star trek the omega glory vimeo

The Omega Glory (episode)

• View history

The Enterprise discovers the derelict starship Exeter drifting in space, its entire crew killed by an unknown plague and her captain missing.

• 1.2 Act One
• 1.3 Act Two
• 1.4 Act Three
• 1.5 Act Four
• 2 Log entries
• 3 Memorable quotes
• 4.1 Story and script
• 4.2 Reception
• 4.3 Continuity
• 4.4 Production
• 4.5 Syndication cuts
• 4.6 Cast and characters
• 4.7 Production timeline
• 4.8 Remastered information
• 4.9 Apocrypha
• 4.10 Video and DVD releases
• 5.1 Starring
• 5.2 Also starring
• 5.3 Guest star
• 5.4 Also starring
• 5.5 Uncredited co-stars
• 5.6.1 Other references
• 5.7 External links

Summary [ ]

The USS Enterprise discovers the starship USS Exeter in orbit upon arriving at the planet Omega IV . When Captain Kirk , Spock , McCoy , and Lieutenant Galloway beam over to the empty ship's engineering section to investigate, they discover the ship to be seemingly abandoned… only Starfleet uniforms ; and some crystals remain.

Act One [ ]

Entering USS Exeter 's bridge

Kirk uses the ship's intercom to raise anyone on board the ship. Spock hails Kirk and reports the same thing as in engineering, while Galloway reports all four of the Exeter 's shuttlecraft are on board, proving the crew didn't leave that way. McCoy and Kirk then head to the Exeter 's bridge and then order both men to meet them there.

Arriving at the Exeter 's bridge, McCoy's analysis finds the crystals to be what was left of the crew with all the water removed. A tape left by the Exeter 's ship's surgeon , Carter , reveals the crew was killed by a virus which was brought up to the ship by the landing party ; only Captain Ronald Tracey remained alive by staying on the planet's surface.

Kirk orders the landing party to beam down to the planet at once, and gazes down at the floor at the remains of the ship's surgeon.

Once on the planet, they interrupt some natives about to behead another, and Captain Tracey, apparently in charge, calms them down and welcomes them. Captain Tracey has been living among the Kohms , an iron -age people engaged in a war with the Yangs , a seemingly primitive, savage and fierce tribal culture – one of whose leaders has just been taken captive. He informs them there is a natural immunity offered by the planet's environment – they will stay alive only as long as they remain on Omega IV.

The landing party sets up in a building to contact the Enterprise , for McCoy to confirm the disease and Kirk to record a log entry. Kirk is disappointed that Tracey has apparently used Federation technology to assist the Kohms in their fight. Because of this, he has become something of a leader of the group, which is a clear violation of Starfleet 's Prime Directive of non-interference with developing civilizations.

McCoy notes the similarity of the infection to some inflicted during biological warfare experiments on Earth in the 1990s . Suddenly, Spock and Galloway return, with Galloway critically injured from a Yang ambush. Spock confirms the viciousness of the Yangs, and that they are preparing to attack, however, Spock also finds an empty phaser pack, confirming he is using his technology to help the Kohms. Before Kirk can contact the Enterprise, Tracey enters and prevents him. When Galloway attempts to reach for his phaser, Tracey kills him.

Act Two [ ]

The landing party is disarmed and Tracey makes Sulu think the landing party is indisposed. Tracey explains to Kirk alone that the Kohm people have no record of any kind of disease but possess extremely long lifespans, for example, his guard Wu is over 400 Earth years old, his father over 1,000 years. He wishes to use the resources of the Enterprise to isolate the cause for this "super-immunity", cure themselves and share it for a profit. To do this, he must keep the Yangs at bay, and asks for Kirk's help.

Kirk instead tries to escape unsuccessfully, and is thrown into a cell with the savage and his woman from before, while Tracey plans to attack the Yangs. After a fierce fight, however, Kirk comes to realize that the Yangs worship concepts such as freedom and bear remarkable similarities to the native peoples of North America – the " North American Natives " – and helps the Yang prisoners escape. However, the male prisoner knocks Kirk unconscious with an iron bar while he and his female partner escape.

Act Three [ ]

Seven hours and eight minutes later, Kirk awakens and together he and Spock (who is in the next cell) get the keys to escape their cells.

Spock and Kirk subdue the guard. Kirk tells Spock to repair the transmitter, while he confers with McCoy, who has been conducting medical research under guard. McCoy informs them that both the super-immunity enjoyed by the Omega IV inhabitants, and the plague which killed the Exeter 's crew are the results of biological warfare similar to experiments researched by Earth in the late twentieth century , in the 1990s . The plague still exists, but after this war, the planet's ecosystem developed powerful immunizing agents, essentially due to natural evolution . McCoy discovers that the longer a person stays on the planet, the more well-established the immunity; tragically, if the Exeter landing party had stayed on the planet just a few hours longer, no one would have died. But contrary to Tracey's belief, these immunizing agents do not act as a " Fountain of youth "; the inhabitants' lifespans are a by-product of evolution, and the most the agents might do for the rest of the Federation would be to "cure the common cold ."

Spock informs Kirk that the transmitter is now partially fixed. Since they are now cured of the plague, Kirk tells Spock to signal the Enterprise to beam them up. Just as Spock is about to do so, the console is destroyed by a phaser blast, injuring him. Tracey stumbles into the room, trembling, and recounts how his Kohm force was routed by the Yangs, despite the thousands of Yangs that Tracey and his allies killed with their phasers. Tracey assumes that Kirk freed the Yang prisoner to warn the others of the attack. Kirk demands that Spock be beamed up to the Enterprise for medical attention. When Tracey objects that they are still infected, McCoy tells him that they are now immune from the virus and can leave the planet at any time. Excitedly, Tracey interprets this to mean McCoy has isolated the "serum" he is seeking, but Kirk and McCoy furiously inform him that there is no serum, that the natives' longevity is the natural result of evolution, and there is nothing that Tracey can "extract" that will excuse the atrocities he has committed.

On being told that he has thrown away his crew, his career, and his honor for nothing, Tracey seems to lose what remains of his sanity. Focusing on the impending Yang attack, Tracey marches Kirk outside and tells him to call the Enterprise with his communicator and have it beam down more phasers. Kirk obligingly relays the request to Lieutenant Sulu , who says that he cannot do that without verification. Staring down the muzzle of Tracey's phaser, Kirk carefully says that the landing party is in danger. Sulu says that, if that is the case, then teams of armed volunteers are ready to beam down – which is the last thing Tracey wants. Kirk says the danger to the landing party is not imminent, and tells Sulu not to beam anyone else down, before flipping his communicator shut.

Just as Tracey begins to understand that he is stymied, Kirk tries to overpower him, and the two men fight, only for them both to be taken prisoner by the Yangs. Kirk and Spock eventually realize that Omega IV's culture was an extremely close parallel of Earth's ("Yangs" is a mispronunciation of "Yankees", while "Kohms" originally were "Communists") except the Omegans fought the war Earth managed to avoid, and the Kohms took over the planet. The Yangs have been fighting to regain their land ever since; this is confirmed when the victorious Yangs bring in their battle standard – an ancient, tattered "stars and stripes" United States flag .

Act Four [ ]

" No, wait! There's a better way. "

The Yang prisoner is Cloud William , their chief , and the "holy words" (which only a chief may speak) are a badly slurred version of the Pledge of Allegiance . Kirk interprets the Pledge and speaks the words himself, and begins to explain where he is from, but Tracey picks up on the theme and tries to turn the Yangs against Kirk by declaring he was "cast out of heaven" – pointing to Spock's appearance as similar to the appearance of the servant of "the evil one". To test Kirk, Cloud William reads from the "greatest of holies" and challenges Kirk to translate or else Spock is killed. Unable to initially translate, Kirk counters that their sacred legends promise that good is stronger than evil, and fights Tracey man-to-man to prove it.

Cloud William badly mangles the Pledge of Allegiance

While the fight takes place, Spock uses his telepathic abilities to get Cloud William's mate, Sirah , to use one of the communicators, after which a landing party of volunteers from the Enterprise , led by Lieutenant Sulu, beams down armed with phasers to take control of the situation. Fortunately, Kirk wins the fight with Tracey anyway. Seeing these events, Cloud William believes Kirk to be God 's servant. Kirk informs the Yangs that the "holy words" were not merely written for chiefs, but for everyone, even the Kohms. He reads the "greatest of holies" – the preamble to the Constitution of the United States of America, and tells Cloud William the words must apply to everyone or they are meaningless. Cloud William does not understand the meaning behind Kirk's words, but promises that he will obey the "holy words." When Spock asks Kirk if his actions do not also violate the Prime Directive, Kirk explains he was simply explaining the meaning of what they were fighting for… as all the Yangs read the Constitution. Before leaving Omega IV, Kirk glances at the torn and tattered US flag.

The Enterprise leaves the planet's orbit and heads off into space.

Log entries [ ]

• Captain's log, USS Enterprise (NCC-1701), 2268
• Surgeon's log, USS Exeter

Memorable quotes [ ]

" If you've come aboard this ship, you're dead men. "

" A star captain's most solemn oath is that he will give his life, even his entire crew, rather than violate the Prime Directive. "

" Keep trying, Captain. Their behavior is highly illogical. " " No point in repeating that it's illogical, Spock. I'm – quite aware of it. "

" Pity you can't teach me that. " " I have tried, Captain. "

" No native to this planet has ever had any trace of any kind of disease. How long would a man live if all disease were erased, Jim? Wu! " (Wu enters) " Tell Captain Kirk your age. " " Age? Well, I have seen 42 years of the red bird. My eldest brother is… " " Their year of the red bird comes once every 11 years, which he's seen 42 times. Multiply it. Wu is 462 years old. His father is well over a thousand. Interested, Jim? "

" Freedom? Freedom? That is a worship word. Yang worship. You will not speak it. "

" Who knows? It might one day cure the common cold, but lengthen lives? Poppycock! I can do more for you if you just eat right and exercise regularly. "

" They sacrificed hundreds just to draw us out in the open. And then they came, and they came. We drained four of our phasers, and they still came. We killed thousands and they still came! "

" There's no serum! There are no miracles! There's no immortality here! All this is for nothing! "

" Ay plegli ianectu flaggen, tupep like for stahn – " " And to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. "

" Spock, I've found that evil usually triumphs unless good is very, very careful. "

" What are you doing? " " I'm making a suggestion. "

" They must apply to everyone or they mean nothing! "

" Liberty and freedom have to be more than just words. "

Background information [ ]

Story and script [ ].

• This was one of three draft stories considered for the second pilot of the series, first draft 7 June 1965 . The other unchosen draft was " Mudd's Women ". " Where No Man Has Gone Before " was the script eventually selected. ( The Star Trek Compendium , p. 17) "The Omega Glory" was filmed in middle and late December 1967 .
• The original 1965 script draft named the missing starship as the USS Argentina . The Enterprise landing party consisted of Kirk, Spock, a young navigator named Lieutenant Commander Piper, a helmsman called Lieutenant Phil Raintree, and the ship's doctor named Milton Perry. The latter two were killed during the actions on the surface. At the climax, Kirk fought Tracey in a western-style gunfight, during which Tracey shot Spock twice. However, he survived, because of the different anatomy of Vulcans (his heart not being in his chest). The first draft also featured a comic relief of the Enterprise computer having a female personality, an aspect which was eventually used in " Tomorrow is Yesterday ". ( The Star Trek Compendium , p. 100) In his novelization of the episode in Star Trek 10 , James Blish uses the Raintree character in place of Galloway.
• Spock attempting to telepathically "suggest" Sirah to pick up the communicator, was reminiscent of the early concepts that Spock had special powers over women. ( The Star Trek Compendium , p. 100)
• Roddenberry originally wanted to produce this episode early in the first season, along with "Mudd's Women", but NBC thought the script was weak and ordered the staff to 'shelve' it for an indefinite time to be possibly reworked and produced later on. Despite NBC still objecting against it, Roddenberry finally had his way to make "The Omega Glory" late in the second season. ( Inside Star Trek: The Real Story , These Are the Voyages: TOS Season Two )
• Husband and wife writing team Les and Tina Pine were assigned by Roddenberry to write a teleplay based on his previous outlines and scripts; however, their finished product was not up to the producers' standards, and Roddenberry decided to develop the project further himself. ( These Are the Voyages: TOS Season Two )
• A letter reprinted in Inside Star Trek: The Real Story reveals that Roddenberry personally submitted his teleplay for consideration for an Emmy Award.
• Robert H. Justman wrote a long memo to Roddenberry, in which he pointed out the flaws of the episode's script, but he thought it was too devastating, and tore it up, and made a few suggestions orally instead. "[Roddenberry] took the advice, but as anyone who has seen the episode knows, it didn't do much good" . ( Inside Star Trek: The Real Story , p. 137)
• McCoy: Jim, the parallel's too close. They seem so completely Human. Is it possible that… ?
• Kirk: The result of Earth's early space race?
• Spock: Quite possible, Captain. They are aggressive enough to be Human.
• McCoy: Now listen, Spock, you…
• A fairly lengthy scene from the final shooting script was edited from the final print of this episode. Soon after the landing party arrived on Omega IV, Kirk directly confronted Tracey about the possibility of his having violated the Prime Directive and Tracey attempted to defend his actions. Tracey also displayed open hostility towards Spock during this scene, revealing his dislike of Vulcans. James Blish does write up the scene in his adaptation of the episode in Star Trek 10 .
• While analyzing the crystals into which the Exeter 's crew have dissolved, McCoy says that we are all about 96% water. The actual figure is closer to 70%.

Reception [ ]

• According to author Daniel Leonard Bernardi , " Like the Federation, the Comms have full command of the English language (although they speak with a homogenized 'Asian' accent). The beginning of the episode thus shows that those with white skin can be uncivilized savages and those with yellow skin can be civilized and rational […] This would be counter to the hegemonic representation of Asians in the United States media; that diverse collective of peoples are consistently constructed in film and television as a menacing 'yellow horde'. " Bernardi goes on to say: " 'The Omega Glory' is not, however, a counter-hegemonic episode. In fact, the episode not only reveals an unwillingness to be critical of the hegemony of racist representations, but also systematically participates in the stereotyping of Asians. As the story progresses, the Yangs are constructed as noble savages; their cause to annihilate the Comms is established as justified. The Comms, on the other hand, are constructed as brutal and oppressive; their drive to suppress the Yangs is established as totalitarian. This more hegemonic articulation of race is made evident when Kirk and Spock realize the extent to which the Yangs and Comms parallel Earth's civilizations. In this light, the Yangs are no longer savages, but noble warriors fighting for a just and honorable cause. They want to regain the land they lost in a war with the Asiatics. " ( Star Trek and History: Race-ing Toward a White Future , pp. 57-58)
• In 2017, this episode was rated by ScreenRant as the 8th worst episode of the Star Trek franchise up to that time. In 2018, Comic Book Resources (CBR) included this episode on a ranking of episodes they stated were "So Bad They Must Be Seen".
• In 2017, "Den of Geek" ranked this episode as the 5th worst Star Trek episode of the original series.

Continuity [ ]

• In this episode, the USS Enterprise visits another world possessing a parallel-Earth culture. Other such examples include " Miri " and " Bread and Circuses ". There are also Earth cultures in " A Piece of the Action ", " Patterns of Force ", " The Paradise Syndrome ", and " Plato's Stepchildren ", but these were derived from actual Earth cultures (either deliberately or accidentally) and did not originate independently.
• This is the second time the Enterprise encounters an Earth-like planet with humans that are centuries old. The first time was in " Miri ".
• This is the second of three times the Enterprise encounters another Constitution -class starship with the entire crew dead. The other two were in " The Doomsday Machine " and " The Tholian Web ".
• It is learned that the Exeter had a standard complement of four shuttlecraft . During the search for survivors, Galloway informed Kirk that "all four of the craft" were still on the hangar deck . Whether all Constitution -class vessels were equipped with that number of shuttles is not made clear.
• This is the first time the chief medical officer of another Federation starship , Dr. Carter , is seen. Although he is sitting in the command chair on the bridge, it is unclear if he is in command of the Exeter or is merely recording his warning. Not until Dr. Crusher was placed in command of the USS Enterprise -D in " Descent, Part II " would a doctor clearly be in command of a starship. (Dr. Crusher was technically in command in " Remember Me " when she was the only crewmember left; however, since it wasn't the real Enterprise , it cannot be counted.)
• This episode marks the first and only time in the original series that reference is made to phaser "power packs."
• This is the second time in the same season that people are reduced to their component minerals; the first was when the Kelvans distilled the crew of the Enterprise down in " By Any Other Name ".

