'approximately'?
Either the sensors were having trouble getting a precise figure, or the ship's speed was prone to fluctuations.

BBC America, which (IIRC) has touted that they run the episodes uncut, don't. Amanda's line to Spock, saying "I'll hate you for the rest of my life," was cut there.

Short Show Syndrome improvement;
The episode wouldn't exist if they didn't all do the LOGICAL thing, and turn the Enterprise around, and fly back to Vulcan at warp 9, drop off Sarek to the appropriate Vulcan hospital, with plenty of T-Negative blood on hand, and an experienced Vulcan surgeon, and then head off to Babel for the vote.
Vulcan misses the vote, but it might not even matter-- the vote might not have been close for either side.

During the reception, you can see tape on the rec room floor, allegedly so the actors could "hit their marks". Guess they didn't quite make it, or we wouldn't have seen the tape.

Kirk acts as guide to Sarek and Amanda, describing various parts of the ship. Strange that Sarek, a Federation ambassador, hasn't had such a tour of this class of ship before-- after all they've been around for about 14 years.

The ship has left Vulcan, but engineering is deserted enough for Kirk and Amanda to talk uninterrupted. Shouldn't there be personnel monitoring those readouts on the consoles Kirk and Amanda are standing next to?

Kirk doesn't react at all when the security officer reveals that a Tellarite has been murdered. Only when Gav is identified as the victim, does Kirk get a jolt from the news. What? Shouldn't the death of a diplomatic official from another planet dying on your ship worry you a bit, Jim, even if he's just the Ambasador's secretary?

Man, that Vulcan physique and recuperative powers are something else. Sarek is awake and able to sit up and have a conversation MINUTES after he's had open-heart surgery! Kirk defeated the Orion ship, left the bridge, and went straight to sickbay (apparently). In that time, McCoy finished the operation and had Spock and Sarek moved to ICU, awake and alert.

And this is the one where McCoy got his last word.

Strange that Sarek, a Federation ambassador, hasn't had such a tour of this class of ship before-- after all they've been around for about 14 years.

Maybe this is Sarek's first time on board a starship since the last upgrade.

'Maybe this is Sarek's first time on board a starship since the last upgrade.'

The scene where Shatner is doing a voice over, while Sarek and Amanda are being given a guided tour by Kirk. He points up to the ceiling in the corridor and says,
"And that's our new Wi-Fi connection!"

To Kirk and Co., Wi-Fi would be like smoke signals.

When they show the enemy ship on the bridge viewscreen, the stars are moving in the wrong direction. In the original version AND remastered new effects!
The stars are moving from the center of the screen to the outer frame indicating forward motion. It only makes sense if the the Enterprise is following the enemy ship in front of them, but it''s the other war around! The enemy is following the Enterprise, so the stars should be travelling from out of frame towards the center of the screen, showing a rear view from the Enterprise.
And next, the new effects only fix half a problem when Kirk cuts power and lures the enemy ship in. The original had a long shot, but the lights still seemed to be on. In the new effects, all the running lights, and internal lights are dark.
However, when the Enterprise fires the phasers, all the lights are back on throughout the ship, when they were supposed to be dark. Kirk didn't order power restored until the enemy ship was disabled. So even the new effects guys re-used a previous phasers-firing scene.
I wonder if those are real bags under Jane Wyman's (Amanda's) eyes, or did the makeup people 'age' her a bit so she could be realistically Spock's mother?

Jane Wyatt, not Wyman.

Scotty wasn't in this episode, for some reason.

He was spoken of enough, however.
In this time of Covid-19, when we can't leave home without a mask, no one is wearing one during Sarek's surgery. I'm sure the docs wore them when my dad had his open heart surgery back in 1990. For which I gave blood. Just like Spock in the episode. (O-negative, not T-negative, though. )

They have what's called a sterile field. It's that blue light you see when McCoy is operating.

Don't forget these folks are centuries ahead of us.

My dad wasn't as wide awake so quickly after his open heart surgery as Sarek was. Guess 23rd century medicine is that much ahead in that respect as well.
As Spock, Kirk and McCoy are on their way to the hangar deck, a background extra is wearing the same costume worn by John Crawford in "Galileo Seven" and would be worn by Steve Ihnat in "Whom Gods Destroy".
Some of the food at the reception looks like colored marsh-melons.

Perhaps the chef as fixing his famous Marshmellows de Color. Also, the eat marshmellows in Star Trek V.

And how about that green chicken that the Dohlman Of Elas was scoffing down.

Every time I see the name 'Babel' it reminds me of babelfish.com, the translation website. In honour of that site, here are some translations for the title, 'Journey To Babelfish'...er...Babel, rather...

Spanish; 'Viaje a Babel'
French; 'Voyage à Babel'
German; 'Reise nach Babel'
Italian; 'Viaggio a Babele'
Portuguese; 'Viagem a Babel'
Norwegian; 'Reise til Babel'
Latvian; 'Ceļojums uz Babel
Polish; 'Podróż do Babel'
Swedish; 'Resan till Babel'
Turkish; 'Babil'e Yolculuk'
Icelandic; 'Ferð til Babel'
Czech; 'Cesta do Babelu'

Fascinating.

I didn't notice until now that my cutting and pasting of translated words resulted in some numbers being, inexplicably, thrown in there. I know the Latvian word for 'Journey' is NOT 'Ceļojums' !!! Didn't notice that happened!

Having watched the entirety of 'Star Trek - Enterprise' (which took many, many months), I've decided to retract one of my nits.
Specifically, On November 4, 2018, I wondered why Sarek and Amanda would be touring the Enterprise with Kirk, since it was my belief that in all the time that Starfleet had such Constitution-class ships (about 14 or 15 years), how could it be that Sarek, as Vulcan's ambassador to eEarth, never traveled on one before, and as such, even bother with a tour.
But, after watching the Vulcan culture-heavy 'Star Trek - Enterprise', which showed multiple Vulcan ships of various classes, and reminding myself that Sarek disliked Spock's decision to join Starfleet over the Vulcan Science Academy, now I can see that this was his first visit aboard such a ship. The Vulcan fleet was more than capable of transporting him wherever he had to go, and it shouldn't be Starfleet's job, alone, to transport diplomats. Of course, individual planets would have their own ships to do the job.

Yeah, diplomats often had their own transport.

All this talk about Vulcans being logical throughout this episode, and there's a failure in logic staring everyone in the face, all this time.
The plot has us suspect Sarek, and ONLY Sarek, killed Gav using a Vulcan method, Tal-shaya.
Just two problems with that theory; namely the TWO VULCAN AIDES that accompanied Sarek and Amanda, as they arrived! No mention of them as suspects is even considered! They're only mentioned as possible blood doners for Sarek.

Neither had a motive.

We, the viewers, don't know that, and neither would Kirk and crew until they were interviewed.
3 Vulcans are on board.
Gav is murdered using a Vulcan method of execution.
Logically, on circumstantial evidence, one of the aides could have been the murderer on orders by Sarek or because the aide wanted to avenge Sarek's treatment by Gav. The aides should have become prime suspects ESPECIALLY when Sarek said he was 'quite incapacitated' on the observation deck, and unable to stand, let alone murder sopmeone.
It makes sense, but in order to tell a more interesting story, the focus was on Sarek--
D.C. should have included a line with someone saying, "Sarek's two aides are innocent. They have an iron-clad alibi, because they were with other delegates at the time of the murder."

The quarrel between Sarek and Gav happened in front of many witnesses. That no doubt moved him to the top of the suspect list.

Absolutely. It also made me and everyone else forget about those two Vulcans standing in the background.

Yup.