September 19, 2011

Star Trek: "The Cloud Minders"

Data
Title: Star Trek“The Cloud Minders”
Year: 1969
Network: NBC
Episode: the twenty-first (of twenty-four) from season three; 50 minutes
Creator: Gene Roddenberry
Director: Jud Taylor
Writer: Margaret Armen; story by David Gerrold & Oliver Crawford
Starring: William Shatner
With: Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, Jeff Corey, Diana Ewing, Charlene Polite
Music: Alexander Courage (theme); Fred Steiner
Cinematography: Al Francis
Editing: Bill Brame
I saw it: on video and TV several times, most recently yesterday (have on DVD)
Synopsis: The Time Machine In Space (minus the time travel)

My reaction
Concept:3/4 (Good)
Story:3/4 (Good)
Characters:2/4 (Indifferent)
Dialog:2/4 (Indifferent)
Pacing:3/4 (Good)
Cinematography:2/4 (Indifferent)
Special effects/design:4/4 (Great)
Acting:2/4 (Indifferent) Another would-be intelligent female character, played as if she's an idiot child.
Music:4/4 (Great)
Subjective Rating: 7/10 (Good, 3/4 (Good)). Kirk faces a realistic, complex diplomatic issue, and naturally has no good solution available. That is, of course, until midway through the episode when McCoy makes an announcement that you'd never see coming. If you think about it on a symbolic level, the story's solution is offensive. But on a literal level, it works and is fairly interesting and novel.
Objective Rating (Average):2.8/4 (Good)

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