Production [ ]

• Roy Jenson 's voice was electronically altered for this episode. The preview for the episode contains unaltered dialogue for Cloud William which doesn't have the "slowed down" effect.
• Fred Steiner arranged the "Star-Spangled Banner" motifs for this episode. ( The Star Trek Compendium )
• Identical female screams are heard in this episode and in " A Private Little War ", " The Gamesters of Triskelion ", and " All Our Yesterdays ".
• The shot of Sulu manning the helm station with an empty captain's chair in the background in mid-Act One is recycled from " Arena ".
• One of the places on the Exeter seen empty during Kirk's intercom hail is engineering . Curiously, that's the location of the landing party .

A slide from one of the View-Master reels

• This was the first of five Star Trek projects to be adapted into View-Master reels. In a duplicate of one of the shots from the episode taking place at the communications station on the bridge, Nichelle Nichols is taking advantage of the time for the View-Master shots to study her script: you can see it open on her lap as George Takei stands next to her.
• NBC announced that Star Trek would be renewed for a third season during the closing credits of this episode, on 1 March 1968 . In the announcement, they also wrote " Please do not send any more letters ", responding to the vast amount of mail received during the protests organized by Roddenberry and Bjo Trimble . ( Inside Star Trek: The Real Story , p. 386)

Syndication cuts [ ]

The episode contains one of the more significant syndication cuts which effectively alters the plot, depending upon which version of the episode is viewed. In the syndicated version, Tracey returns in a dazed hysteria from the Kohm battle, learns from Kirk that there is no serum, and then orders, " Outside, or I'll burn down both your friends. " In this context, Tracey appears to be a man at his wit's end, crazed from the Kohm battle, and he is taking Kirk outside to murder him in cold blood.

In the original unsyndicated version, a much more complicated motive arises from Tracey removing Kirk. Once outside, Tracey appears to calm down. He explains that he must have more phasers and asks Kirk to help him. Kirk then says everyone can simply beam up, but Tracey will not go, fully aware he would face criminal charges. He then pleads with Kirk, offering to join forces with him, and asks, " If I put a weapon in your hand, you'll fight, won't you? " He then gives Kirk his communicator and lets Kirk contact his ship to ask for phasers. When Sulu refuses to beam down weapons, Tracey comments that Kirk has a well trained crew. Kirk then attacks Tracey, seemingly as a last ditch attempt to take him into custody and beam off the planet, rather than in fear of his life which is the implication of the syndicated version. ( The Star Trek Compendium )

The following additional scenes were also typically cut from the syndicated broadcast:

• Extended walk of Spock to the Exeter science station, in order to replay the ship's log.
• More drama and extended reactions just prior to the introduction of the American flag.
• Preparation for the fight between Kirk and Tracey, with Cloud William sticking the knife into the floor, then explaining the rules of the fight.

Cast and characters [ ]

• James Doohan ( Montgomery Scott ) and Walter Koenig ( Pavel Chekov ) do not appear in this episode.
• Morgan Woodward ( USS Exeter Captain Ronald Tracey ) had previously played another wild-eyed madman, Simon Van Gelder in " Dagger of the Mind ".
• Despite Galloway 's demise in this episode, David L. Ross returned as Lieutenant Johnson in " Day of the Dove " and as Galloway once more in " Turnabout Intruder ". No explanation was given for the resurrection. According to Ross in the unauthorized biography of William Shatner, Gene Roddenberry wanted him to appear regularly in the series, but Ross was not interested in that much acting.
• Ed McCready makes his fourth out of five appearances on Star Trek as the ill-fated Doctor Carter . McCready appeared in all three seasons of the show in short bit roles, each time in an episode directed by Vincent McEveety . Dr. Carter was originally going to be shown dissolving on camera. ( The Star Trek Compendium )
• The Kohm guarding Dr. McCoy can be seen in green coveralls in " The Man Trap ", both in the corridor and in the turbolift , and as one of the miners in " The Devil in the Dark ". He can also be seen extensively as a background character in many episodes of Kung Fu and Hawaii Five-O .
• Despite having been killed in the earlier episode " Obsession ", Eddie Paskey 's Leslie appears here, beaming down with Sulu and arresting Captain Tracey at the end of the episode. According to Paskey, a scene in the "Obsession" script in which Leslie is revived by a miracle potion was never filmed. [1] That episode's director, Ralph Senensky , also confirmed that he did not shoot the scene. [2]

Production timeline [ ]

• Story outline by Gene Roddenberry : 20 April 1965
• Revised story outline: 23 April 1965
• Second revised story outline: 25 April 1965
• First draft teleplay: 28 April 1965
• Revised first draft: 21 May 1965
• Second draft teleplay: March 1966
• First draft teleplay by Les Pine and Tina Pine : 19 September 1967
• First draft teleplay by Roddenberry: 24 November 1967
• Second draft teleplay by Roddenberry: late- November 1967
• Final draft teleplay: 11 December 1967
• Revised final draft: 15 December 1967
• Additional page revisions by John Meredyth Lucas : 18 December 1967 , 19 December 1967 , 20 December 1967
• Day 1 – 15 December 1967 , Friday – Desilu Stage 11 : Int. Village lab
• Day 2 – 18 December 1967 , Monday – Desilu Stage 11 : Int. Village lab , Jail cell block
• Day 3 – 19 December 1967 , Tuesday – B Tank : Ext. Kohm village
• Day 4 – 20 December 1967 , Wednesday – Desilu Stage 11 : Int. Jail cell block , Yangs' headquarters
• Day 5 – 21 December 1967 , Thursday – Desilu Stage 11 : Int. Yangs' headquarters
• Day 6 – 22 December 1967 , Friday – Desilu Stage 11 : Int. Yangs' headquarters
• Day 7 – 26 December 1967 , Tuesday – Desilu Stage 9 : Int. Bridge , Transporter room , Engineering
• Score recorded: 22 December 1967
• Original airdate: 1 March 1968
• Rerun airdate: 26 July 1968
• First UK airdate (on BBC1 ): 24 August 1970
• First UK airdate (on ITV ): 6 February 1983
• Remastered airdate: 30 June 2007

Remastered information [ ]

The remastered version of "The Omega Glory" aired in many North American markets during the weekend of 30 June 2007 . The episode included dramatic new effects shots of the Enterprise and the Exeter in orbit of a more Earth-like, computer-generated Omega IV. Among the fine details inserted into the show, a small glimpse of the Exeter appears on the Enterprise viewscreen as it approaches the planet at the start of the episode.

Apocrypha [ ]

• In the novel Forged in Fire , Sulu's presence in the landing party which rescued Kirk, Spock and McCoy would turn out to be fortuitous – having assisted Kang , Kor , and Koloth in their hunt for The Albino , disobeying orders from Starfleet Command in doing so, Sulu is also infected with the blood oath -spawning genetic virus (actually a retrovirus , which is why it was the children of the Klingons who were killed), but because bacteriological elements from Omega IV, to which Sulu had become immune, were a key component of the virus, it did not affect him as intended.
• Another novel, Forgotten History , stated an investigation revealed that the Enterprise logs and scans indicated the American artifacts "were far too intact to be thousands of years old; given the primitive conditions in which the Yang tribe had kept them, they couldn’t have dated back much more than a century.” Moreover, it was discovered that the Yangs had never stated that the "holy" artifacts were ancient and this was a conclusion Kirk had jumped to. It was eventually concluded that in the 2140s , a Earth Cargo Service freighter, the ECS Philadelphia had discovered the planet and noting the similarities between Yang beliefs and American ideals and left behind American paraphernalia to inspire the Yangs in their fight for freedom. Unfortunately, the Philadelphia crew could not report this encounter to anyone before they succumbed to the planet's virus.

Video and DVD releases [ ]

• Original US Betamax release: 1986
• UK VHS release (two-episode tapes, CIC Video ): Volume 28 , catalog number VHR 2380, 6 August 1990
• US VHS release: 15 April 1994
• UK re-release (three-episode tapes, CIC Video): Volume 2.9, 22 August 1997
• Original US DVD release (single-disc): Volume 27, 10 July 2001
• As part of the TOS Season 2 DVD collection

Links and references [ ]

Starring [ ].

• William Shatner as Capt. Kirk

Also starring [ ]

• Leonard Nimoy as "Mr. Spock "
• DeForest Kelley as "Dr. McCoy "

Guest star [ ]

• Morgan Woodward as "Captain Tracey "
• Roy Jenson as Cloud William
• George Takei as Sulu
• Nichelle Nichols as Uhura
• Irene Kelly as Sirah
• Morgan Farley as Yang Scholar
• David L. Ross as Lt. Galloway
• Lloyd Kino as Wu
• Ed McCready as Dr. Carter
• Frank Atienza as Kohn [sic] Villager

Uncredited co-stars [ ]

• William Blackburn as Hadley
• Frank da Vinci as Vinci
• Ed Fury as Yang drummer
• Eddie Paskey as Leslie
• Frieda Rentie as Enterprise lieutenant
• Walter Soo Hoo as Kohm guard 1
• Adele Yoshioka as Kohm servant
• Security guard
• Kohm guard 2 , and 3
• Kohm soldiers 1 , 2 , and 3
• Several Kohm villagers
• Yang flag bearer
• Nine Yang villagers

References [ ]

13th century ; 1806 ; 1990s ; American ; American Indian ; analysis ; ancestor ; animal ; answer ; antibody ; area ; arrest ; Asiatic ; auto-navigation ; ax ; bacteriological holocaust ; Bacteriological warfare experiment condition ; bargain ; bacteriology ; behavior ; biological war ; blood ; blood-analyzer unit ; boarding party ; body ; " Bones "; bow ; bridge crew ; calcium ; carbon ; case ; cell ; century ; chance ; charge ; chemical ; chief ; chronological age ; city ; civilization ; close planet orbit ; Cloud William's father ; common cold ; communicator ; communicator signal ; Communist ; compliments ; confiscation ; consciousness ; constitution ; Constitution -class ; contact ; crew ; crime ; crystal ; danger ; death ; delirium ; descendant ; desert ; disease (aka infection ); doctor ; ear ; Earth ; et cetera ; evil ; Evil One ; exercise ; Exeter , USS ; Exeter bridge officers ; Exeter engineers ; evolution ; eye ; face ; facility ; fever ; fire ; fire box ; fool ; foothills ; fountain of youth ; freedom ; generation ; good ; governor ; guard ; " guardian of holies "; guilt ; hangar deck ; heart ; heaven ; hill ; history ; hour ; Human body ; Humanity ; immortality ; immunity ; immunization ; immunizing agent ; importance ; intercom ; internal organ ; justice ; key ; king ; Kohm ; lab ; lance ; land ; landing party ; leader of warriors ; liberty ; life ; light ; logic ; log entry ; log tape ; long range sensor scan ; magnification ; mannerism ; meaning ; medical men ; medical staff ; medicine ; medi-scanner ; message ; meter ; minute ; miracle ; month ; mortar ; multiplication ; name ; nation ; nature ; night ; nuclear devastation ; oath ; Omega IV ; Omega IV native ; Omega IV village ; Omega IV virus ; opinion ; organ ; parley ; patrol ; percent ; phaser ; phosphorus ; place ; planet survey ; Pledge of Allegiance ; pollen ; " poppycock "; potassium ; pound ; power pack ; pride ; Prime Directive ; prisoner ; problem ; proposition ; proof ; Regulation 7 ; republic ; research ; risk ; savage ; screen ; senior officer ; sensor ; serum ; servant ; shuttlecraft ; soil ; skin ; slave ; " speaker of the holy words "; spore ; " stand by "; star ; star captain ; Starfleet ; Starfleet Command ; Starfleet uniform ; stoicism ; subject ; surface ; Surgeon's log, USS Exeter ; survival of the fittest ; " thank heavens "; theory ; thing ; thousand ; tissue ; tongue ; tranquility ; transporter room ; tribe ; trick ; truce ; unconsciousness ; union ; United States Constitution ; United States flag ; United States of America ; verification ; village ; village elder ; villager ; voice communication ; volunteer ; volunteering ; Vulcan ; Vulcan nerve pinch ; war ; warrior ; water ; weapon ; week ; white ; white people ; white skin ; window ; wisdom ; workplace ; worship ; worship word (aka high-worship word or sacred word or holy word ); Wu's brother ; Wu's father ; Yang ; Yang legend ; Yankee ; year ; Year of the Red Bird ; yellow ; yellow people

Other references [ ]

• Bible (Omega IV) references: cattle ; corn ; Darius ; dew ; drought ; earth ; Evil One ; fruit ; God ; governor ; Haggai ; hand ; high priest ; Jerusalem ; Josedech ; Joshua ; Judah ; king ; messenger ; mountain ; oil ; prophet ; Shealtiel ; voice ; wine ; word ; Zerubbabel ; Zion
• United States Constitution references: citizen ; Connecticut ; Delaware ; election ; general welfare ; Georgia ; Massachusetts ; Maryland ; New Hampshire ; New Jersey ; New York ; North Carolina ; Pennsylvania ; physical age ; representative ; Rhode Island ; senator ; South Carolina ; state ; tax ; United States Congress ; Virginia

External links [ ]

• "The Omega Glory" at StarTrek.com
• " The Omega Glory " at Memory Beta , the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
• " The Omega Glory " at Wikipedia
• " The Omega Glory " at MissionLogPodcast.com , a Roddenberry Star Trek podcast
• 1 Abdullah bin al-Hussein

We will keep fighting for all libraries - stand with us!

Internet Archive Audio

• This Just In
• Grateful Dead
• Old Time Radio
• 78 RPMs and Cylinder Recordings
• Audio Books & Poetry
• Computers, Technology and Science
• Music, Arts & Culture
• News & Public Affairs
• Spirituality & Religion
• Radio News Archive

• Flickr Commons
• Occupy Wall Street Flickr
• NASA Images
• Solar System Collection
• Ames Research Center

• All Software
• Old School Emulation
• MS-DOS Games
• Historical Software
• Classic PC Games
• Software Library
• Kodi Archive and Support File
• Vintage Software
• CD-ROM Software
• CD-ROM Software Library
• Software Sites
• Tucows Software Library
• Shareware CD-ROMs
• Software Capsules Compilation
• CD-ROM Images
• ZX Spectrum
• DOOM Level CD

• Smithsonian Libraries
• FEDLINK (US)
• Lincoln Collection
• American Libraries
• Canadian Libraries
• Universal Library
• Project Gutenberg
• Children's Library
• Biodiversity Heritage Library
• Books by Language
• Additional Collections

• Prelinger Archives
• Democracy Now!
• Occupy Wall Street
• TV NSA Clip Library
• Animation & Cartoons
• Arts & Music
• Computers & Technology
• Cultural & Academic Films
• Ephemeral Films
• Sports Videos
• Videogame Videos
• Youth Media

Search the history of over 866 billion web pages on the Internet.

Mobile Apps

• Wayback Machine (iOS)
• Wayback Machine (Android)

Browser Extensions

Archive-it subscription.

• Explore the Collections
• Build Collections

Save Page Now

Capture a web page as it appears now for use as a trusted citation in the future.

Please enter a valid web address

• Donate Donate icon An illustration of a heart shape

Star Trek The Omega Glory

Video item preview, share or embed this item, flag this item for.

• Graphic Violence
• Explicit Sexual Content
• Hate Speech
• Misinformation/Disinformation
• Marketing/Phishing/Advertising
• Misleading/Inaccurate/Missing Metadata

plus-circle Add Review comment Reviews

2 Favorites

DOWNLOAD OPTIONS

In collections.

