Star Trek Flashback: The Alternative Factor

With Strange New Worlds again between seasons, it's time to pick back up where I left off with other Star Trek. Unfortunately, the next classic episode in the queue is a rough one, "The Alternative Factor."

Enterprise is hit with a powerful "non-existence" distortion. It seems to have emanated from a strange spacecraft alone on a barren planet... but the ship's lone occupant, Lazarus, is oddly evasive about what he knows. And is he the ship's lone occupant? It seems a twin Lazarus from an anti-matter universe is periodically trading places with his double, while at other times the two become locked in personal combat. Will their conflict destroy the galaxy?

If you can somehow put yourself in a 60-year-old mindset, remembering that this was Star Trek's first "alternate universe" episode, you can perhaps appreciate the fact that a science fiction show from the 1960s was taking on such a bold, complicated story. But that's pretty much where my appreciation for this episode ends.

The story's ambitions far exceed the production's grasp. The alternate universe is represented in overly literal fashion, in "photo negative" footage shot on an empty, smoky sound stage. The location filming is back at the Vasquez Rocks yet again, and making no effort to hide the familiar formations that were already featured in earlier episodes. Lazarus' spaceship is a Jetsons-style flying saucer, and his beard looks too fake even for a Spirit Halloween costume.

The pacing is glacially slow. Characters stop by the mess hall for a coffee break in the middle of a red alert. They make dumb decisions to prolong the "mystery": again and again, no guards are put on Lazarus or his ship, even though our heroes say they don't trust him. And yet it's clear that even as slow as things are, some scenes have been trimmed for run time. (People know Lazarus' name before he tells anyone.)

When it's finally time to unravel the mystery, the leaps in logic have even less foundation than the earlier lack of suspicion. If one Lazarus was "good" the whole time, why did he never share any information? We're told that the two Lazaruses meeting physically would annihilate both universes... despite the fact that we've seen the two of them physically grappling with each other again and again throughout the episode. And why does Kirk tell two security guards to just stand back, leaving them to stupidly watch Kirk try to physically restrain Lazarus?

The ultimate resolution is meant to be poignant: "good" Lazarus is making the ultimate sacrifice to be locked in conflict with his doppelganger for all eternity. But why is this the answer, as opposed to consigning each each version to his own reality? Why can neither kill the other while they're in this liminal corridor between realities?

Why do we get this engineer "Masters" in this episode instead of our beloved Scotty? And why does Masters get a first name when neither Sulu nor Uhura got one for the entire run of the original series?

I just don't find much to like here. I give "The Alternative Factor" a D-. It's clearly the worst episode of Star Trek's first season.

Strange New Worlds: Tomorrow's Enterprise

With my stories of vacationing in France all wrapped up, I can now also wrap up my recaps of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds with the season 4 finale, "Tomorrow's Enterprise."

Enterprise is investigating a white hole when the ship is damaged by the intense distortions. Uhura is convinced she's overheard Scotty's death, but soon finds she's heard a snippet from the near future. She also begins communicating with a farther future one year from now, where the Enterprise is investigating a black hole that may somehow be connected to the present. Two Uhuras must work together across time to save Scotty's life and guide their ships from danger... all without risking the timeline by revealing their connection.

There have been dozens and dozens of time travel episodes across six decades of Star Trek. Credit must be given to the writers for coming up with one here that doesn't feel derivative of one made before. (Even if the episode title suggests a connection that isn't there.) A character working with their future self to avert disaster is an angle I simply don't recall before; either Star Trek hasn't done it, or this take was sufficiently novel to trick my memory.

Still, the strongest aspect of the episode isn't the story or script, but rather is the tour de force performance by Celia Rose Gooding. She plays two utterly distinct Uhuras and carries the entire episode on her shoulders. She has wonderful scenes with nearly every main cast member -- the standout scenes being with Scotty and with Pike. She even sells a payoff that starts to get a little hokey; donning a spacesuit to mime delivering a giant space baby.

Not every aspect of the episode works perfectly. I don't think that "future Uhura can lie" is the best basis for differentiating the two characters -- at least, not after the notable subplot of an episode earlier this season, about M'Benga teaching Uhura to lie. I'm not sure setting this only one year in the future feels right; I guess that's either the facts of the franchise timeline or necessitated by next season being this series' last, but it doesn't feel quite enough time for the sorts of changes we see. And again, that space baby delivery borders on cheesy.

