"Star Trek" The Paradise Syndrome (1968)

User Rating:

7.1/10   

Director:

Jud Taylor

Writers:

Margaret Armen (written by)
Gene Roddenberry (creator)

TV Series:

"Star Trek" (1966)

Original Air Date:

4 October 1968 (Season 3, Episode 3)

Genre:

Adventure | Sci-Fi

Plot:

Trapped on a planet whose inhabitants resemble the Northwestern American Indians Kirk loses his memory and is proclaimed a God while the crippled Enterprise races back to the planet before it is destroyed by an asteroid. |

Plot Keywords:

Federation | Space | Starship | Computer | Vulcan

Cast

William Shatner	...	Captain James T. Kirk
Leonard Nimoy	...	Mr. Spock
DeForest Kelley	...	Dr. McCoy
Sabrina Scharf	...	Miramanee
Rudy Solari	...	Salish
James Doohan	...	Scott
George Takei	...	Sulu
Walter Koenig	...	Chekov
Richard Hale	...	Goro
Majel Barrett	...	Nurse Chapel
Naomi Pollack	...	Indian Woman
John Lindesmith	...	Engineer
Peter Virgo Jr.	...	Warrior
Lamont Laird	...	Indian Boy

Runtime:

60 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Argentina:Atp

Filming Locations:

Franklin Canyon Reservoir, Santa Monica Mountains, Los Angeles, California, USA

Company:

Paramount Television

Trivia:

Paradise Syndrome is in which the patient suffers a feeling of dissatisfaction despite having achieved all their dreams.

Goofs:

Plot holes: While believing that Kirk was a god, Miramanee tells him that the legend says he is to enter the temple and make "the blue flame" come out likely referring to the deflector beam seen later. However, in the remastered version, the deflector beam was actually changed to red.

Quotes:

Dr. McCoy: Typical human reaction to an idilic natural setting. Back in the 20th Century we referred to it as the 'Tahiti Syndrome'. It's particularly commont to overpresured leader types like Starship captains.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Free Enterprise (1998)

Kirok's Tahiti Syndrome (or: Kirk's Vacation)

Behold the god who bleeds! (the one great line). Behold a tribe of re-located American Indians. Behold a planet with the exact same vegetation as Earth. 'What are the odds?' Kirk muses. Is Kirk kidding? I place the odds at billions to one against, but they've already found a planet with the exact same continents as Earth ("Miri") and the 'Roman Empire' planet in "Bread and Circuses." What's the big deal? The odds look pretty good in the Trek galaxy. So now we have a 'Tribal American Indians' planet - but at least with an explanation: apparently some ancient alien race likes to displace doomed cultures from Earth to other planets. Now, in a set of circumstances I calculate as millions to one against (or, in the Trek universe, very likely), Kirk accidentally opens a hidden floor panel on a mysterious obelisk with his communicator, falls inside and gets zapped by amnesia. Spock and the rest of the crew, unable to find him, have to leave the planet to head off an approaching asteroid. The better scenes, as with a couple of other episodes, turn out to be the 'B' storyline on the Enterprise, where Spock really annoys Scotty by placing too much strain on the ship's engines.

With us so far? Kirk now exits the obelisk, gets spotted by a couple of females from the tribe and is assumed to be a visiting godling (the uniform must've given it away). Some tribe members are skeptical, but on a 1 in 10,000 chance (a certainty here), he resuscitates a drowned boy, thereby assuring his super-stud, main man, head honcho, favored status. However, he makes an enemy, the former medicine man (Solari) and that's where the whole bleeding god scene comes in. About two months pass. That's right - 2 whole months for this episode! While Kirk, er, Kirok exults in his new found life of nearly carefree abandon, hugging himself in ecstasy and running around the woods with his new wife(!), the Enterprise retreats before a steadily-closing hunk of rock almost the size of our moon. The theme in this one involves placing Kirk in a scenario completely divorced from his usual duties and watch his 'other' true self emerge - the gentle, unhampered Kirk existing in all of us working stiffs. This all sounds very ambitious for a TV episode, but Shatner's over-emoting, hard-to-buy-into plotting and a slipshod pace does it in, undoing much of the tragic impact at the end. I was more interested in these unknown advanced aliens, who may be the same unseen puppeteers of "Assignment:Earth."