Star Trek Flashback: Dagger of the Mind

Prison systems are a ripe subject for science fiction. On the one hand, it doesn't take much of a turn of the dial on reality to concoct some horrific allegorical scenario. On the other hand, a desire for some humane, technological solution can lead to fanciful wishing for another way. At some intersection of both these approaches sits the classic Star Trek episode "Dagger of the Mind."

When an escapee from the Tantalus Penal Colony stows away on Enterprise, it creates an emergency aboard the ship. But once he's captured and is revealed to be a doctor, not a prisoner, questions ensue. Kirk beams down to investigate the cutting edge mental reprogramming treatment being used by the head of the colony, Dr. Adams. And soon, he may become the next victim.

To watch this episode, you may first have to silence your juvenile reaction to the repeated use of words like "penal" and "penology." (Or maybe you're just naturally more mature.) Once I did that, I found myself not quite sure of the message this episode conveys.

To be sure, Dr. Adams is presented as a terrible villain, using his device to erase memories and program thoughts as he hides beneath a smiling facade. To me, he reads rather like a #MeToo perpetrator. Kirk initially defends him (despite never having met him), citing his reputation as evidence he couldn't possibly be doing anything wrong. Adams just can't help himself; even as an investigation closes on him, he offends again. And he never argues about the good he's doing, or the greater good that might come of it. He just meddles with minds because he can. The problem in my comparison is that you want a fictional villain to have more of a motive than "it makes him feel powerful." We never get that about Dr. Adams. Nor do we get any sense that he had good intentions in the beginning before going astray. In fact, the story seems to presume there can be no good intentions here.

In the end, when the victimized Dr. Van Gelder is put in charge of the colony, his first act is to destroy the mental reprogramming device that caused all this trouble. And while mental reprogramming against someone's will does seem like a form of torture (that's what A Clockwork Orange was all about), the episode doesn't engage at all with the potential voluntary uses. You can stop well short of "make it so someone can't say their own name without feeling blinding pain," and still have plenty of room to debate where the ethical line might be between applications like "sincere efforts at self-help," "curing someone of an addiction," or just "remembering to take the garbage out every Monday night." Sure, I suppose a one-hour episode of 1960s television probably isn't the venue to get into all of that. (And yet it kind of is, when it makes room for a Spock/McCoy debate about emotion leading to violence.) I guess at the bottom of it all, I'm bothered that a sci-fi show that's thrilling its audience with the wonders of faster-than-light travel and teleportation feels there's a technology with no noble applications.

So, maybe it's best not to dig that deeply, and stay closer to the surface level. In that sense, it's an interesting episode for McCoy -- who can just tell something is off even if he can't put his finger on what. (But also, he's all about messing with Kirk, assigning to the landing party someone he seems to know has a history with the captain.) It's a big episode for Spock, who performs the series' first mind meld -- though the technique hasn't quite settled into what it would eventually look like. And it's a big episode for Kirk, who is... for reasons?... able to resist the effects of the evil mind machine to some extent. (Maybe it just takes several sessions?)

Other observations:

• These early episodes highlight the differences between the original series and The Next Generation. The vibe is much more militaristic here, with barked orders, talk of what's required in log entries, and loads of background actors filling implied positions on a cramped-feeling ship. 

• Kirk had a fling at a Christmas party with someone named Dr. Noel? A bit on the nose, isn't it?

• It's dumb for the security guard on the bridge to stand with his back to the turbolift door. Sure enough, when Dr. Van Gelder bursts onto the bridge, he gets the jump on the guard.

• The music certainly wants the audience to be suspicious long before Kirk is, serving arch stings whenever someone in the colony flatly recites something they've been programmed to say.

I feel like "Dagger of the Mind" takes too long to spring its trap, especially when the audience knows something is wrong. That and a muddled message make it a weaker installment in my book. I give it a C+.

Lace Up These Boots

This week's contribution to the pop culture zeitgeist is the final season of Stranger Things. (Most of it, anyway.) But I must honor this blog's tradition and write about Netflix's buzzy show from one or two cycles ago: Boots.

Set in the 1990s, Boots centers on young Cameron Cope. When his friend Ray enlists in the Marines, Cameron joins him -- even though both are aware that Cameron being gay would end his military career before it even begins, if people knew. Over the course of eight episodes, the two endure boot camp, each confronting their own inner demons as they meet a colorful cast of recruits and drill instructors.

Boots is based on the memoir by the real life Cope (Greg Cope White), The Pink Marine. But without having read that book, my assumption is that it's merely a touchstone for TV show and not a road map. For one thing, Cope White's actual enlistment took place in 1979, a time even more hostile to a closeted gay recruit. For another, Boots may be centered on his story, but it's far from fixated.

I started the series wondering if this boot camp show would be too gay to attract a wider audience, and quickly found myself wondering if the show would actually be too much of a boot camp cliche to retain my attention. But this is a smart show, well aware of the existence of Full Metal Jacket. It knows that it's audience knows all the tropes it might depict -- but it has eight episodes (rather than half a movie). That's plenty of time to develop other characters and make us care about them.

That's exactly what Boots does, and exactly why it works. We get to know two feuding brothers who've enlisted together, a criminal grasping at military service to avoid prison, a young man struggling to compartmentalize his feelings about family back home, a live wire oddball who might just be crazy, and many more. And that's just among the recruits. We also spend time with Cope's mother back home as she struggles to understand why her son has enlisted, with the drill instructors and their lives outside training, and with the captain of the base who must navigate the pressure of being one of the few women in such a position.

Very deftly, Boots manages to show, not tell, that being gay in a military that's institutionally hostile to that is just one struggle -- not the only struggle a person might have. And it doesn't minimize that as it showcases other problems. The show also manages to balance comedy and drama well, with plenty of charming and silly moments to juxtapose against the very serious topics it also touches upon.

The effective cast includes star Miles Heizer as Cope, Ana Ayora as Captain Fajardo, Liam Oh as Ray McAffey, Cedrick Cooper as Staff Sergeant McKinnon, and Vera Farmiga as Barbara Cope. And Max Parker seemed to get a brief bump online for his portrayal of Sergeant Sullivan. (Might he be "the next big thing?" Stay tuned.)

Boots was surely named for its setting at boot camp -- and by the end of the eight-episodes, we're done with that. Will we get a second, less-fittingly titled season? Hard to say. There is talk. The show felt like a satisfyingly contained one-off to me... but the final minutes of the last episode certainly tee up a possible first duty assignment for some of the characters. But if eight episodes of Boots is all there ever is, it's well worth watching. I give the show a B+.