I love the way the hair, makeup, and costuming departments all went so hard to make the future versions of the characters look consistent with their 1960s season one Star Trek counterparts. I also enjoy playing with the idea of Uhura and Scotty as a couple, building a sort of continuity out of the strange, one-off flirtation between the characters from Star Trek V. Basically, there was plenty of dessert here for the fans to enjoy.

Overall, I give "Tomorrow's Enterprise" a B+. Now that season four is complete, though, I'll join pretty much the entire fan base in saying: I don't understand what the deal was with all the genre episodes. I'm coming at it from the opposite side, though. When seasons four served up episode after episode, zigging and zagging between homages to other things, it felt like a purposeful decision, like a box of Cap'n Crunch's Oops All Berries. In the end, when 8 episodes were huge genre swings and 2 weren't? It feels like they lacked the imagination or courage to complete their thought.

But "finishing their thought" is indeed what we're in for some time next year. Sadly, there's just one more season left of the series -- and it's an abbreviated one with fewer episodes. Indeed, Strange New Worlds was reportedly cancelled after season four, but the producers argued to the studio that the agreement had always been to connect things directly to the original series in the end... so they were given a handful of episodes to do that.

I'd wager that even the Trekkers who weren't into season four the way I generally was still wouldn't choose to have no Star Trek on television. But that's exactly where we're going to be some time next year once season five airs. I'm both looking forward to the episodes and very much not looking forward to that state of things.

All's Well That Ends Well

For our full day back in Paris (and final day of the trip), we started with a visit to Musée d'Orsay. This turned out to be more the experience we'd been expecting earlier at the Louvre; this museum is more dedicated to paintings and sculptures. There were works by Degas, Monet, Manet, Van Gogh, and many other famous artists.

We saw Van Gogh's earlier version of The Starry Night -- similar in many ways to the one in New York, but its own unique work.

We saw paintings by Monet of some of the very places we'd just visited ourselves in our road trip out of Paris.

We walked through an exhibit about the Statue of Liberty, showcasing the earlier designs leading up to France's gift to the United States.

And we saw another messed-up cat.

We had to fit in one more picnic lunch before the trip was over, again picking up meats, cheeses, fresh bread, and wine from a small store, then taking it to the banks of the Seine. Then we did a bit of wandering. We'd heard of a few picturesque shopping spots, Gallerie Vivienne and Passage de Panoramas. They were indeed picturesque, but were a limited and upscale form of shopping we weren't really in for. In between those, we stopped in another photo-worthy spot, the Bibliothèque nationale de France, a public library with an impressive reading room.

We lazily passed the afternoon until it was time to visit the Arc de Triomphe. The timing was particular, as we wanted to be there at 6:30 pm, when the nightly flame ceremony takes place to honor fallen soldiers.

The view from the top is arguably one of the better ones in Paris, and a good deal less crowded than the Eiffel Tower. Or at least, we'd imagine. You may recall that we hadn't been able to go to the top of the Tower when we'd tried earlier in the trip. But we didn't have anything else planned for that final evening. So... why not try one more time? I mean, you get tickets in advance so you don't have to wait in any line, but why not wait in line now and see if we get lucky?

And we did! We made it to the second floor observation deck of the Eiffel Tower just in time to witness a beautiful sunset.

And then headed on up to the top for a spectacular night time view of Paris.

Come on... what better way to conclude a trip to Paris than a visit to the Eiffel Tower?  

Barely Making It Out of the Valley

It was our last morning in the Loire Valley. We enjoyed breakfast at our château (including some of that strawberry jam made personally by the swanky concierge). Then it was time to work our way back toward Paris, with stops along the way. The first of those was at Château de Chenonceau -- except then immediately, we turned back to the château where we'd stayed. We'd discovered the day's "travel misfortune" when we went to start taking photos: we were short one phone. (A quick "Find My" on the other confirmed that yes, it was still back at our hotel.)

