TTV Read

Empathology

From: Marc Thomas

Hi Trek TV Friends This is only the printed transcript of an audio production. There are, as such, no open source, downloadable chicken sounds, contained herein. It's another last minute 'star gonna go nova' rescue. Don't forget nova is cowboy for no go! Uh Oh! And I, for the record, vote of "aye yi yi i" for the look of THE EMPATH" It's stark economy sets comprised of spot lights and darkness is very elegant. Similar to the half baked frontier town of Specter del Guns in that way. While I don't generally subscribe to the ubiquitous cop out of 20th century design orthodoxyLESS IS MORE, I have to admit, it works here for me. Predictably I'll confuse elements of this with those of The Cage, but these big headed zoo keepers are totally different from those Talosians because here we have giant Gumby style thumb depressions on either side of their bulbous noggins. Viva los differancomente! This time the trope alert bells are a-gong, and to my delight over the shocking reveal of humans in labeled specimen jars. It's just so…Astounding Story's cover worthy. The golden age of cheap magazine sci fi was nearly over in print as authors in the field were trying there hand at novels, even courting literary aspirations (The New WAve, get a job college boy) but that left a bountiful harvest of conventions ripe for TV's picking. I must have drawn and written countless shorts of my own in a similar vein. It's just so fun. This is going to sound a lot like my Elaan of Troyius letter but, I remember that when I heard there was going to be an empath on the new Big E I assumed she would be a modern dance mime like Gem. She wasn't. In fact, the Betazoids always seemed more like straight up telepaths. Ol' Missy Bambi Eyes never pulled off any of these magic human band-aid tricks like Boners favorite mute does . The author of this story, Joyce, was not a professional as such but a fan. Much like the Tribbles scribe David Gerold. It's an interesting fact because it resembles a lot of subsequent fan fic by virtue of its inclusion of a bondage scene. There is another anecdotal federation space animal here. The Sand Bats of Manar 4,sited by our Vulcan compadre, as a cautionary example of danger lurking in the midst of complacence. This alludes to an earlier episode of TSG wherein Tracy took poor ol' Spock on a bare back Bat ride across the barren Fouth Manar sandy lands and he was such a fucking pussy about it. Grow a pair dude, and enjoy the ride. I couldn't find a suitable toy bat, and this close to halloween what? So I made one out of plasticine, tinfoil and what not. Whata fucking mess, I way suffer for my art man. Anyway back to the empath…. homo superiorae in search of higher ethics as a precondition to rescue, strikes me as rather uninspired as it the obvious response, Kirk's standard lecture to lazy intellectuals about how they need to get a life. 'love and compassion are dead in you your nothing but intellect' what a great line, I was sorely tempted to lay some beats over that and make another infectious dance track, but since I am everything but intellect and packed to gills with love and compassion I have elected to spare you, my Trek TV friends, that enduring trial. See? I'm a total empath Finally... I'd like to proffer a defense of episode closing happy talk You know I always enjoyed this friendly repartee' between the characters, this joshing, a celebration of their friendship. but I take your point about the consistent theme of racism toward Spock. I see the bridge banter in a different context, one not focused on Spock's race, a dicey and unscientific term, but his species. I'll offer this slice of auto biography to illustrate my point. In the olden days of aerials and analog, I enjoyed the tenuous first run of Star Trek. It's world was full of unfamiliar' s, nothing in mine could hope to dopplegang. Except, the hexagonally mesh patterned room dividers seen through out the enterprise, these I could see every day and did in my own simple life. Chicken wire fencing! So every morning during my routine morning chores and gotta-dooz, I would linger longer than needed to gather the eggs,and sweep feathers, down and shit from the chicken coop. I would spend most of my time there. One giant brained mammal among an entire society of bread for stupid failed dinosaurs. And yeah, I'd take a little ribbing, if wasn't "Well, how does that sit with you famous human logic." it was "Oh well, boo hoo, I guess you finely tuned human empathy and complex emotional psychology means your gonna be all sad now." Sure sometimes I'd get bent outa shape hearing "Shut your damn furry, milk drinking, beakless face, you ear having mammal" But like Spock, it just wasn't possible to stay deeply angry or sustain any sense of insult or injury. Because at the end of the day, I'd be casually scrambling their unborn for breakfast a,d picking who'd be invited to dinner, they were just chickens/ You just don't have to worry about Spock. Besides that "I'll give it all the consideration it's due" What a zinger! Burn…. and even more finally According to my computer's memory banks, the only stars to go nova are white dwarves syphoning away too much gas from a larger nearby neighbor. Star fleet is never seen rescuing people from their sun's gradual bloating into red giantitude like we'll experience some day and I think that's totally unfair. Big immature pouty face from from me with regard to that. memory banks. you all ways here that in ancient sci fi, does that translate as hard drive in todays knowing lingo? Oh By the way I made passing swipe at Proustian scholarship last week, my mea culpa, I should have dealt, and more than passingly with another literary figure "Is there is Truth..?" Mr. Locke informs me, is a bit of Keats. I should have known there was a literary pedigree behind that title, Many Star Trek episode monikers are lifted from literature to class up the camp "The Trouble with Tribbles' Is a quotation from Ulysses and "Spock Brain" was a mysterious expletive snorted tersely by Virgil as he received the narrator into in Dante's Inferno. Oh well, I think I made my point. What ever that was. And even more finally still, in fact in this meditation upon the concept of finality itself So, that was a long streatch of no Trek TV, there. Which is actually fine by me since I am therefor afforded more time for fan art and whatnot. What? Not? I'll probably send a you tube link in the Tholian Web email so you all can see how I spent the lean weeks of the podcasts absence. As per normal what arrived from India was well worth the wait, and by following the official Trek TV twitter feed, I was able to ascertain via Collin's commentary, the true nature of the poppadum I love show's with Todd and Thea. And a hefty mail bag too, wish we coulda heard Collin's voice mail, but your dramatic readings of him are always good too. I'm so glad, Mr. Locke sent his eMail. and... Like Julian, I appreciate your post prod application of the Tinkling Ice Cube sound effect loop. and poor Alan... Hey, Alan I hit a deer once, with an ancient VW Bug (not quite ancient back then, just old) the car suffered much worse than the deer and while the unharmed doe tried to harvest the carcass of my sorry Beetle for sausage I successfully fended her off. Heroics which did little to meliorate my parents wrath (well, empathic disappointment, these are 70's California parents after all) And two from Kaelin the new Mommy , congratulations and happy birthday to your baby. I can't wait to talk to you, Trek TV Friends, soon. Marc Thomas