Uploaded by JoeyBrooklyn on June 4, 2023

SIMILAR ITEMS (based on metadata)

• More to Explore
• Series & Movies

Episode Preview: The Omega Glory

• April 19, 2024 | Exclusive First Look At Artwork From ‘Star Trek: Celebrations’ – IDW’s One Shot Comic For Pride Month
• April 19, 2024 | Podcast: All Access Faces The Strange On ‘Star Trek: Discovery’
• April 18, 2024 | Lost Original USS Enterprise Model From ‘Star Trek’ Returned To Gene Roddenberry’s Son
• April 18, 2024 | Recap/Review: ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Gets The Timing Right In “Face The Strange”
• April 17, 2024 | Watch: Things Get “Odd” In ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Trailer And Clip From “Face The Strange”

“The Omega Glory” Remastered Review + Screenshots and Video [repeat]

| July 5, 2008 | By: Jeff Bond 123 comments so far

This weekend is a repeat of the remastered "The Omega Glory" which originally aired last year (also on the 4th of July weekend). Below is our review plus video and screenshots from last summer. 

REVIEW by Jeff Bond

Once again it befalls me to offer the defense of a not-very-well-thought-of episode of original Trek. When most people bring up “The Omega Glory,” it’s to do their impression of William Shatner’s inimitable (well, actually, VERY imitatable) delivery of the preamble to the U.S. Constitution at the episode’s infamous climax: “WE… THE PEOPLE …of the unitedstates…do ORDAIN and ESTABLISH this Constitution–!!” It’s a groaner of an ending that quantifies Gene Roddenberry’s somewhat flat-footed idea of a rampant biological war between parties on an alien planet that effectively throws them into the Stone Age. That in itself isn’t bad (if having already been done in a sense in episodes like “Miri”), but Roddenberry (who was supposedly inspired to write this episode after viewing the actual Constitution on a trip to Washington D.C.) turns “The Omega Glory” into a Cold War parable that’s strangely racist, with warring “Yankees” and “Commies” descended from yet another culture apparently identical to ours right down to language both spoken and written.

The episode’s “Yangs” are lilly-white, almost Aryan Caucasians, the “Kohms” are Asians, and Kirk can’t help but take the side of the downtrodden Americans, winning them over with the nobility of their ancient words while the evil Captain Tracy appeals to their superstitions and hatreds.

“The Omega Glory” was one of three ideas for Star Trek ’s “second pilot,” the other being “Mudd’s Women” and, thankfully, “Where No Man Has Gone Before.” Dissed by the network for making “The Cage” “too cerebral,” Roddenberry was taking no chances with his unprecedented second turn at bat—“Mudd’s Women” was rampantly sexual and “The Omega Glory” was an action-packed western at heart with a core of naked patriotism. While the “Mudd” episode has its pleasures, it’s doubtful either “Mudd” or “Omega Glory” would have made very good demonstrations of Trek’s viability as a science fiction series.

“Omega Glory” winds up as somewhat of an afterthought at the end of season two, ironically butted up against “Assignment: Earth,” itself a pilot for a Trek spin-off series. But while I have cringed along with everyone else at the story’s ridiculous denouement and the revelation that the blonde aliens on the planet are heroic Americans fighting for their land, I’ve always found the bulk of “Omega Glory” to be a fun, exciting outing of classic Trek . This is the episode excerpted on The Tom Snyder Show , which showed the teaser of the Enterprise discovering the U.S.S. Exeter in orbit around planet Omega IV and Kirk, Spock, McCoy and an expendable beaming aboard the ship and finding it abandoned—and just like Tom Snyder, I was hooked as a teen by this opening. In fact, the opening beats of the episode provide everything you’d want from a classic episode. Any time we see more of Starfleet, and in particular another starship, I’m hooked—even though it’s the simplest, cheapest trick in the book to stand the actors on the SAME SETS and have them act like it’s another ship. Another brilliant Trek gimmick is those uniforms lying around filled with what looks like crushed quartz crystals. McCoy’s revelation (“…the crew never left!”) and the idea that all those uniforms contain desiccated human bodies, well, ick is all I can say—it’s almost as good as reducing the crew to Styrofoam dodecahedrons in “By Any Other Name.”

Roddenberry and co. were ingenious to establish right away that there were at least 12 other spaceships like the Enterprise, because if Kirk, Spock and McCoy were such interesting people, who was running these other ships? We met Matt Decker in “The Doomsday Machine” and Bob Wesley in “The Ultimate Computer,” and Ron Tracy immediately lives up to the standards of sheer, magnetic manliness established by those two rugged individualists.

Actor Morgan Woodward is one of my big guilty pleasures and probably the biggest reason I enjoy this episode (I met him at a Trek convention five or six years ago—I was totally unaware he was going to be in the autograph room, I was just standing there actually with my back to his table, turned around and there he was—and I can honestly say it was one of the great moments of my life meeting him. He’s in good shape and looks remarkably similar to the way he did in the Sixties, and he just seemed like a great, fun guy to know). We see him earlier in Trek as Dr. Simon Van Gelder, a wild-haired psychopath with bad skin and eyes like two big poached eggs, and he gives one of the all-time great raving maniac performances. So it’s a little unsettling to see him as the trim, calm and competent Captain Tracy explaining to Kirk about the virus that’s destroyed his crew.

Of course Kirk soon begins to suspect Tracy isn’t telling them everything he knows, that in fact the other Captain has violated the ultimate taboo: the Prime Directive. And this is what always impressed me as a teen and it’s something that still impresses me watching the episode: this is the first and only time we see James Kirk up against another starship captain, an equal in almost every sense of the word. Yes there was Matt Decker but Kirk isn’t fighting Decker, just arguing with him. And Tracy, at least at first, isn’t in Decker’s pathetic, beaten condition—this is a man in his prime and as he proves when they first come to blows, this guy is actually tougher than Kirk! Woodward’s Tracy is big, confident and merciless, and only late in the episode does he become unhinged. The quite terrific revelation of his crimes is a great example of the show’s ability to imply great scope, as well as savagery, with a few well-chosen words: Spock has been scouting the surrounding countryside and reports to Kirk and McCoy in a Kohm house where they’re holed up. He shows Kirk a handful of phaser power packs—actually phaser handles, which were designed to twist off the phaser body and be replaced when drained (a feature which, like many of this prop’s carefully-designed and thought-out working bells and whistles, was for some reason never properly demonstrated on screen): “Captain Tracy’s reserve belt packs. Empty,” Spock says, “Found among the remains of several hundred Yang bodies.”

Tracy himself confirms the facts, in one of the most brutal acts shown on the series, by almost casually disintegrating the wounded redshirt Spock brought back with him from his scouting expedition (in post-TNG Trek, phasers hit people, some sparks fly out of their chest and they fall down; in classic Trek, they disappear in a red haze, which is frankly a hell of a lot scarier). Later Tracy makes one of the great, operatic bad guy speeches in all of Trek as he describes the Yang attack he barely escaped alive from: “They sacrificed hundreds just to draw us out into the open…then they came… and they came …we drained four of our phasers and they still came…we killed thousands of them and they still came!” Check out Jerry Finnerman’s lighting on Woodward—there’s a great tracking shot in on him as he makes this speech, sadly interrupted by a reaction shot of Kirk and McCoy, with the camera moving close to Tracy’s disheveled figure, wide eyes blazing out of his almost silhouetted form in the doorway.

Oddly with all this blood and horror (“Omega Glory is really the Heart of Darkness of Star Trek ), the episode finds ways to be fun—the hallmark of the show’s second season. The fight scenes are energetic as Tracy makes a truly formidable opponent in three scenes, soundly whipping Kirk’s ass in the first and giving him a run for his money in the other two. When Tracy throws Kirk in a cell with Cloud William (ex football player, and memorable Chinatown thug Roy Jenson), the Captain’s rueful banter with Spock (trapped in another cell away from all the fun) is even better than the similar interplay in the prisoner cell in “Patterns of Force.” McCoy, himself trapped replaying his makeshift laboratory scenes from “Miri,” comes up with some good business of his own, especially when Kirk and Spock return from what must have seemed certain death and the doctor is too wrapped up in his studies to offer more than a distracted “Oh, hello Jim…”

The climactic fight scene couldn’t be more standard, but the combination of Woodward’s bullheaded refusal to go down quietly, the typical villain’s move of turning a primitive culture’s superstitions against them, and Spock’s atypical use of Vulcan hypnosis, make for an exciting scene. It’s only at its literally flag-waving ending that the story sheds all its inherent entertainment value and just turns ridiculous.

With its well-designed Kohm village exteriors, stark film noir interior lighting and interesting footage of the Exeter set dressings, “Omega Glory” has always looked good with the exception of the Yang’s bushy wigs. The new transfer makes a good thing look even better, at least after the initial Exeter and beamdown sequences, which suffer from a little of the drab brown caste that “Friday’s Child” exhibits. I’m partial to the original angle of the Enterprise approach to the Exeter in orbit—for all its technical shortcomings, there was a linear “we are here and that’s what we’re looking at right over there” graphic quality to the reuse of prior miniature elements and the new shots of the ships from the side, while obviously far more ambitious in terms of movement and execution, lack a little of the drama of the originals (the pull-in on the Exeter’s primary hull and its registry numbers is nice and well-suited to the dramatic musical sting used there, although bulletin boards all over the net are afire with arguments about the registry number). Sulu’s first magnification of the Exeter is interesting in that we see the ship as a small blip in orbit instead of the stock shot from the original episode, but this subtlety works against the big music cue here. It makes sense to make Omega IV more Earth-like but that IS starting to drain the variety and color from a lot of these episodes; too bad it’s so hard to reconcile the blue sky location footage with the magenta planet footage from the original because it could have been seen as after-effects from the planet’s war.

There are three phaser shots in the episode: Tracy’s execution of the wounded security guard, his destruction of the computer Spock is about to use to contact the ship, and his shot at a barrel Kirk dives behind in the outdoor chase prior to the Yangs’ takeover of the village. If there’s any enhancement of these shots it’s extremely subtle; frame by frame the details look pretty much exactly like the originals. The shot of the computer being disintegrated in front of Spock has always been problematic—it’s an interesting effect showing the square outline of the computer expanding into a green vapor, but Nimoy’s physical reaction is more appropriate for an explosion and the problem isn’t solved by CBS Digital here. Some have remarked about the Enterprise leaving orbit without the Exeter but it’s explicitly stated that Sulu leaves the other starship behind earlier in the story to go into a different orbit.

“Omega Glory” will never be remembered as a great Trek episode, but taken on its own terms it’s an entertaining hour, and Ron Tracy will always be one of my favorite characters from the show. I think he gets a bad rap because he became the prototype for a particularly overused type of Trek character, the “mad general”—meaning that any time a Trek hero comes up against a highly-placed figure from Starfleet, they’re likely to be secretly deranged. But Tracy did it first and in my view did it best.

SFX VIDEO by Matt Wright

SCREENSHOTS by Matt Wright

Remastered v Original

Bonus Video: Kirk has a constitutional By popular demand…here is the Shat doing it father of the country style.

Seasons One and Two discounted at Amazon The Season Two box set is now available at Amazon for pre-order, discounted to $63.99 (Amazon has a low price guarantee that if they drop the price before ship date of August 5th you will get that lower price). The Season One DVD / HD DVD combo disk is available now for $110.49 (retail is $194.99).

Hope everyone had a great 4th!

yeh not one of the best ones,but still,,,classic Trek

you just have to smile as Shatner reads the episode’s infamous climax: “WE…THE PEOPLE” speach with ,, every,

God I love this Shatner add,,, :o )

/www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1CwZgb_iAI

Captain Tracy was one cool, dark dude!

So, what happened to the exeter? Was it blown up because it was contaminated? or what?

OK, NOW it’s the 4th of July!

Love this episode. I even love the credulity-crackin’ final scene, although I admit that if they tried it today, it would kill the series.

Thanks, Anthony — and Jeff.

Hmm… I looked at the screencaps of this one at Trekcore to check out those lovely closeups of Spock’s eyes. Know what I found? Five o’clock shadow on Leonar’ds eyebrows! Now, part of me said, “They KNEW they were doing these extreme close-ups. Why didn’t they shave those off?” But then, I looked at my own, sad, shaggy brows and realized that those stragglers made Spock’s eyebrows more realistic.

Yeah, it’s too hot here to do anything like make a coherant thought (or spell coherent correctly, it seems!)

So, back to the ep–After Tracy blasts the computer Spock is working on, and wounds Spock in the process, McCoy and Kirk look like they are rendering some kind of medical aid to our fallen Vulcan. I always wondered if Kirk was doing some kind of Vulcan CPR on Spock. Thoughts?

Great review. Super! Hits many things I’ve always thought of this ep. I care not what people say….when these first started being offered on video almost 20 yrs ago this and “Patterns of Force” were the first two I bought. Loved them then. LOVE them now!

You met Morgan Woodward?! That’s too cool! He lives just down the road from me in a gated community (and street named after him) just 12 minutes from me; in walking distance of Six Flags and I’ve never met him! Would love to. Drove past it once but can’t even get in to see the house. Probably just as well. One of my all time favorite Star Trek characters.

I totally agree on how this episode showed a whole other dimension to the Fleet and just how dynamic and superior people who populate the upper echelon of Star Fleet . I still say he’s the all time greatest villain ever. And this is coming from someone who loves Montalban. Show me a better set of fight scenes in all the episodes. That crazy old Ron (Woodward) Tracy appears to be doing all his own stunts. Great voice. Great presence!

I had the VIEW MASTER [ remember those? ] of this episode. I’d sit in my room back when I was 10 or so and study each frame. Not the best example of Trek, but Captain Tracey is so out-there he should have been a COMMODORE!

What the heck is “tronquility?”

Holy crap, I never even rocognized Roy Jenson as Claude Mulvihill in “Chinatown”! It’s one of my very favorite films and have seen it dozens of times yet never made the connection. Another Trek alum in Chinatown is Perry Lopez who plays police Lieutenant Lou Escobar. He played Rodriguez in “Shore Leave”. Noble Willingham has a small part in Chinatown as one of the city councilmen (he played Texas in TNG’s “The Royale”).

I’d like to know the answer to that one myself. I wonder if they couldn’t have just vented the ship’s atmosphere out into space, & then repressurized it after the contaminants were sucked out. I think I remember a TNG episode where Geordi, & Beverly did this in the cargo bay. It worked, but it was tough getting to the controls to close the door again, & repressurize the bay. I was hoping that the TOS, or TOS-R team wouldn’t have left us hanging. I’d like an “official” Okuda/Rossi interpretation, please.

Trek captains never fulfilled their five year mission, and Tracy was more of the rule and Kirk was the exception.

That was Roddenberry’s vision.

I can’t remember which “making of Trek” book that came from, but that was the idea.

It would have been cool if they kept that going. Many “wagon trains” never made it either.

As I probably said when this review was originally posted, Morgan Woodward is by far the best part of this episode. This is a guy you believe is commanding a starship: the stature, the presence, the intelligence, the charisma. And he’s yet another wonderful example of the quality character actors that helped make the original series *so* memorable. Mr. Woodward made a very creepy guest appearance on an episode of “The X-Files” about ten or twelve years ago and he was just terrific.

“Tronquility” apparently comes out of the same dictionary as “sabotaaajz”. Likewise, in the Shatnerverse, “Cardassians” is pronounced “Cardashians” (at least in the audio books).

I don’t know why people think the ending is ridiculous. Maybe someone could explain it instead of just making sure to sound cool by copying what everyone else says? This episode was always one of my favorites.

And surely I’m not the only person who gets goosebumps every time they see “The Scene” where Kirk reads the Preamble. He puts so much of the patented Kirk emotion, passion, and soul into it, it’s just amazing.

no’s 4 & 11 I took command afterwards. Capt. A. J. Garibaldi, first Italian to command a starship class vessel. AND I did finish my 5 year mission….

#12 On a more serious note… Roddenberry envisioned Starfleet captains as being a ‘cut above’ regular people. The Commodore’s comment to Kirk in ‘CourtMartial’… “You and I have done what very few can do… commanded a starship”. Obviously the Commodore completed his mission, why wouldn’t any of the other Connies have not come home also? Pike completed 2 – 5 year missions and possibly even part of a 3rd, April completed the E’s first 5 year mission, Garth, who was held in high regard by Kirk, completed his mission though we donot know what type of ship he commanded but it was obviously one on the frontier for Kirk to have ‘studied his missions’ at the Academy. I know the book you are referring to but I think that was not written 100% in stone as far as the tone of the series went.

My problem is, well, the potential story of how the Yangs received their “US flag and Constitution” kit, and why it applies at all to a group of Indo-Europeans battling Mongol hordes, or the Chinese, or whatever.