Alright, circle back, grab the phone, then Château de Chenonceau. It juts out over the River Cher, and is known colloquially as the "ladies' castle," thanks to the influential women responsible for building and protecting it over the centuries.

 

As we toured the lovely interior, we were hyper aware of how loudly our sneakers were squeaking on the floors (though we weren't the only visitors with that issue). When we toured the beautiful exterior, we snapped many more pictures of the gardens and grounds.

...and another whimsical bit of English scrambled in with the French:

Next, we decided to visit one more winery on our way out of the valley. Caves Monmousseau was in some ways similar to Ambacia from the day before, a winery using a quarried-out cave system to age its product. But the scale was wildly different. This cave system was huge -- a sprawling space they could not possibly fill with wine. So they'd opted for another novel use for it: they'd invited an artist to come in and set up an exhibit inside. With old school overhead projectors and paintings carefully made on transparencies, beautiful images were actually projected into the halls and alcoves of the caves.

You could walk through it all, alternately taking in the art, information about the nearby castles that had been built with the stone from this place, videos about the making of their wine, and huge caches of the wine itself..

And it being early afternoon on a Monday, we had the place entirely to ourselves! We walked through what had to approach a mile of tunnels and didn't see a single other person. The wine we tasted at the end was also good -- but that hardly came as a surprise by this stage of the trip.

There were other famous castles in the area, but we decided that we'd probably seen enough "rich people's houses" for the trip. There were more wineries nearby too -- even some open on a Monday, a day that much of rural France closes entirely -- but we decided we'd had two winery experiences in two days that would be tough to match. The best thing would be just to get back to Paris, drop off the rental car, and have a slow-paced evening back in the city.

We just needed to fill up on gas again before taking the car in. And that's how we hit another "travel misfortune." Days earlier, when were leaving Avranches and were at our farthest point from Paris, we'd needed to refill the gas tank. The first gas station we visited had no person working there, and the pump didn't take any American credit card. We'd been a bit surprised... but everything had worked out easily enough; the second gas station we tried took a card at the pump and everything went fine.

Now, days later, we learned that we might have lucked into the one gas station in all of France that takes American credit cards. I was searching on my phone as my husband drove, looking for a gas station that was specifically not the chain that wouldn't take our cards a few days earlier. This is when I discovered that automated pumps in France rarely will -- a difference in how the PIN is encoded onto the card causes the pumps to reject the card outright. It's a problem you can encounter in several European countries, and the main workarounds seem to be: 1) pay cash, which we didn't have; or 2) go directly to an attendant who can process a pre-payment, though one is rarely on duty.

We tried a Shell station. A familiar brand available in America, so that'll work, right? Wrong. So then we just did the math... we should have a little less than 100 kilometers' distance left in the tank when we rolled into Paris. It would be cutting things closer than we'd like, but let's just drop it off empty. As we watched the fuel gauge, thought about the extra stops we fortunately did not make, and lamented a wrong turn at one point... we were right at the edge of sweating it a little. But we made it back. At least this didn't happen to us when we were nearly out of gas days earlier. (And at least the rental car agency's price for gas really wasn't any more than we were trying to pay outside the city.)

So finally, that relaxing evening back in Paris that we'd been hoping for. We wandered and did a little shopping. We got dinner at a cafe restaurant with a varied collection of absinthe, and they served us some with the full production: a sugar cube over the glass, and a slow water drip dissolving that into the spirit. It was a lovely evening... but not our final evening in France. We'd scheduled the trip to put one more full day back in Paris before we returned home. That'll be next up, in my final blog about the trip.

Wine and Roses

We were running a bit late because of the false starts launching our hot air balloon. Still, we had time for a brunch at a cafe in Amboise, seated outside practically in the shadow of yet another castle, Château Royal d'Amboise.

Then we were off to a nearby winery, Caves Ambacia. But first, we had time for a bonus misfortune. When we arrived at the winery and turned up onto the hill in front of it, what had looked from below like a parking lot actually turned out to be a patio restaurant. Without an obvious place to turn around, we decided to continue up the street. But well before we arrived at a turn that would take us back onto the main road, we passed into a residential area. The street kept narrowing and narrowing. Soon it was barely wide enough for the car, with the walls of houses and garages pressed right up next to us.