Also, Cloud William is written as a moron, and to have him be the central Yang character is ridiculous.

I think, for many of us, OG holds up on the nostalgia factor, and the Ron Tracy main plot.

Also, Kirk’s speech at the end is laughably bad, and adds to the nostalgia factor. Compare it to his speech at the end of “Mirror, Mirror.” No comparison.

This is the episode that Red Dwarf used partly as inspiration for its pilot episode. Remember Lister getting out of stasis and then running around the Dwarf, seeing all these piles of white powder, even tasting some of them, and wondering where the crew went?

I got chills listening to Kirk read the preamble to the Constitution.

“And surely I’m not the only person who gets goosebumps every time they see “The Scene” where Kirk reads the Preamble. He puts so much of the patented Kirk emotion, passion, and soul into it, it’s just amazing.”

Hey brother. I’m with you. I always used to get chills from it. A big Kirk scene for sure as a kid. I bought every bit of it. But then again, I’m still the same guy who bought every bit of Batman as a kid. and I’m also the same guy, as I’ve said many times, never thought of the effects of TOS as anything but what they were. Great to me.

Am I the only one who, on first viewing this episode, half-expected Captain Tracy to be a Supermarionette?

I dunno, the original shots look better to me here. I guess I’ll have to wait until next Saturday and see how it looks on the TV screen.

Just watched the “bonus” video up above of Kirk reading the preamble to Cloud William — and was struck for the first time by how much Cloud William looks and sounds like Carl Sagan. Seriously.

21. Maybe he”s a descendant of Jeff Tracy or one of the boys. He does look a little bit like Virgil. ;)

Hey you bunch of baboons!! Trek III is being shown in HIGH F-ing Def right now on Univeral HD. I am looking at High Def Shatner on my 65″ DLP right this minute!!!!! Can’t believe there was not a post on this. I think they will show First Contact this weekend as well. Can’t believe there was no heads up or post on this. All I can say is as beautiful as it looks they better scrub the grain for the Blu-Ray release it looks like it’s covered in fine sand. But High Def Shatner and the seen where the E enters the space dock in HD!!!!! Wow!!!!!

#14. Re: “sabotaaajz”

I always thought that “saboTAAJZ” was the French-Canadian pronunciation of /SAH-bo-taz/. Valeris used Kirk/Shat/s pronunciation in ST6, so he’s not alone.

Always loved this one.

There is a radio commercial in the NY area fro pre owned BMWs, and I could swear it is Morgan Woodward’s clone reading it. Anyone ever hear those/notice the similarity? I mean, it is scary close to his voice’s tone, pronunciation, everything.

Back in the 7th grade History class we had to learn and recite the Preamble. I had this episode tape recorded and listened to Kirk over and over again until I got it down pat. I don’t think my “Kirk-esque” delivery came over well, but I passed. Geezz…that’s been over 30 years ago! Lol!

# 19 and 20 :

Great!! Glad I’m not the only one who reacts that way to that scene. It’s also nice to know that there are other people out there who actually appreciate the scene – instead of ragging on it for being “ridiculous” or whatever, just to look cool and not geeky (heaven forbid!) for saying something positive about something TOS-related.

Keep it real!!

A man after my own heart. “In another life I might have called you friend”

Yay brother!

I would just like to ask and you are probably going to think I am dumb but what was so stupid about the Flag Scene? It showed Patriotism and what the Yangs believed in. And the thing that always confuses me is that almost every episode I see reviewed here people say Sucked or “Wasn’t that great.” Yet Those same people are saying that TOS was the Best of All of them. Isn’t that a contradiction in terms?

Another thing about TOS that sometimes got to me was the computers. I know that it was made during a time when computers were huge, but it never occured to anybody at the time that, maybe in the future, they would have smaller computers and be able to put a lot more information in a small space? I mean today they have computers that can fit in the palm of your hand, Was that a rediculous thought of the future?

About the episode, was there any other time when Spock Neck-pinched a female?

No, they better had NOT scrub the grain when the films make it to BD. Grain is PART of the film image. It’s the particles that the image is recorded upon. When you “scrub the grain” you remove alot of high frequency picture info. as well.

http://www.thedigitalbits.com/articles/robertharris/harris062408.html

Try reading this and learning a bit about what you’re asking for.

This episode is definitely in the bottom five of the original series. The only episodes worse than this are The Apple (76/79), Patterns of Force (77), That Which Survives (78), and The Alternative Factor (79). But it is still TOS and therefore a good episode to watch. Star Trek is like pizza; it’s still good even when its bad. I got goosebumps when Shatner read the Preamble.

I saw Trek 3 tonight as well and the grain is not as bad as I thought. Overall the image was okay. This was not a “healthy” scrub as said before in a previous article. The flicker, white and black flecks were there too; as were some very light film wobbles and light and dark inconsistencies.

Purists can go too far too. Although I do not believe that this was the case, just this was a cheap rescan and little more. Believe it or not, I am glad they did not touch the old opticals because I shudder at the thought of what they would have replaced them with.

To clarify, I am glad these films were not sterilized and the grain added to the nature and overall look of the picture.

I really liked the ending too. I think it was a comment on people believing things that they don’t really understand. Blindly following something without question.

Kirk (Shatner) does a great job reading to the people. He is always trying to teach people on the planets some kind of lesson. This episode also had kind of a Twilight Zone feel to it.

I love all of the wacko alternate earth’s they always find. I wish they would have found a bunch of them on Next Gen.

To each his own but I say thee nay.

#14 –

That makes me think of a new Star Trek spinoff “Keeping up with the “Cardashians””!

In response to the reviewers remarks about phasers:

Yes, I prefer “vaporization” over the “sparks” thing. However, I wish they would have done something to update the vaporization, and changed that it was just a simple, even fade-out. Something that starts from the center and works its way out would be great. Heck, they could still keep the original looking “glow.” (I’m not versed in film terms, so I hope I am understandable).

Now, to get nerdy, I’m going to give my theory as to why TNG-era shows don’t vaporize as much. I think there are different levels of kill settings. You have your low-level kill, which simply puts a hole through someone and causes the sparks, and your high level kill settings, which of course, vaporizes. And of course, you’re going to get more shots off on a lower setting than a higher setting. Tracy, after all, only got off 3 shots before his phaser was out of power.

I also think that the differences in “vaproize” verses “sparks” were also indications as for the purposes of firing the phaser. In TNG era shows, phasers were often used in combat situations, where you needed to get off as many shots as possible. The vaporization was used either in extreme circumstances. However, I also think it was used in extreme circumstances in TOS as well. I don’t think our HEROES in either era used the vaporization very often.

I think Starfleet officers see using the phaser to vaporize someone is seen is inhumane. There is always that “cringe” reaction whenever we see it done.

But yes, while I agree I muc prefer to see things vaporized (perhaps becuase I’m kind of sick like that, lol) keep in mind exactly who is firing the phaser and why.

Great review, Jeff. It mentions all the reasons why I like this episode, and many more.

Being German, I first heard the words of the Preamble spoken by Kirk in this very episode in one of the re-runs. Must’ve been about 10 years old then, but I do remember it very well. Although I didn’t understand everything, didn’t know about its background, it struck me right away. I was impressed with the words, the meaning, and the passionate delivery. I knew Shatner/Kirk was talking about something very important and significant. Although much time has passed, it still has that effect on me.

Hmmm. An average human (male/female) weighs about 155 pounds. Take away 3-4 pounds of chemicals and you’ve got about 18 gallons of water. Assume 430 crew members on the Exeter (minus one captain) and you get about 7,725 gallons of water. Where did all that go? Starships must have really good dehumidifiers.

In defense of Shatner’s reading of The Preamble to the Constitution,” he really only emphasizes “We…The…People” for effect. How else could you read that? The rest of the pauses in the preamble are grammatical, separating ideas. If anything, the words are tumbling out of his mouth (probably because it takes so long to read The Preamble at a normal pace) – not at all like each…word…is…a…sentence.

The music is the same, so maybe hearing this speech, rising to its crescendo, one harkens back to Kirk’s “That’s…why…were…aboard…her!” speech from “Return To Tomorrow.”

Nice review, I always loved this episode. I have no problem with the parralel development angle. If I can buy into it in Miri I can buy into it here. Lots of good moments, moody lighting and the best fight ever, maybe the only fight that didn’t incorporate the use a bad stunt double. Or, at least, I never detected one. Shatner and Woodward both must have scrapped a knee or two staging that whole fight tied to the wrist. Good stuff.

And yes, phasers that create sparks are lame andbelong in Star Wars. Phasers that make things, including people, glow and disappear, are very scary indeed.

This is still pound for pound the third worst tos episode number 1 is Spock”s Brain and number 2 Is And the children shall lead.

I think this is a pretty good episode… UP TO THE POINT when the Yangs overrun the village. What a cool finish this would have been: Captain Tracy, disillusioned, a broken man, is taken home by Kirk to be court-martialed, the inhabitants of Omega are left behind with their stupid tribal conflicts – Prime Directive and all that. But no, the episode isn’t over and what follows thereafter is among the worst pieces of Trek ever. Not only that we have another highly dubious case of completely parallel developments on different planets (compare ‘Miri’ and ‘Bread and Circuses’), including such minutiae like the design of a flag and the exact wording of the constitution; no, in addition to that we get that ridiculous imposed fight between Kirk and Tracy. What a piece of trash!! I always press the stop button on my DVD-player remote as soon as the Khom villagers are defeated. But up to that point: Far better than ST: Insurrection.

One of my favorite moments in trekdom is when Cloud William suddenly perks up and says, “freedom?”

Im sorry I could take cloud Williams seriously or could this episode seriously. Come on, Tribal barbarians on planet light years away with a copy of the Constitution and the Flagg? There is no logic backing episode ,what so ever its thats just plain bad everything. Yeah New effects are improvement but a pig in the poke is still a pig in a poke. If this had been a third season episode it would been one the best easily and thats not a compliment..

Hodgkin’s Law of Parallel Planetary Development rules !

Yankees and Communists, Christians and Romans (throw in Greek Gods, Nazis and Gangsters — imports from Earth)….

Jeff makes a great point –“there was a linear ‘we are here and that’s what we’re looking at right over there’ graphic quality to the reuse of prior miniature elements and the new shots of the ships from the side, while obviously far more ambitious in terms of movement and execution, lack a little of the drama of the originals” .

The establishing shot of the Exeter in orbit around Omega IV seems to be be too distant. You can’t tell that it is a starship (maybe with a big plasma screen and HD you could…)

I also agree that the episode gets off to a rousing start and maintains it until the American flag shows up. Althought the fight sequence was nice, interspersed with Spock’s telepathy with the Yang woman. Good juxtaposition of action with calm, the soundtrack adeptly following along.

Too bad they didn’t make the last act more subtle with a flag that resembled an American one and Kirk’s historical rememberances just being similar enough to the Yang’s to get him off the hook.

Miscellaneous items: Morgan Woodward was great, good to see another starship, good to see another starship insignia (interesting — the rectangular patches were pulled off a purse. The command and science emblems cut from Enterprise insignias and glued into the rectangles — at least this is what the close up picture of the original looked like to me.)

I wonder why the Okudas decided to go with the registry number 1672 instead of the Franz Joseph designation of 1706?

#47 The odds of another planet having an exact word of word duplicate of the Constitution and an stitch for stitch copy of the Flagg zero.

I’ve always thought this was an episode that could’ve been great, but instead came across laughable. It’s another example of the heavy-handed, beat-you-over-the-head with the message (Yankees and Communists! Get it? Get it?) methodology employed in some of the more embarrassing eps. I’d have loved to have seen this done more subtly. Could have still had two warring factions, and could have made Tracy less of a scheming, greedy b****rd. Maybe, instead, he could have been truly conflicted about breaking the Prime Directive, and offered up a defense to Kirk. Kirk could have been sympathetic, but still required to do his duty. Shades of gray, instead of that moralistic me right, you wrong.

But that’s just me.

With all its flaws it still a pretty good episode. It being one of the pilot episodes not chosen by the network one could imagine what this would have looked like in the first season. I think it worked for the time it was produced. If the production had more time and money per episode when the shows were originally filmed many of the shows would be better. These episodes were filmed on a budget that wouldn’t buy catering for most shows now. Star Trek holds up while other series filmed at the same time are so dated they are barely watchable.

• The Original Series
• The Next Generation
• Deep Space Nine
• Strange New Worlds

Battle at the Binary Stars

The vulcan hello, the impossible box.

The Omega Glory

On a thrilling mission, the crew of the USS Enterprise is sent to the planet Omega IV, home to two warring civilizations. They soon discover that the two cultures have been in conflict for centuries, and that the planet’s resources are threatened by the ongoing strife.

Commander Spock, along with the Enterprise’s Second Officer, Lieutenant Commander Gary Mitchell, determine that the planet’s resources have been depleted by the two cultures’ constant warfare. Spock also discovers evidence that the planet’s inhabitants once shared a powerful and unified philosophy: the Omega Glory.

With the help of a local inhabitant, the crew of the Enterprise begins to explore the forgotten Omega Glory. They soon discover that the ancient philosophy and scripture of the Omega Glory is the key to unifying the two warring cultures. However, they soon realize that their mission has been compromised by a mysterious figure from the planet’s past, Admiral Sloat.

Sloat is intent on keeping the Omega Glory a secret in order to control the planet’s resources. He has also created a mind control device to keep the two cultures at war with one another and prevent them from discovering the Omega Glory.

The Enterprise crew must now find a way to stop Sloat and restore the Omega Glory to the planet. With the help of the planet’s inhabitants, they devise a plan to use the mind control device against Sloat and disable it. They also set up a defense system to protect the planet’s resources.

In the end, the crew of the Enterprise is successful in restoring the Omega Glory to the planet and reuniting the two cultures. With the power of the Omega Glory, the planet’s inhabitants have the strength to rebuild their planet and protect their resources. With the help of the Enterprise crew, the Omega Glory is restored to the planet, and peace is restored to the two cultures.

Related Posts

The conscience of the king, a piece of the action, assignment: earth.

Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.

• Show Spoilers
• Night Vision
• Sticky Header
• Highlight Links

Follow TV Tropes

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Recap/StarTrekS2E23TheOmegaGlory

Recap / Star Trek S2 E23 "The Omega Glory"

Edit locked.

Original air date: March 1, 1968

The Enterprise discovers its sister ship the Exeter in orbit around Omega IV, not responding to hails. Kirk, Spock, Bones and Redshirt Galloway beam straight on over without taking any isolation precautions, and find that the entire crew of the Exeter has been reduced to dust and uniforms. An Apocalyptic Log left behind tells them that if they are hearing this, they are doomed. They are now infected with the same virus that killed the crew and the only possible hope of surviving is to beam down to Omega IV. Kirk and co. beam down in search of a cure and find Ronald Tracey, the former captain of the Exeter , ruling among the Kohms, who are at war with the Yangs.

Tracey has developed a taste for power and immortality, and he's not going to let petty things like the Prime Directive , basic morals or a certain charismatic Starfleet captain stand in his way.

The Omega Tropes:

• An Aesop : At the end of the episode, Kirk asserts that the Yangs have as much of a right to liberty as the Kohms. When they protest that idea, Kirk roars with authority, "They must apply to everyone, or they mean nothing!" They back down, leaving Kirk to explain to Spock why this lesson was necessary to give.
• Alien Non-Interference Clause : Kirk gives a very clear summation of the Prime Directive, and is shocked to find that Tracey has abandoned it.
• All for Nothing : That's what Tracey finds out when Dr. McCoy tells him that the extreme lifespan of the natives is a product of natural evolution and there is no serum to isolate.
• All Hail the Great God Mickey! : A nuclear war destroyed civilization and the survivors' descendants are divided into Yangs (Yanks) and Kohms (Communists), the Yangs worship the Constitution without understanding its real meaning.
• All There in the Manual : In the shooting script, the main characters mention the Yangs and Kohms are too close to human to be a coincidence. They speculate they're a remnant of the early space program, setting up the ending where Kirk realizes the Yangs still have a copy of the Constitution. It's not hard to see echoes of the Joseph McCarthy era in Kirk lecturing Americans who have lost their way on what the nation's founding principles mean. But the scene was cut (possibly because it clashes with the timeline), and most viewers just rolled their eyes at the coincidence of an alien planet independently developing the US Constitution.
• Apocalyptic Log : The Exeter 's Chief Medical Officer leaves one, which cuts off as he screams in pain and collapses. "If you've come aboard this ship...you're dead men. Don't go back to your own ship. You have one chance. Get down there. Get down there fast. Captain Tracey is—" (screams and collapses)
• The idea that Kirk, Spock and McCoy can safely return to the Enterprise because they've been immunised to the virus is ludicrous, because they would still carry said virus and can still kill the crew with it- all they'd truly have done is become asymptomatic carriers, a la Typhoid Mary. Either the entire crew would have had to spend time on the planet as well (and then never interact with any non-crew or Omegian ever again), or the landing party would need to be isolated on their return until the virus was removed or expunged from their system.
• The notion that the apparent immortality of the natives is due to natural evolution is undermined by the revelation that the natives are in fact human and descendants of human colonisers, and on a rewatch Bones inadvertently implies that healthy living and good medical care are all that is needed for humans to live just as long themselves earlier in the episode.
• Ax-Crazy : Literally. When the phaser doesn't work, Tracey comes after Kirk with an ax.
• Bat Deduction : Kirk and Spock realise that the natives are descended from Americans and Chinese astronauts because they think "Yangs" must derive from "Yanks" and "Yankees" while "Kohm" must come from "Communists". They are proven right within seconds as the Yangs bring in an American flag, but this was pure guesswork (and arguably goes against McCoy's earlier insistence that the natives live long lives due to natural evolution and inherent traits), and really the scene would make far more sense if they just deduced this after the flag had been introduced.
• Big Damn Heroes : Sulu and two Redshirts who don't have time to die beam down in the nick of time.
• Bizarre Alien Biology : Tracey tries to use the fact that Vulcan hearts are not located in the chest as a way of convincing the Yangs that Spock is a demon.
• Boring, but Practical : Starfleet Captain Tracey believes that the Omega IV natives' natural immunity to disease explains their abnormally long lifespans, and that the immunizing agents in the planet's ecosystem can function as a Fountain of Youth for the rest of the Federation. Dr. McCoy runs his own tests, and scornfully says the agents might "cure the common cold" , but if people want to live longer, they'll get better results from eating healthy and exercising regularly.
• Cargo Cult : The Constitution and the American Flag are holy relics to be worshiped, while "freedom" is a holy word that Cloud William says should not be spoken by others.
• Deadpan Snarker : Spock is so deadpan in this episode, it's hard to tell if he's being snarky or serious.
• Does This Remind You of Anything? : Yangs = Yankees, Kohms = Communists. It's even pointed out In-Universe .
• Dramatic Ammo Depletion : Tracey has Kirk at phaser-point, ready to kill him. He pulls the trigger — and the phaser is out of power.
• Eagleland : The entire episode is built on this trope, culminating with Kirk reading the Constitution aloud.
• Early-Installment Weirdness : If the Yangs and Kohms are descended from an early Earth colonization effort of American and Chinese astronauts, and the current generation is centuries old (along with parents who are even older), then this would mean that Star Trek would have to be set much further into the future than merely the twenty third century. At least a thousand years for it to be plausible.
• The Extremist Was Right : Unintentional, but had Gene Roddenberry been more familiar with growing developments in genetic science even in the 60s, he'd have learnt that harvesting immortality from the DNA of the Yangs and the Kohms was totally possible once the right technology had been developed (as it almost certainly will be by the time we're a space-faring civilisation), and thus Tracey was correct in thinking it could be given to the rest of humanity.
• Forgets to Eat : A comely Kohm lady reminds a hard at work Bones he has to eat.
• A God Am I : The mere prospect of immortality has given Tracey one hell of a Messiah complex.
• Go Mad from the Revelation : After Tracey learns all his evil deeds are All for Nothing , you can see him snap at the news and proceeds to threaten Kirk for weapons for a pointless fight on a planet they now can leave any time they want to.
• The Good Guys Always Win : Lampshaded - The natives fully believe this, which is the reason they order a Duel to the Death . A very annoyed McCoy remarks that evil tends to triumph unless good is very, very careful.
• The Guards Must Be Crazy : Averted. McCoy thinks his guard is not paying attention and starts to reach for a communicator. As his hand gets near the guard's very large sword stops him. He then acts like he was just reaching for a drink.
• Hypocritical Heartwarming : Tracey tells the natives Spock literally has no heart (which they "confirm" by listening to his chest) and insists that he's a demon. Immediately McCoy , who ordinarily has no compunctions about joking that Spock resembles one, jumps in to say Spock isn't evil and just has his heart in a different place.
• Immortality Immorality : Tracey is willing to kill for the immortality he believes he will have on this planet, only for Bones to tell him that it's an evolutionary trait of the natives. All the atmosphere did was eradicate one virus.
• Inexplicable Cultural Ties : The only plausible explanation for this planet's culture is to have it be yet another alternate Earth (like the ones in " Miri " and " Bread and Circuses "). Having the Yangs and Kohms be a Lost Colony would have worked if only the show wasn't established to be set in the 23rd century. This doesn't allow for the fact that the inhabitants are hundreds of years old (with parents almost double the age).
• Jail Break : The concrete is old and weak.
• Kill Him Already! : After Kirk gets hold of the knife and forces Tracy to surrender by holding it to his throat. Cloud William tells him, "Kill him. It is written. Good must destroy evil." Kirk declines, and fully takes control of the situation as Sulu and two security guards beam down.
• Kneel Before Frodo : After Kirk wins the fight against Tracy, Cloud William kneels to him, thinking him divine. Kirk tells him to stand up.
• Large Ham : Kirk orders a large one in his impassioned speech on the rights of man.
• Meaningless Meaningful Words : Kirk recognized what Cloud William was supposed to be saying when he saluted the flag but after countless generations, the language had become corrupted, the words becoming mere ritual , and losing all meaning. Cloud William: "Ay plegli ianectu flaggen, tupep like for stahn—" Kirk: "And to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."
• New Powers as the Plot Demands : Spock being able to mentally compel someone to do what he wants, without touching them; the only other episodes in which he used similar powers were " By Any Other Name " and " A Taste of Armageddon ".
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse : Rather average-built Jim Kirk (played by 5'9" plus lifts William Shatner) successfully wrestles two much larger men, Captain Tracey (6'3" Morgan Woodward) and Cloud William (6'2" and very heavily-built Roy Jenson), although Downplayed as he struggles to actually defeat either of them and actually stalemates or loses the majority of his fights in the episode.
• Punctuated! For! Emphasis! : The way Cloud William pronounces the word "freedom". But it also comes out sounding like Hulk Speak . Cloud William: "Free-Dom?"
• Really 700 Years Old : The Kohms/Yangs are a species of very long-lived folk, due to the planet having had a massive biological war in the past, leaving the survivors to adapt to many lingering poisons and thus lengthening their lives through sheer immunity genetics. To impress Kirk, Tracey calls over a seemingly-young soldier who tells Kirk he's over four-hundred in Earth years. ("His father is well over a thousand ," adds Tracey.) Tracey assumes this is due to some youth potion, but to his regret, it is not.
• Redshirt : Galloway survives the expedition to the Exeter , but is later murdered by Tracey to prevent him warning the Enterprise about what Tracey's up to.
• Sacred Scripture : The "Worship Words", which are based on the Pledge of Allegiance and the preamble of the Constitution.
• Send in the Search Team : How the episode begins.
• Shoot the Messenger : After Kirk and company tell him that his crimes were All for Nothing , part of the reason Tracey goes literally Axe-Crazy on Kirk has got to be for telling him that bad news.
• Skeleton Crew : The crew of the Exeter has been completely dehydrated to dust due to a virus.
• Sole Survivor : Captain Tracey, after his entire crew is killed by the Omega IV virus.
• Space Western : Both visually and in terms of the story, it resembles the genre, with the Yangs playing the role of the antagonistic Indians.
• Stock Footage : The shot of Sulu manning the helm station with an empty captain's chair in the background in mid-Act One is recycled from " Arena ".
• Suddenly Shouting : Kirk briefly loses it when he has to spell it out to Captain Tracey that there is no serum to the extreme longevity that Tracey killed thousands to procure. It probably doesn't help his composure any that Tracey has just shot Spock and may have killed him. Tracey: You've isolated the serum? Kirk: THERE'S NO SERUM! THERE ARE NO MIRACLES! THERE'S NO IMMORTALITY HERE! ALL THIS IS FOR NOTHING!
• Tattered Flag : The one at the end held by the Yangs.
• Trial by Combat : It is written that good always overcomes evil, so Tracey and Kirk have to prove who's right by fighting over a knife stuck in the floor. Kirk wins, but spares Tracey's life. McCoy points out how this could have gone pear-shaped. McCoy : Spock, I've found that evil usually triumphs unless good is very, very careful.
• Yellow Peril : The Kohms, obviously.
• What Happened to the Mouse? : So did they recover the Exeter ? With the spaceframe perfectly intact, surely she could be decontaminated and re-crewed.
• Wrong Line of Work : Captain Tracey is a starship captain, but his knowledge of medical science is limited, and he when he learns of the inhabitants' long life-spans, he assumes that it's some form of a fountain of youth and/or immortality (obsession and madness only exacerbated this). The moment a trained medical professional comes along and properly examines all the clues, the outlandish claim is instantly dismissed. McCoy : Leave medicine to medical men, captain; you've found no fountain of youth! People [here] live longer lives because it's natural for them to!
• Zerg Rush : Tracey says that the Yangs overpowered them with sheer numbers, and that despite draining four phasers they just kept coming.
• Star Trek S2 E22 "By Any Other Name"
• Recap/Star Trek: The Original Series
• Star Trek S2 E24 "The Ultimate Computer"

Important Links

• Action Adventure
• Commercials
• Crime & Punishment
• Professional Wrestling
• Speculative Fiction
• Sports Story
• Animation (Western)
• Music And Sound Effects
• Print Media
• Sequential Art
• Tabletop Games
• Applied Phlebotinum
• Characterization
• Characters As Device
• Narrative Devices
• British Telly
• The Contributors
• Creator Speak
• Derivative Works
• Laws And Formulas
• Show Business
• Split Personality
• Truth And Lies
• Truth In Television
• Fate And Prophecy
• Edit Reasons
• Isolated Pages
• Images List
• Recent Videos
• Crowner Activity
• Un-typed Pages
• Recent Page Type Changes
• Trope Entry
• Character Sheet
• Playing With
• Creating New Redirects
• Cross Wicking
• Tips for Editing
• Text Formatting Rules
• Handling Spoilers
• Administrivia
• Trope Repair Shop
• Image Pickin'

Advertisement:

• Buy the Book…
• Reviews Hub

the m0vie blog

Following Us

• Adding Our RSS Feed to Your Gmail
• Following our Feed in Internet Explorer
• Millennium (Reviews)
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (Reviews)
• Star Trek: Enterprise (Reviews)
• Star Trek: The Next Generation (Reviews)
• Star Trek: The Original Series (Reviews)
• Star Trek: Voyager (Reviews)
• The X-Files (Reviews)
• X-Files Fandom Poll Form

Check out the Archives

Awards & Nominations

Star Trek – The Omega Glory (Review)

The first Star Trek pilot, The Cage , was produced in 1964. To celebrate its fiftieth anniversary, this December we are reviewing the second season of the original Star Trek show. You can check out our first season reviews here . Check back daily for the latest review.

Gene Roddenberry is a controversial figure who casts a fairly large shadow. It is very hard to talk about Star Trek – particularly the classic Star Trek – without talking about Roddenberry’s influence and vision. Roddenberry was fond of myth-making when he was alive, of playing up his own contributions to Star Trek while marginalising or dismissing the other people who shaped or defined the franchise.

Roddenberry is a polarising figure among fans and critics, insiders and outsiders. To some, Roddenberry was the man who created Star Trek . While this doesn’t immunise him against criticism, it does provide a sense of context – whatever sins he may have committed and whatever faults he may have had must be offset against that. To others, Roddenberry was prone to exaggerate his accomplishments at the expense of people like David Gerrold or Gene L. Coon who shaped the franchise just as much as (if not more than) he did.

Flagging trouble ahead…

While those are two extremes, they are not the only possible views of Roddenberry. There are a broad range of opinions that might be offered, and not all of them are mutually exclusive. Ask a dozen people who know their Star Trek about Roddenberry, and are likely to come up with a dozen nuanced and defensible positions on the man and his legacy. Nobody seems entirely what to make of Roddenberry and his creative contributions to the franchise.

The Omega Glory is an interesting episode, one that invites as much debate as any of Roddenberry’s contributions to the franchise.

A strong constitution to make it through this one…

The Omega Glory is the second-to-last episode of the second season. Given that the final episode of the season – Assignment: Earth – was very clearly a tinly-disguised pitch for another television show with the Enterprise crew as guest stars, The Omega Glory would have been the de facto season finalé. If NBC had not picked up the third season at the last possible minute, this would have been the second-to-last episode of Star Trek ever produced.  It was almost the last de facto episode of Star Trek ever produced.

And yet, it was also almost the first episode of Star Trek produced. When NBC had asked Roddenberry to pitch them a second pilot after The Cage , he had suggested a number of ideas. These included the stories that would become The Omega Glory and Mudd’s Women . There is an argument that The Omega Glory haunts both the beginning and the end of Star Trek . It is an idea that floated around for two long years before it was finally produced.

Crystal clear…

It floated quite a while. According to These Are the Voyages , Gene L. Coon had recognised the story as a clunker when he was running low on stories towards the end of the show’s first year:

Gene Coon was handed the script before the end of Star trek’s first season. He, too, was reluctant to take it on and chose to write a couple scripts of his own ( The Devil in the Dark and Errand of Mercy ) to fill the slots needed on the production roster when Glory and another script (Portrait in Black and White) did not meet network approval.

The script for The Omega Glory was like a cockroach. No matter how many people recognised it as a disaster waiting to happen, it continued to shuffle onwards.

“Luckily, the Yangs knew to clip the redshirt…”

To be fair, there are other examples of long-gestating ideas on Star Trek . There is a clear line of development from Roddenberry’s one-line pitch for President Capone in This is Star Trek straight through to the episode that eventually became A Piece of the Action towards the end of the second season. However, A Piece of the Action had gone through a long a complicated chain of custody before reaching the screen – with Gene L. Coon’s fingerprints all over the final product.

In contrast, Roddenberry was there for the beginning and the end of The Omega Glory . He briefly handed the script off in the middle of its development life, he promptly took charge of it again when it became clear the story was not developing in the direction he desired. According to These Are The Voyages , Roddenberry was so invested in his script that he was constantly revising and re-writing it himself. Indeed, the episode was even pushed forward in the broadcast schedule – airing between Return to Tomorrow and By Any Other Name .

Nothing could contain the awfulness…

Roddenberry was so attached to his original ideas for The Omega Glory that he had never bothered to update it when submitting the script to NBC for approval. As quoted in Inside Star Trek , NBC producer Stanley Robertson was less than thrilled with Roddenberry’s reluctance to re-work his script:

On March 25, 1966, prior to the production of the first season of Star Trek films, agreement was reached in writing with Gene Roddenberry that the above titled script would be placed in “inventory” and at his discretion reworked and again submitted to us at a future date for our re-evaluation. Except for a few minor changes, we cannot distinguish enough difference in the 1966 script and the script received last Wednesday, November 28, to warrant an approval. Our basic objections, as discussed at great length with Mr. Roddenberry in 1966 are still, we feel, valid.

It’s hard not to get the sense that Roddenberry was very proud of The Omega Glory , despite what Robert Justman might have claimed in Inside Star Trek .

What we’ve got here is failure to communicate…

Of course, Justman himself was under no illusions about the state of the script. As he confessed in Inside Star Trek , Roddenberry didn’t seem too interested in changing or updating his script:

I wrote a memo in which my comments were devastating. However, not wanting to hurt his feelings, I tore up the memo and made a few suggestions orally. He took the advice, but as anyone who has seen the episode knows, it didn’t do much good.

There seems to be a broad consensus that The Omega Glory is a thoroughly terrible episode on just about all fronts, an irredeemable and inexcusable mess – particularly coming from the man who had created and sought to define Star Trek .