When the turn finally did arrive, there was scarcely room to make it. I ended up shimmying out of the passenger seat to direct a series of a couple dozen back and forth micro-maneuvers. My husband kept cool even as I warned him "you're about two inches from the wall right now, you can't keep going in that direction." Another car arrived, its driver giving us quite the wide-eyed expression. But after a few minutes, we escaped. Our nerves might have been a bit damaged, but thankfully the rental car was not.

So... Caves Ambacia. It's a relatively new winery, having been purchased by new owners in the last decade. They don't have their own vineyards, buying their grapes from local sources. But they do have a sizeable cave, the remnants of centuries-old quarrying of stone for the nearby castles. A perfect place to age wine.

They also had a great tour guide who led us on an hour-long experience. It was clear his rapid-fire English and heavy French accent wasn't working well for everyone else on the tour, but he had a lot of knowledge he was trying to drop in a short span of time. Among the fun moments: an area where you could inhale 16 different aromas from stainless steel tubes and try to identify them. (So many seemed so familiar, but I managed a puny 2 without being told what they were. Of course! Hazelnut! Leather!) Also, a walk through a wine archive, with bottles going back decades aging in different areas. (Our guide encouraged us to seek out a bottle from our birth year, but my husband and I both struck out.)

We were shown unusual vessels for aging wine -- a stone barrel and a large terra cotta one...

And then, of course, a tasting -- with accompanying cheeses and meats, advice on serving and pairing, and a quick answer to any question anybody thought to ask. No matter how inexperienced. (I'll always remember: "So, when do they add the hazelnut?" I'll also remember the guide's shocked expression.) 

Next, we drove east a bit to reach Château de Villandry. Among the many castles of the Loire Valley, this one is best known for its gardens. And indeed, they are striking. We walked a forested path up behind the castle for a better view, and then strolled a bit through the gardens themselves. Shockingly, I was perhaps beginning to reach a point of "beauty overload." A high-class problem, to be sure, but each amazing place we were visiting was in a sort of "competition" with other amazing places we'd already seen.

I was resting for a moment on a bench when an older couple walked up to share the seat. I had to ask about the "No Trump" stickers displayed prominently on their shirts. To my surprise, I learned they were from Florida. They told me that being from there, they felt compelled to wear these stickers publicly everywhere they go. "We buy them in rolls of 500," said the husband proudly, before offering me a couple. So I picked up an odd souvenir in an odd place, having had the unexpected opportunity to meet two sane Floridians.

We toured inside the castle for a bit. It's true that the gardens really are the star of the show at Villandry, but whoever is curating the art collection inside the château is definitely bringing their creepy A game.

We thought a good dinner option would be another picnic, this time at the château where we were staying. But it was Sunday, and we found no groceries were open in the afternoon or evening. So instead, we opted for a short hike on the grounds where we were staying, a quiet rest in the park chairs out front, and then a restaurant in Amboise for dinner as the sun set.

 

Third Time's the Charm

The Loire Valley is well known for two things: sprawling castles and amazing wine. We planned to take in both over the next two days. But first, we were going to take to the air. Several companies in the valley offer sunrise and sunset flights by hot air balloon, and we'd booked one to begin our next morning.

You drive out to the launch site, were you're invited to assist in the filling of the balloon, and then told to scramble into the basket when the time for liftoff comes.

Except this time... it didn't come. French class doesn't cover technical terms related to balloon travel, but you didn't need language to see what was wrong. Our pilot was pulling on a rope, but the flap at the very top of the balloon wasn't closing all the way to capture the heat inside. Something about a "knot" or a "valve" perhaps? Anyway... out of the balloon, everybody!

As the pilot and ground support staff deflated and re-inflated the balloon, we milled about near the two other groups of passengers with us. There was a group of six speaking such rapid French I couldn't possibly keep up. Then there was a group of four from Italy, with one woman who spoke English as their interpreter.

Soon, all 12 of us were told to get back in the basket: they were ready to try again. But once again, the troublesome flap wouldn't close! Was this today's "travel misfortune," that our one balloon out of a half dozen wasn't going to take off today?