It was the only way to get the cast to watch the final cut…

At the same time, however, it is interesting that there has been a recent attempt to critically reappraise The Omega Glory . For example, Marc Cushman argues in defense of the episode in These Are the Voyages :

Political agendas aside, lack of subtlety notwithstanding, miscommunication forgiven, Glory deserves reassessment by those who have damned over the years. This is most certainly a quality endeavour in nearly every regard.

It is a very endearing argument, to suggest that The Omega Glory has simply been misunderstood in the decades since it aired and that it deserves very serious reappraisal.

Using the power of staring…

One of the biggest perceived problems with The Omega Glory is the episode’s chest-thumping jingoism. Indeed, Cushman quotes from his own interview with D.C. Fontana about the episode:

Somebody got nasty about it one time and said, ‘Oh, but he was saying that the United States was the greatest kind of political body.’ And I said, ‘No, no, no, it’s the Declaration of Independence. It’s ‘We the People’; it’s [the] words and [they’re] beautiful words; it’s [the] expression of ideas and ideals that he was really talking about…

Again, there is something very appealing about this line of thought, as if to imply that Roddenberry’s intent had been misconstrued over the years.

Straight to the point…

Sadly, this logic isn’t entirely convincing. There’s no getting around the fact that The Omega Glory is about how American ideals and concepts are apparently the natural and correct flow for a civilisation. Tracey is deemed to be violating the Prime Directive when he assists the Kohms against these Yang ideals, but Kirk is able to instil (or re-instil) good-old fashioned American values in the Yangs without batting an eye.

“A star captain’s most solemn oath is that he will give his life, even his entire crew, rather than violate the Prime Directive,” Kirk notes in his log – which seems just a little hypocritical when you consider how often Kirk has taken it upon himself to violate the Prime Directive. Here, Spock even calls him out on it. “There’s no question about his guilt, Captain, but does our involvement here also constitute a violation of the Prime Directive?” Spock ponders, not unreasonably.

Talk about getting tied up in this mess…

Nope. Kirk is entirely and unquestionably in the right here. “We merely showed them the meaning of what they were fighting for. Liberty and freedom have to be more than just words. Gentlemen, the fighting is over here. I suggest we leave them to discover their history and their liberty.” Apparently the Yangs only have the freedom to discover their history and their liberty on Federation or American terms.

Not only that, the Yangs are apparently obligated to impose these Federation or American ideals upon other cultures. “These words and the words that follow were not written only for the Yangs, but for the Kohms as well!” Kirk advises the Yangs. “They must apply to everyone or they mean nothing! Do you understand?” They apparently must apply to anybody whether they want them to or not. The problem isn’t that The Omega Glory presents American ideals as good and valorous, but that they are treated as exclusive.

A cutting retort…

The other criticism of The Omega Glory – one related to charges of imperialism – is that the story is horribly racist. However, there are those who have argued against this. In The Limits of Star Trek’s Final Frontier , Allan Austin argues that Roddenberry is being subversive:

Ultimately, in fact, the ‘yellow’ and ‘white’ civilisations that Kirk identifies on Omega IV seem to live in a world where the white Yangs have become the Asian “other” of Roddenberry’s own earth. Cloud William latter explains succinctly – if unitelligently – that he did not initially talk because Yangs do not “speak to Kohms. They only for killing.” The Yangs, it would seem, have literally become the “yellow horde” of the twentieth-century world. Tracy describes his battle with them with horror. In one bloody showdown, he relates, the Yangs “came and came”, sacrificing lives to draw the Khoms into the open, not giving up even as their losses mounted into the thousands.

There is some merit to this argument. After all, the Kohms appear more civilised and more organised than the Yangs. What little we see of the Kohms suggests a recovering civilisation, while the Yangs appear more like savages dressed in animal pelts.

This crew’s gone to pieces…

There is some evidence to support this. Tracey refers to Yangs as “animals who happen to look like us” , evoking the racially-charged language that was traditionally used to dehumanise other ethnicities and nationalities. When Kirk is thrown into the cell with the Yangs, both Yangs attack him immediately and without hesitation. In contrast the Kohms provide McCoy with proper meals in the research lab.

However, this is a simply storytelling feint on Roddenberry’s part. Most obviously, it is Tracey who defines the Yangs as “savages.” Given that Tracey is pretty quickly established as a villain, the audience is meant to question his position. The Omega Glory tips its hand quite quickly. The Kohms are introduced getting ready to decapitate a Yang; when Kirk intervenes, they are ready to attack Kirk with an axe. We are told that the Yangs are silent, but the Kohms get less dialogue – playing stoney-faced henchmen for Tracey.

Don’t be (Mc)Coy about it…

The Omega Glory doesn’t even bother to keep up the feint for long. Almost immediately, Tracey is found to be lying about murdering “several hundred” Yangs; Kirk is taken hostage by him within fifteen minutes, and Tracey kills the team’s red shirt. As Daniel Bernardi writes in Star Trek and History :

As the story progresses, the Yangs are constructed as noble savages; their cause to annihilate the Kohms is established as justified. The Kohms, on the other hand, are constructed as brutal and oppressive; their drive to suppress the Yangs is established as totalitarian. This more hegemonic articulation of race is made evident when Kirk and Spock realize the extent to which the Yangs and Kohms parallel Earth’s civilizations. In this light, the Yangs are no longer savages, but noble warriors fighting for a just and honorable cause. They want to regain the land they lost in a war with the Asiatics.

Bernardi is entirely correct here. There is no way to read the story as less than sympathetic to the Yangs, just as there is no way to read it as sympathetic to the Kohms. The Omega Glory has clear-cut good guys and bad guys. The good guys are Americans; the bad guys are generic Asian Communists.

Wu-ing the enemy…

After all, Kirk himself refers to the Kohms as “the yellow civilisation” and the Yangs as “the white civilisation” in some staggeringly racist dialogue. Kirk quickly connects with the Yangs, while the Kohms are silent and steely – calculating in their brutality. Instead, Kirk and the Yangs bond over their mutual love of the word “freedom.” When Kirk uses it, Cloud objects, “That is a worship word. Yang worship. You will not speak it.” Kirk replies, “It is our worship word, too.” He can relate to these Yangs, not like those Kohms.

The Kohms are the aggressors, while the Yangs are fighting for their way of life. “That which is ours is ours again,” Cloud insists. “It will never be taken from us again.” Even Kirk and McCoy acknowledge that the Yangs are the heroes of their narrative. Kirk reflects, “All these generations of Yangs fighting to regain their land…” McCoy observes, “You’re a romantic, Jim.” Kirk’s final monologue might accept that the Kohms have a right to exist (on Yang terms), but the episode makes it clear they are the baddies.

No Tracey of human compassion…

And then there is the issue of Vietnam, which casts a shadow over  The Omega Glory . After all, Kirk arrives in a brutal guerilla war between democratic Americans and brutal Asians. It is revealed that democracy itself is at stake – that the Yangs are fighting for fundamental ideals that need to be universally appreciated and acknowledged. While The Omega Glory takes place in a post-apocalyptic graveyard, it seems to support the Yangs rather than condemn the fighting completely.

Star Trek has a rather complicated position on Vietnam. Episodes heavily overseen by Gene L. Coon – like  A Taste of Armageddon , Errand of Mercy , and The Trouble With Tribbles – would seem to reject the Cold War entirely. Episodes like that were cynical of the senseless brutality and needless posturing that came with an ideological conflict like the Cold War. However, there were other episodes where it seemed like the show embraced the conflict at face value.

There’s a lot that could be cut from the finished episode…

In Star Trek, Vietnam and the Real Future , H. Bruce Franklin argues that The Omega Glory is Star Trek ‘s definitive anti-war statement:

The Omega Glory implies that the war in Southeast Asia, which no longer held any promise of victory or even a suggestion of an end, could evolve into an interminable, mutually destructive conflict between the “Yankees” and the “Communists” capable of destroying civilisation and humanity. True Americanism is shown as antithetical to mindless militarism and anti-Communism, and the episode rather paradoxically uses ultrapatriotic images of a tattered Old Glory and strains of the Star-Spangled Banner to preach a message of globalism.

This is certainly an appealing interpretation, particularly given how comfortably it sits with the popular narrative of Star Trek’s politics.

“It’s my bridge, I’ll slouch if I want to!”

Roddenberry signed an anti-war proclamation published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in March 1968. In his later years, he would define himself as an idealistic pacifist – opposed to needless sacrifice and loss life in any conflict. However, The Omega Glory was originally written and plotted long before March 1968; before the horror of Tet Offensive had helped to cement public opinion against the war in Vietnam.

Earlier episodes written (or heavily overseen) by Roddenberry seemed to support the American position in Vietnam – to suggest that such conflicts were unfortunate, but necessary to help spread democracy. Roddenberry’s oversaw the re-tooling of Harlan Ellison’s The City on the Edge of Forever , adding a subtext to suggest that unqualified pacifism could be dangerous in the wrong circumstances. He suggested playing the Federation competition with the Klingons straight in Friday’s Child . He co-wrote A Private Little War .

They do things by the book…

The central moral of The Omega Glory would appear to be about the futility of endless generational war. After all, the Yangs and the Kohms are still playing out a skirmish that began outside of living memory, to the point where nobody seems to remember the ideologies that sparked the conflict. However, the episode seems to dismiss this towards the end. Kirk is enamored with the idea of the Yangs fighting to preserve their way of life.

While Kirk’s closing speech suggests that the Yangs need to come to respect the Kohms, it also suggests that the Kohms need to embrace the moral philosophy and political ideology of the Yangs. It isn’t a generic or universal set of rights and freedoms that are applicable to everybody; it is the American conception of rights and freedoms.  It is very hard to read The Omega Glory in a way that isn’t imperialist or jingoistic.

Oh say can you see…

That said, there are other problems with the script, even outside of the awkward political subtext. As seems to be increasingly common at this point in the show’s run, it is very much bloated – it is a sequence of captures and escapes that eat up considerable time. Kirk beams down to talk to Captain Tracey; he is promptly tied up by the Kohms; he is then thrown in a jail cell for a gratuitous fight sequence; he is then given a gratuitous fight sequence with Captain Tracey; he is then captured by the Yangs; he is then forced to fight to the death with Captain Tracey again.

It’s more severe example of the sort structural problems that haunted A Piece of the Action and Patterns of Force , although those episodes were able to rely on a wry sense of humour and clever subtext to carry them; The Omega Glory takes itself so seriously that it has nothing to fall back on. William Shatner’s hammy performance comes in for a lot of criticism, but really it’s the only thing about the episode that seems energised or enthused. Shatner knows he’s working on a turkey, so he may as well have some fun doing it.

Let him rest; he’s all tuckered out. Eating all that scenery takes a lot out of him.

There’s also something incredibly heavy-handed about The Omega Glory , with Roddenberry once again providing a cautionary tale about mankind’s future. As with his re-write on Return to Tomorrow, Kirk and his crew come face to face with a civilisation that has been destroyed by its own hubris. “The infection resembles one developed by Earth during their bacteriological warfare experiments in the 1990s,” McCoy observes. “Hard to believe we were once foolish enough to play around with that.”

Spock is even more pointed. “The parallel is almost too close, Captain,” he advises Kirk at the climax of the episode. “It would mean they fought the war your Earth avoided, and in this case, the Asiatics won and took over this planet. ” Even ignoring the uncomfortable racial subtext of this – suggesting that Kirk’s Earth is a utopia because “the Asiatics” did not win – and the continuity issues – Space Seed had already established Earth’s brutal Eugenics Wars in the 1990s, and The Savage Curtain would soon add the Third World War – it feels a little too on the nose.

More trouble, to boot…

The Omega Glory perfectly illustrates how regressive the back stretch of the second season seems. The episodes overseen by John Meredyth Lucas seem to hark back to the days of the early first season, when space as a deadly unknown; the galaxy seemed to be a haunted graveyard occupied by monsters and parallel Earths. The revelation that the crew of Exeter have been transformed into crystals seems to fit with the abstract space horror found in episodes like By Any Other Name , The Immunity Syndrome and Obsession .

Similarly, the revelation that the Yangs and the Kohms are fighting in the ruins of a long-dead world recalls the other ancient and collapsed civilisations seen in episodes like The Gamesters of Triskelion or Return to Tomorrow . Even the emphasis on Spock’s convenient mental powers here fits comfortably with similar plot developments in episodes like The Immunity Syndrome and By Any Other Name , just as easily as it sits alongside the sixties fascination with ESP obvious in the show’s eventual second pilot, Where No Man Has Gone Before .

A captive audience…

It makes sense that The Omega Glory feels like an early first season episode. It was, after all, an episode that was originally pitched as a potential pilot for the series. However, the fact that it also fits so comfortably with the episodes broadcast towards the tale end of the second season suggests that the show has perhaps regressed – that the aesthetics at this point in the run are much closer to Where No Man Has Gone Before than Errand of Mercy or Amok Time or Journey to Babel .

It’s also worth pointing out just how much Star Trek: Insurrection owes to The Omega Glory , which is often overlook and perhaps indicates that the film’s treatment probably should have gone through a few more drafts before moving on to the script. It does have a nice sense of symmetry, as Michael Piller’s final contribution to the franchise winds up owing so much to one of Gene Roddenberry’s proposed pilots.

Salt of the earth…

Indeed, Admiral Doherty feels like a spiritual descendent of Captain Tracey, even if Doherty is implied to have Starfleet’s backing – at least in theory. Like Doherty, Tracey takes sides in what turns out to be an internal conflict. Like Doherty, Tracey is pursuing a veritable fountain of youth and seeks to exploit the native population to help him attain it. Like Doherty, this pursuit throws Tracey into conflict with the captain of the Enterprise.

“No native to this planet has ever had any trace of any kind of disease,” Tracey boasts to Kirk. “How long would a man live if all disease were erased, Jim?” He insists, “We must have a doctor researching this. Are you grasping all it means? This immunising agent here, once we’ve found it, is a fountain of youth. Virtual immortality, or as much as any man will ever want.” Admiral Doherty would make a similar argument to Captain Picard in Insurrection .

Tracey always thought that his medical officer was just an empty uniform…

The Omega Glory is a strong contender for the weakest episode of Star Trek ever produced. More than that, it is the perfect storm of all the less than flattering aspects of the series – if one wanted to make the case that Star Trek was an American fantasy of empire, then The Omega Glory would be a pretty damning exhibit. It’s imperialist, racist, clumsy. These unfortunate aspects are all compounded by the fact that it is also a poorly-constructed piece of television. More than that, it’s an episode that is driven by the self-styled visionary behind Star Trek .

However, what is most damning about The Omega Glory is the sense that this was an episode that Roddenberry actively petitioned and repeatedly pitched. The script was critiqued and rejected, repeatedly, but Roddenberry never seemed to take any of the criticisms to heart. He wanted this to be the first episode of Star Trek produced following The Cage . He eventually got it made at the end of the second season. It seems that Star Trek could not escape The Omega Glory . After two years on the air, all this unpleasantness was still lurking at the edge of the screen.

“Let’s get the hell out of here…”

Interestingly, The Ultimate Computer seemed to point forward into the future as the second season came to a close. It foreshadowed Kirk’s character arc in the films, presenting a challenge to the ship and to the crew – forcing Kirk to accept that he may not always be a starship captain. It was a story that was very much looking forward into an uncertain future and pushing the cast into an existential crisis. The Ultimate Computer seemed to herald the future of the franchise, harking boldly forward.

In contrast, The Omega Glory hangs over the series like some grotesque original sin, proof that the show could never escape some of the flaws baked into the premise. The last two episodes of the second season were both driven by Gene Roddenberry, and were both effectively re-worked pilots. At least The Omega Glory was a re-worked Star Trek pilot. As The Omega Glory was in production, Star Trek was staring into the abyss – cancellation was a real possibility. It feels strange, then, that Roddenberry’s final two scripts were not looking forwards, but backward.