Not to worry, we were told. They'd called in "the big boss," the owner of the company, who knew everything about these balloons and was sure to get to the bottom of the problem. But by the time he arrived on site (perhaps 10 minutes later), the team had figured everything out and reinflated the balloon a third time. And indeed, the third time was the charm. The "big boss" arrived just in time to confirm that everything looked good... and to then hop in the balloon with the pilot and accompany us on our voyage. It so happened he was trilingual -- from Italy, operating now in France, and also fluent in English. He was the perfect guide for the voyage.

It turned out that winds were perhaps a bit too calm that morning. We ultimately didn't travel very far. Still, even a simple up and down afforded us spectacular views of the area, including a look down at the Château de Chaumont-sur-Loire, a lovely sweep of the Loire River...

... and a "big boss"-snapped photo of the sun rising behind us.

If you've never ridden in a hot air balloon, but think to yourself "there's absolutely no way I could do that," know that it's nothing like flying in an airplane. There's absolutely no turbulence at all. The basket rises and drifts so gently that you truly aren't even aware of movement. I felt less vertigo than I do when looking out from atop a skyscraper (that you can sometimes feel swaying ever so slightly). I mean, if you simply cannot do heights, I hear you; but if you only think it sounds scary, I highly recommend choosing a picturesque spot somewhere, someday, and booking a memorable experience for yourself.

Castles!

For the next day of our France trip, we visited a screen saver. A fairy tale. A place that if you saw it in a fantasy television show or movie, you'd say, "that looks cool, but nothing like that would actually exist." Mont-Saint-Michel.

The existence of this place dates back to the 8th century, when an island near the coast was first used for a church. Except... it isn't always an island; as the tides go in and out, the location can be reached for part of the day by a land bridge that emerges from the receding waters. This made the location highly defensible. It took many centuries for the abbey and surrounding village to be built, and in modern days a more durable bridge was added to connect to the island for all but the most extreme "supertide" every two decades or so.

There's a lot to experience in a compact area. Of course, there's the fantastical visuals of just approaching the place.

Then there's meandering about the cobblestone streets of the walled city, almost like a visit to what seems like the most authentic Renaissance festival you'll ever encounter.

Then there are the spectacular views from the abbey ramparts. 

Finally there's the tour of the abbey itself. The interior of the building is all the more impressive considering when it was built and how long it has endured.

There was even an interesting art exhibit, showcasing a beautifully detailed map of the area woven as a tapestry...

... by the imposing "Mimi Cake":

As wonderful as Mont-Saint-Michel is, it is quite the journey away from Paris. We'd ventured as far from the capital city as we planned to go, and now it was time to slowly work our way back. We were staying in the Loire Valley that evening, but had allotted ourselves the day to get there.

For lunch, we decided we really wanted to find some savory crepes. We'd been wanting that for a meal for the entire trip, but had only managed to find places serving sweet desserts (invariably, after a satisfying meal that needed no encore). I searched for a place along our route, and at random found Crêperie  Tivabro in the town of Fougères. 

I regret that I have no picture of Fougères -- and the fact that I don't feels emblematic of the way we could just happen upon something amazing on this trip. There's a huge walled castle dating back almost a thousand years, right there in the center of town. We were looking for crepes, we're driving by modern stores, and then for a bit through old and narrow streets... then we just turn a corner and there it is, a sprawling medieval castle. Because of course there would be. So commonplace and expected that I somehow don't even manage to get a picture.

The crepes were everything we'd been hoping for, though. I had a delectable one with ham, cheese, and a "mirror egg" (sunny side up egg) on top.

Our drive then took us through Le Mans, where we stopped a while to stretch our legs and look around for a bit. And, of course, we turned a corner and discovered yet another sprawling cathedral that on any other trip might well have been the architectural highlight.

By the early evening, we reached our destination in the heart of the Loire Valley, Château de Perreux. We weren't just visiting this castle; it was our hotel for the next two nights. Our room was on the second floor of a corner tower, with a lovely view of the grounds.

 

The place had everything from garage of classic cars, canoes you could take out onto the river, and a debonair concierge with suggestions and his own hand-made strawberry jam to serve at breakfast. We had dinner in the nearby city of Amboise at a French-Moroccan restaurant, then ended the evening somewhat early. We had a particularly early start planned the next day.