You might be interested in our other reviews from the second season of the classic Star Trek :

• Supplemental: (Gold Key) #1 – The Planet of No Return!
• Supplemental: (Marvel Comics, 1980) #4-5 – The Haunting of Thallus!/The Haunting of the Enterprise!
• Metamorphosis
• Friday’s Child
• Who Mourns for Adonais?
• Supplemental: Spock’s World by Diane Duane
• Supplemental: New Visions #3 – Cry Vengeance
• Wolf in the Fold
• The Changeling
• Supplemental: (DC Comics, 1984) #43-45 – The Return of the Serpent!
• Supplemental: (IDW, 2009) #13 – The Red Shirt’s Tale
• Supplemental: Deep Space Nine – Crossover
• Supplemental: New Visions #1 – The Mirror, Cracked
• Supplemental: (DC Comics, 1984) #9-16 – New Frontiers (The Mirror Universe Saga)
• Supplemental: Mirror Images
• Supplemental: Mirror Universe – The Sorrows of Empire by David Mack
• Supplemental: (IDW, 2009) #15-16 – Mirrored
• The Deadly Years
• Supplemental: (Gold Key) #61 – Operation Con Game
• Supplemental: (DC Comics, 1984) #39-40 – The Return of Mudd
• Supplemental: The Galactic Whirlpool by David Gerrold
• Supplemental: Alien Spotlight – Tribbles
• Bread and Circuses
• Journey to Babel
• A Private Little War
• The Gamesters of Triskelion
• The Immunity Syndrome
• A Piece of the Action
• By Any Other Name
• Return to Tomorrow
• Patterns of Force
• The Ultimate Computer
• The Omega Glory
• Supplemental: Assignment: Eternity by Greg Cox
• Supplemental: (DC Comics, 1989) #49-50 – The Peacekeepers
• Supplemental: (IDW, 2008) Assignment: Earth

Share this:

Filed under: The Original Series | Tagged: A Private Little War , america , Cold War , episode , Federation , Gene L. Coon , gene roddenberry , imperialism , john meredyth lucas , old glory , pilot , Prime Directive , star trek , Television , the omega glory , vietnam , William Shatner |

6 Responses

I’ve been anticipating you penning an epic take-down of “The Omega Glory” for some time now. It was definitely worth the wait!

Besides the extremely unfortunate racist and American imperialist overtones of this episode, this one also drives me absolutely nuts because of its sheer implausibility. Just like “Miri” with its duplicate Earth, and “Bread and Circuses” with its 20th Century Roman Empire on an alien planet, we have “The Omega Glory” featuring an alien world that somehow has developed not just Yankees and Communists, but exact duplicates of the American flag & the United States Constitution.

At least with both “A Piece of the Action” and “Patterns of Force” there was some sort of semi-plausible rational offered for why the Enterprise was encountering alien worlds that looked like 20th Century Earth. But in “Miri,” “Bread and Circuses” and “The Omega Glory” there is absolutely nothing in the way of any sort of attempt to try to explain how any of this is possible, other than some vague comments about “parallel evolution” and such.

I guess that Gene Roddenberry was a proponent of the “infinite monkey theorum,” the idea that if you put an infininte number of monkeys in front of an infinite number of typewriters, one of them would eventually produce the complete works of Shakespeare. Of course, as Doctor Who once observed, “Now, you and I know that at the end of the millennium they’d still be tapping out gibberish.”

Mind you, I do find it much more of a possiblity that those infinite number of monkeys banging away at those infinite number of typewriters would inevitably produce a much better Star Trek script than “The Omega Glory” 🙂

Interesting you should mention the sheer implausibility of it. I’m reading Marc Cushman’s guide to season three, and the writing staff feel the same way. Justman and Fontana wrote memos complaining about the “identical earth” plot device, and vowing to scale it down in their planned third season. Even though many of those plans did not come to fruition, it does seem like this trope plays itself out by the end of the second season.

(That said, I don’t mind it as an idea – I quite like Bread and Circuses and Patterns of Force, despite their problems. I actually think fandom underrates the latter significantly. I accept that it is a production reality, like fake caves or cardboard sets. But the execution of it in stories like Miri or The Omega Glory is just terrible.)

Patterns of Force was explained as being delieberate recreation though. As I understand, a lot of these started out as vague concepts given to the writers and it was up to them to work with it.

The script was a stinker since it was a pilot (I’ve read it), and I largely agree with your review. However, the following is just wrong.

“To others, Roddenberry was prone to exaggerate his accomplishments at the expense of people like David Gerrold or Gene L. Coon who shaped the franchise just as much as (if not more than) he did.”

Anyone who’s gone through the actual Roddenberry papers at UCLA can see how heavily he was involved in the show and how many ideas he created which writers of later episodes got credit for (the Prime Directive, for one, is oft credited to Coon, but it’s there as regulation one in Roddenberry’s 2nd pilot version of “The Omega Glory” from April 1965). Gerrold wrote a *single* episode arguably pilfered from Heinlein (see Flat Cats) and rewrote another and that was it for the original series. Coon and Fontana and Justman etc. all made many big-time contributions, but none more than what Roddenberry did.

Thank you for that analysis. I agree 100%. I have just watched this episode for the first time and was horrified by almost every aspect of it, the impossibly exact parallels to earth history, the so obviously Asian Kohns, the sickening U.S. superiority complex that is American exceptionalism. The only part I liked was that Kirk rejected Tracey’s idea that it is okay to ignore the prime directive and hurt the inhabitants of this planet in order to benefit humanity. And I can almost always rely on Spock to express my own thoughts about the matter at hand.

I also really appreciate how you put the episodes into their historical context.

Thanks! I figure there’s a lot of coverage that filters these episodes through a present day lens – and I do that as well, to be fair. But I think to really understand them, you have to go back a look at what they would have meant when they were produced and broadcast.

Leave a comment Cancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed .

Recent Posts

• 373. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (#225)
• 371. Poor Things (#246)
• 370. Dune: Part Two (#12)
• 369. Memento (#57)
• 368. Monty Python and the Holy Grail (#154)

Recently tweeted…

• "I Simply Am Not There": The Existential Horror of Eighties Excess in "American Psycho"...
• Star Trek: Voyager (Reviews)
• Star Trek: The Next Generation (Reviews)
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (Reviews)

Available at…

Blogs Well Worth Your Time

• 1001 Must See Films
• Andrew at the Movies
• Anomalous Material
• Cut the Crap Movie Reviews
• Encore Entertainment
• Fandango Groovers
• FlixChatter
• Four of Them
• It Rains… You get Wet…
• Jameson Cult Film Blog
• Jar Watches Films
• Let's Go To The Movies
• M. Carter at the Movies
• Marshall and the Movies
• Movie News First
• Musings from a Man Lost in La Mancha
• Never Mind Pop Film
• Paragraph Film Reviews
• Roger Ebert's Journal
• Ross v. Ross
• Scannain.com
• Screenwriter (Donald Clarke, Irish Times)
• Strange Culture
• The Film Cynics
• The Pompous Film Snob
• The Projection Booth
• Things That Don't Suck
• Too Busy Thinking About My Comics
• Undy a Hundy

Film Nerd Resources

• CinemaBlend (News)
• Internet Movie Database
• Rope of Silicon
• The Guardian Film Blog
• James Berardinelli
• Roger Ebert

Email Subscription

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Email Address:

Sign me up!

Blog at WordPress.com. WP Designer.

• Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
• Subscribe Subscribed
• Copy shortlink
• Report this content
• View post in Reader
• Manage subscriptions
• Collapse this bar

The Creative Life Adventure

Living a creative life

Boldly Rewatching the Voyages: The Omega Glory

(Note: If you haven’t read it yet, my introductory post on this Star Trek: The Original Series rewatch is a good place to start.)

Original Air Date: March 1, 1968

Crew Death Count: 1 (Lieutenant Galloway, plus the entire Exeter crew dies in backstory and thousands of Yangs are killed in an unseen attack)

Bellybuttons: Many – the Yangs are as scantily attired as the People of Vaal

“The Omega Glory” was written by Gene Roddenberry and, oh, no, maybe Mr. Roddenberry should have stuck with the vision thing and left writing details to others. Even a J.J. Abrams crap-fest looks better in comparison. Next time you’re in the mood for a humorless, sadomasochistic evening, “The Omega Glory” makes a nice double-feature-of-depression with “ Patterns of Force .” Okay, let’s get it over with. This week the Enterprise encounters the abandoned starship U.S.S. Exeter at the planet Omega IV. Why are we at Omega IV? Who knows? There’s no mention of a distress call and there is no known trouble with the Exeter . We’re here because the story needs us to be here. And it’s a good thing, too, because the Exeter ’s crew is dead with the exception of Captain Ron Tracey ( Morgan Woodward , who was both crazier and more coherent as Simon Van Gelder in “ Dagger of the Mind ”), who has taken up with Asian-looking people called the Kohms. The Kohms are under constant attack by white people who act a lot like indigenous Americans – or caricatures of them, at any rate – called Yangs. Captain Ron is convinced Omega IV contains the secret to immortality and he expects the Enterprise crew to help him achieve his dastardly plan.

We feel doubly betrayed by “The Omega Glory” because the prologue is so intriguing. As an Enterprise away team – Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and the soon-to-be-dead Lieutenant Galloway ( David L. Ross ) – explores the deserted Exeter , they find the remains of crew members, all reduced to piles of white crystals reminiscent of both the neural paralyzer in “ By Any Other Name ” and the 1974 NBC movie Where Have All the People Gone? In Where Have All the People Gone? a solar flare releases a virus that kills all of the earth’s population, also reducing them to piles of dust, except a few who have natural immunity. The TV movie was intended as a pilot but the series was not developed. In “The Omega Glory” a long-ago biological war also triggered a virus that killed most of Omega IV’s population, but over time evolution has provided immunizing agents that protect the surviving population. Tracey believes they have to remain on the planet’s surface to retain immunity, but McCoy proves that the body retains immunity after a few hours of exposure. Naturally occurring antibodies render the locals highly resistant to illness, not a magical serum; we meet one man who claims to be over four hundred earth years old, with a father aged over one thousand.

This longevity is what Tracey hopes to exploit in an outlandish plan that requires McCoy to devise a serum, which Tracey will ransom in exchange for a fleet of starships. We have no reason to think the Federation, or anyone else for that matter, would make such a bargain with Tracey. Tracey is also ignoring the Federation’s track record in curing diseases – certainly McCoy or some other Federation doctor could whip up a vaccine for the virus, given enough time. And Tracey doesn’t indicate what he plans to do with all those starships, or who would help him operate them, or where he would go, or why is any of this even happening ? Nothing Tracey does makes much sense. In “ The Doomsday Machine ,” Commodore Decker was traumatized after losing his crew. Tracey seems to barely notice, as if he was looking to ditch the troublemakers and strike out on his own all along. Kirk describes Tracey as “one of the most experienced captains in the Starfleet,” putting him in good company with Roger Korby , Dr. Adams , and John Gill , all highly revered individuals who are clearly insane and should never have been given the keys to the car. With Tracey, we repeat the “crazy captain infects a planet by violating the Prime Directive” theme of “Patterns of Force,” and the “longevity associated with a specific location” theme from “ This Side of Paradise ” and “ Metamorphosis .”

The episode is also a weak entry in the series’ recurring “we weren’t meant for paradise” theme. “ Miri ,” “This Side of Paradise,” and “ What Are Little Girls Made Of? ” all did a much better job of rejecting the idea of life extension or perfect health. (Which disappoints me, because if these people were as eager for knowledge as they claim, they would be all over these immortality opportunities.) Tracey continues a long history of humans searching for a fountain of youth , an elixir of immortality. The first known such claim comes from the writings of Herodotus , reporting that Macrobians residing in the Horn of Africa lived past the age of 120 from eating primarily meat and milk – so keep hope alive, Paleo dieters! In the case of Omega IV, we don’t even know if the inhabitants’ extreme ages are reliable. Tracey says, “No native of this planet has ever had any trace of any kind of disease.” He must be relying on oral statements, because he has only been here six months, and neither the Kohms nor the Yangs come across as careful record keepers. They could be boasting in order to impress a foreign visitor, for all we know. Regardless, McCoy states his opinion of life extension clearly: “I can do more for you if you just eat right and exercise regularly.” Kirk is even more succinct when he explodes at Tracey late in the episode: “There are no miracles! There’s no immortality here!” By that time, Tracey is too far gone, and too worried about consequences for his bizarre actions – he has already killed poor Galloway – and threatens to kill the others.

Despite its promising opening, “The Omega Glory” declines rapidly before throwing us off a cliff in the final act. The Prime Directive is treated carelessly by both Tracey and Kirk. Tracey has influenced the planet’s direction by siding with the Kohms and providing them phasers – except the natives call them “fireboxes” because “phasers” is too complicated for foreigners to pronounce. He has killed hundreds of Yangs in the episode’s backstory, and kills “thousands” more during a massive invasion that we don’t see or hear, despite it apparently occurring all around the village where the landing party is located. Kirk and company criticize Tracey for his intervention. Kirk wisely says, “I don’t think we have the right or the wisdom to interfere, however a planet is evolving.” Yet when the Yangs whip out a U.S. flag and the U.S. Constitution (more on that horror-fest shortly), Kirk interprets the Yangs’ holy words for them and insists that, “Down the centuries, you have slurred the meaning of the words.” (Like Republicans!) He tells the Yangs’ leader, Chief Cloud William ( Roy Jenson ), “They must apply to everyone or they mean nothing.” This time, however, Kirk isn’t violating the Prime Directive, he’s helping. Because there’s a difference. <Sigh>

The Yangs and the Kohms are deliberately portrayed as white and Asian, respectively, in an attempt at race-reversal that is stomach-curdling in its ignorance. Kirk actually refers to Kohms as “the yellow civilization.” Initially, we’re told the white Yangs are primitive – “They’ll attack anything that moves,” Tracey says – while the Kohms are supposed to be civilized – “pleasant, peaceful people” is how McCoy describes them. Even Spock refers to the Yangs as “savages” and says, “They seem incredibly vicious.” Yet when we meet the Kohms, they communicate in broken English (because they’re foreign!), are about to execute Cloud William, and blindly follow Tracey’s every command. How advanced could they be if Tracey alone can take control of them so easily? It gets even worse, when Kirk deciphers the situation: the “Yangs” are Yankees and the “Kohms” are communists! Of course they are! Because it’s the Cold War and the communists are the villains! It turns out the Yangs aren’t savages at all. They’re fighting to regain land taken from them by the Kohms. So the “yellow civilization” is a gang of foreign invaders and the white guys are the heroes after all! What a relief! AND WHO THE #$%& THOUGHT THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA?!?

Is the name Omega significant? You bet it is. Omega is the end of the Greek alphabet and literally translates as “great O.” It is often used to indicate the end of something or the ultimate limit of a set, and when we see that U.S. flag we know we need look no further because we have sure reached the pinnacle of human achievement now, Comrades! We get a feeling of dread earlier in the episode, when Kirk is locked in a cell with Cloud William and his woman Sirah ( Irene Kelly ), who doesn’t get to speak a word of dialogue but who cares because she looks good in an animal-skin bikini. Kirk talks of escaping to freedom and Cloud William, who has communicated in nothing more than grunts and gestures until now, suddenly lights up at the word “freedom” because that is a Yang worship word. That’s not surprising, because naturally the English word “freedom” is a magical term that is universally understood by all life forms, even aliens, animals, and plants! That’s why the “holy words” of the Constitution must be shared with the Kohms, because they are godless savages and we must inflict our freedom on them regardless of the fact that freedom is a vague term that means different things to different people and did somebody say something about noninterference?

The very idea that a group of revolutionaries (Ha ha! The Revolution, get it?) who look exactly like us have evolved on a remote planet is outlandish enough, but we accept it because it was the 1960s and TOS had a limited budget. But to indicate that the U.S. flag and the U.S. Constitution – on parchment paper with the exact same script as our real Constitution – are so universal that they would spontaneously develop on other worlds is an offensive gesture of über-nationalism. “The Omega Glory” trots out these geriatric symbols as the sacred cows they are. The soundtrack includes cues from “The Star-Spangled Banner;” Kirk, McCoy, and even Spock stand at attention as soon as the U.S. flag appears, as if they not only recognize it, but worship it. We’ve barely had time to slap our foreheads before Kirk recites the Pledge of Allegiance . Because of course Kirk knows the Pledge of Allegiance, including the “ under God ” phrase first added by an Illinois attorney in 1948, heavily promoted by those rascals at the Daughters of the American Revolution, and formally added by the U.S. Congress in 1954. HOW THE #$%& DOES KIRK KNOW THE PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE?!? This xenophobic gibberish was first composed by Baptist minister Francis Bellamy in 1892. Bellamy was a socialist but not a very good one: he rejected his own desire to include such words as “equality” and “fraternity” because he hoped to brainwash attract young people, and many state superintendents of education at the time were racists and misogynists. Take that, liberty! If people are still reciting this small-minded loyalty oath in the 23 rd century, we’re in big trouble.

A few of the crew members perform ably, but that’s not enough to redeem this bottomless pit of an episode. With Kirk and Spock absent, Sulu takes charge of the Enterprise and does a fine job. He interprets some guarded statements from Kirk and wisely decides to beam down with some security officers to save the day, a shot almost perfectly reproduced at the end of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991). McCoy displays his full range of medical skills, barely complaining at all while he figures out the Omega IV immunity situation. He also reminds us of the courage he demonstrated in “ Space Seed ,” not even flinching when he reaches for a weapon and nearly has his hand cut off by a Kohm. And Spock continues to expand his mental abilities, this time placing a hypnotic suggestion in Sirah’s mind to provide a communicator while Kirk and Tracey engage in hand-to-hand combat (something about proving good is stronger than evil). “The Omega Glory” already has too many problems, so let’s not consider whether Spock chose a woman because he thinks they have weaker minds.

Despite calling freedom a worship word, Cloud William is a poor disciple. After Kirk defeats Tracey and Sulu beams down with company – that materialization act must be magic! – Cloud William literally gets on his knees before Kirk. “You are a great god servant,” he tells the captain. “We are your slaves.” I guess the Yangs don’t have the Thirteenth Amendment yet – hang in there, slaves! There is a lot of god talk equally inconsistent with freedom, but equating divinity with nationalism fits perfectly in the raw sewage of the final act. When Kirk explains that his home is in distant space, he sounds like a religious man, telling Cloud William, “You’re confusing the stars with heaven.” Tracey, on the other hand, says to Cloud William, “Let your god strike me dead if I lie.” This implies Tracey is an atheist, because he clearly knows he is lying. And like all sinister atheists, Tracey gladly manipulates the Yangs’ religious beliefs, calling Spock “the servant of the evil one” based on his appearance. Thankfully, Cloud William has a BIBLE handy – really, all this episode lacks is a Ford pickup with a gun rack in the window – which he opens to the Book of Haggai , where there is an illustration of the devil that looks exactly like Spock. The Book of Haggai was written to motivate the people to build the second Jerusalem temple , the first one having been destroyed by…get ready for it…foreign invaders! They’re rebuilding, get it? Such sophisticated symbolism! In the end, Cloud William remains a freedom lightweight: when Kirk demands (“helps”) that the Constitution be shared equally with both Yangs and Kohms, Cloud William admits he doesn’t understand but will do it anyway because the man from the sky with magic powers told him to.

At the end of “The Omega Glory,” NBC announced that the original series would be renewed for a third season, and for a brief moment, we’re forced to wonder if that’s good news. All hope is not lost, however; we can still find a relevant message in this train wreck. Ultimately, the Yangs and the Cohms are a simplistic, flag-waving distraction from the real villain, Captain Tracey and all the divisive, would-be dictators he represents. Like all tyrants, Tracey becomes deluded by his own propaganda, intermingling his greed with national pride and religion, convincing himself that his intentions are noble: if they don’t develop an immortality serum, “we’ll have committed a crime against all humanity.” The recurring appearance of individuals like Tracey, Roger Korby, and John Gill remind us that real freedom – not the phony free-dumb of flags and dogma, but true freedom for individuals to live in safety and conduct their lives without threat from extremists – is precious and will always be under assault by the greedy and power-hungry. Here in the 21 st century, our freedom – to vote, to marry whomever we choose, to be protected from unlawful search and seizure, and to peacefully demonstrate without fear of reprisal – is threatened every day. Kirk challenges Tracey in a duel of good versus evil not because he enjoys a rousing fistfight – though, sadly, he does – but because the Enterprise crew never gives up. They understand that only persistence and vigilance will carry the day. We would be wise to remember McCoy’s advice in the final act: “I’ve found that evil usually triumphs unless good is very, very careful.”

Next: The Ultimate Computer

Share this:

• Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
• Subscribe Subscribed
• Copy shortlink
• Report this content
• View post in Reader
• Manage subscriptions
• Collapse this bar

Star Trek : "The Omega Glory" / "The Ultimate Computer"

Related content.

On my way home yesterday, I stopped at Newbury Comics looking for a Seagal movie for the weekend (DON'T YOU JUDGE ME), and I ended up buying (in addition to Marked For Death ) a copy of the Nicolas Cage Wicker Man . I've seen Wicker Man probably six times now. I'll almost certainly be watching it again soon. In addition to the legitimately good movies in my collection collection, I also own copies of LXG, Exorcist II: The Heretic, Sound Of Thunder, Blade Trinity, Batman and Robin, The Swarm, Viva Kneivel, Grizzly, Ninja III: The Domination, Gymkata, Death Wish III … Oh, and all the Friday the 13th movies except the latest one. I don't mention this to brag (okay, maybe a little to brag), but to provide some context. Because when I say I found the last tenminutes of "The Omega Glory" to be wildly entertaining—I'm not saying they were actually good.

We've had some weird episodes in our run so far—"Wolf In the Fold" springs to mind—but, at the risk of being immediately contradicted, I'd say "Glory" has to've take the weirdest turn yet. For the first two-thirds, it's pretty straight-forward, if tedious. The Enterprise visits the planet Omega IV, and they find another ship already orbiting Omega, the U.S.S. Exeter . The Exeter doesn't answer any hails, and when Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and the soon-to-give-his-life-for-the-cause Lt. Galloway beam over, they find a bunch of empty uniforms and piles of white crystal. McCoy studies the crystals, and tells Kirk that they're actually the corpses of the missing crewmen; the water has been drained from their bodies. So right now, you're thinking, it's some kind of monster. We've had the Salt Vampire, some kind of aqua-hungry nosferatu doesn't seem entirely out of the question. Disappointingly, though, this is all just the result of a horrible biological weapon that originated on the planet below. When Kirk and the others make the next step down to Omega (a helpful final log entry from dying officer informs them they'll be doomed otherwise), Captain Tracey, the last surviving crewmen of the Exeter, is running a village full of Siberian looking people named Kohms, and using his phaser technology to help wage wars against the rival Yangs, a white and warlike tribe that, according to Tracey, is too savage to be negotiated with. Tracey breaks the bad news to Kirk that he and his men are now stuck on Omega; they're all infected with the disease that killed the crew of the Exeter , and staying on the planet is the only way they can keep from dying of it too. Of course, things are a wee bit more complicated than that. Spock and Galloway soon discover Tracey's phaser battles, which directly violate the Prime Directive; then Tracey shows up, no longer even pretending to be nice, kills Galloway, and lays the situation on the line for Kirk. He believes he's found a functional immortality on Omega, and one that, with some help from McCoy, he'll share with the rest of the galaxy—for a price. I started getting worried that this was going to turn into Star Trek: Insurrection (a movie I didn't hate when I first saw it, but has such a terrible reputation among my friends that I shudder even at the name), but I needn't have. The immortality hope is a fool's gold. The natives on Omega are just exceptionally long lived because of the effect of the virus on natural selection. Which doesn't exactly make sense, but the short answer is, this is not anything that would travel. While McCoy's figuring this out, Kirk and Spock are thrown into jail, and Kirk has a chance to get friendly with a captive pair of the vicious Yangs. The fight sequence here is fun; by now, the Kirk/Spock byplay is so well drawn that it manages to shine in even the worst episodes. Spock figures out that the bars on the cell windows can be pulled free, and Kirk and the Yang man team up to clear their window. But Kirk is too trusting, and as soon as he turns his back, the Yang knocks him over the head and makes off with his female buddy. (If you suspect that this will be important later when the Yangs re-enter the episode, give yourself a cookie.) The escaped Yang gathers his fellows together for one big attack on the village, and not even Tracey's phaser prowess can save the Kohms. The budget constraints on the series really show here, as we don't actually see anything of the battle; Tracey does his best to sell a wild-eyed monologue describing the carnage, but it doesn't quite work. One of the problems of the first part of the episode is that we spend so much time with crazy Tracey and Kirk and the others that we never get any real sense of the conflict between the Yangs and the Kohms, which turns out to be a lot more important than you'd imagine. Just how important? Well… are you ready for this? After Tracey and Kirk do some running around, the Yangs arrive and take everybody captive. The Kohms have been wiped out, and while Kirk and Spock and McCoy are waiting for their fate to be decided, Kirk muses on how the biological warfare that most likely forced the Yangs out of the cities, turning them into the bloodthirsty savages they've become, is an awful lot like the Cold War back on Earth. And then he says, in a line of dialogue that heralds the death knell of sense in "Omega," "Huh, Yangs sounds like Yankees." And Spock says, "And Kohms sounds like Communists." That's because—they are! And this isn't Earth, and nobody ever even hints at a parallel universe. Instead, the screenplay (by Gene Roddenberry himself) posits the parallel evolution of a humanoid race that not only developed political conflicts resembling our own right down to the names… Aw jeez, I almost feel bad for telling you this. I feel like I'm spoiling somebody's birthday. I mean, I'd actually heard about this in advance, but it caught me completely by surprise, and while this is actually a terrible, terrible episode, there's something wonderful in finding out for yourself just how bad it gets. But hey, they don't pay me the big bucks not to deliver on my implications, so here goes. The Yangs worship an American flag. And one of them (the one that bonked Kirk over the head earlier) starts speaking to the flag in a phonetic rendition of the Pledge of Allegiance. Kirk joins in, because he's got this wacky idea that he knows what's going on here, but before he can convince the Yangs he's right, Tracey starts trying to turn the Yangs against him. He points out that Spock looks a lot like the picture of the devil in the Yangs sacred book (and yeah, the resemblance is pretty goddamn ridiculous), so we get some trial by combat nonsense. Kirk wins, Spock gets Sulu and some red-shirts to beam down, and now that Kirk has things in hand, he gets out the Yangs most precious document, and gives them all a big speech about how awesome democracy is. Because, see, the piece of paper is the Constitution of the United States. This doesn't make any sense at all; and what's great is that it doesn't even try to make sense. A more cowardly television show—one of your Twilight Zones or Battlestar Galacticas —would've given us some third act twist to explain why an alien race that hasn't mastered space travel has managed to work up a Constitution that matches ours even down to the handwriting . But not our Trek ! Never mind the creepy way the Yangs are all white to a man, or the fact that the Kohms, despite Kirk's admonitions to the contrary, seem to be basically the bad guys. Let's just relish the richness of the loogey Roddenberry has hawked into the face of reason and logic. This is sublime awfulness, gang. Dare I say it? This approaches the glory of "HOW'D IT GET BURNED?" The second episode this week, "The Ultimate Computer" (a surprisingly literal title for the series), isn't anywhere near as terrible. It's got a great guest star, a decent hook, and some edge of the seat battle sequences. There's something a little flat to it, though, and while I never had a "You've gotta be fucking kidding" moment while watching, my mind did wander. The perfect Trek episode needs something more than just basic competency to be memorable; "Computer" entertains, but never really excites, not even when the stakes are at their highest. As befits their status as The Ship That Has To Do Damn Near Everything, the Enterprise gets called to a star base and told they are about to receive a singular honor. Dr. Richard Daystrom, the computer genius, has perfected his masterwork, the M-5 system. To test it, Starfleet is going to hold a war game; the M-5 will take control of one ship, and square off against four others to test its combat readiness and ability to run a vessel. The Enterprise gets put under M-5's command, which means a steep-but-temporary crew reduction (down from 400 to 20, which includes our leads and a reasonable cushion of expendable ensigns) and a lot of hand-wringing about the horrors of replacing humans with machines. Which, quite frankly, I don't buy. I can understand the relevancy of addressing the question to a modern audience, but this isn't swapping auto-factory workers with mechanical arms. The M-5 may be the most sophisticated machine in the universe, but it has no physical presence. It can't beam down to a planet, it can't open negotiations with new life, and it sure as hell can't fix itself when something goes wrong. "Computer" goes out of its way to show the dangers of autonomy, but while it's charming to see that even in The Future, people still struggle with the same problems, I'm not all that interested in a Trek that feels the need to explain why technology is a harsh mistress. John Henry versus the steam engine this ain't. Besides, has there every been a sci-fi story in the history of anything where giving a computer complete control didn't end in the computer going psycho? It's like generations of writers spent their childhoods getting mocked by somebody's graphing calculator. From the moment we find out that the M-5 will be running the ship—into simulated combat, no less—we all know where this is going. I'll give the ep the benefit of the doubt and assume the story wasn't quite as predictable to audiences at the time, but it's still disappointing to have things go exactly as you'd expect they would, right down the line. Hell, Kirk even talks the machine into offing itself! For those of you who haven't seen this in a while: initially the M-5 is in top shape, acing the war games and even inspiring a commodore to refer to Kirk as "Captain Dunsel," slang which basically means he's superfluous on his own ship. (This is a surprisingly dick move on the commodore's part, too. He might be trying to make some grand comment about how they'll all be outmoded some day, but it really comes off as an attack, and a thoroughly unmotivated one at that.) But then the M-5 starts acting up, destroying an unmanned freighter for no reason and then openly attacking the four ships it had earlier engaged in the games. Lots of frantic running around trying to shut down the system ensues, including Daystrom himself (whose along for the ride and not entirely right in the head) trying to convince the M-5 to stand down. But in the end, only Kirk can explain to it that by killing humans, it violated its purpose. I guess it makes sense that Kirk gives the speech. He's done it so many times by this point that he could do it in his sleep. But like I said, "Computer" is competent, and it has its good bits. There's a lot of great Kirk/Spock/McCoy dialogue, and Kirk's comments on how strange it feels to actually be at odds with his own ship are nicely done. The battle at the episode's climax, while not exactly showy (shades of "Omega" here in that we hear about a lot of things happening, but we don't see a lot of them), is fairly intense; Kirk having to sit back and watch while the Enterprise murders hundreds is a exciting in a way the rest of the episode doesn't quite manage. And best of all, we get William Marshall as Daystrom. Marshall played the King of Cartoons on Pee-Wee's Playhouse (after Gilbert Lewis left), but to me, he's Blacula, from Blacula and Scream Blacula Scream . SBS is a mixed bag (it's got Pam Grier, but it's not, y'know, Pam Grier enough ), but Blacula , goofy title aside, is surprisingly great, and Marshall's the reason why. He's one of the all time coolest screen vampires, and while "Computer" doesn't give him a ton to do, he does manage to find the tragedy at the heart of the character: as the others note, this is a genius who peaked early, and has spent every day since trying to prove he wasn't a fluke. Maybe if we'd focused a little more on that, "Computer" might've been more memorable. Grades: "The Omega Glory": D+ "The Ultimate Computer": B Stray Observations:

• Great exchange between Kirk and Spock after Spock executes a neck pinch: "Pity you can't teach me that." "I have tried, Captain."
• Lousy as the "Omega" climax is, McCoy gets a terrific line: "Spock, I've found that evil usually triumphs unless good is very careful."
• Good one from Spock during "Computer": "Captain Wesley is a dedicated commander. I would regret serving aboard the instrument of his death."
• Next week we finish up the second season with "Bread and Circuses" and "Assignment: Earth."

Star Trek (TV Series)

The omega glory (1968), full cast & crew.

Directed by 

Writing credits  , cast (in credits order) verified as complete  , produced by , music by , cinematography by , editing by , casting by , art direction by , set decoration by , costume design by , makeup department , production management , second unit director or assistant director , art department , sound department , special effects by , visual effects by , stunts , camera and electrical department , costume and wardrobe department , music department , script and continuity department , additional crew .

Release Dates | Official Sites | Company Credits | Filming & Production | Technical Specs

Contribute to This Page

• Full Cast and Crew
• Release Dates
• Official Sites
• Company Credits
• Filming & Production
• Technical Specs
• Plot Summary
• Plot Keywords
• Parents Guide

Did You Know?

• Crazy Credits
• Alternate Versions
• Connections
• Soundtracks

Photo & Video

• Photo Gallery
• Trailers and Videos
• User Reviews
• User Ratings
• External Reviews
• Metacritic Reviews

Related Items

• External Sites

Related lists from IMDb users

Recently Viewed