STAR TREK
"The Way to Eden"

From Wikipedia:

"The Way to Eden" is the nineteenth episode of the third season of Star Trek: The Original Series, and was broadcast February 21, 1969. It was written by Arthur Heinemann, based on a story by Arthur Heinemann and Michael Richards, and directed by David Alexander.

Overview: The Enterprise is hijacked by an insane doctor and his fanatical, hippie-like followers, in an attempt to find paradise.

More here.

Watch it here.

Notes and pics:

* Where's Uhura? Who's this white chick?



* They look like Space: 1999 aliens.



* Space: 1999 aliens:





* "No go! No go!" Really, hippies haven't changed too much in forty years. Still annoying.

* "You've got a hard lip, Herbert." Great one liners in this one.

* This reminds me of that episode of Dick Cavett or Mike Douglas that brought on something like six or seven of the performers at Woodstock. David Crosby was a raging hippie asshole.



* Now Spock's going to try to rap with them.



* Spock: "One."

Dr. Sevrin: "We are one."

Spock: "One is the beginning."

Adam: "Are you one, Herbert?"

Spock: "I am not Herbert."

Adam: "He's not Herbert. We reach."

These exchanges are fucking surreal.

* Adam: "Right, brother!" You know, I used to think this one was really silly because of how it got the hippies so totally wrong. I still think it's really silly, but I'm finding myself thinking that they got the hippies totally right.

* "Herbert Herbert Herbert Herbert..."

* Kirk sounds like that guy in the Woodstock movie who's like "They're all on pot!" Spock sounds like a sympathetic university professor.

* Alright! Adam's singing! What the fuck is that he's playing? Sounds like an electric harpsichord, but looks like a space-guitar. Actually, it's not such a bad song. BTW, Adam is played by the now veteran character actor Charles Napier, always pretty great, whether he's playing a vengeance seeking country and western band leader in The Blues Brothers or a Rambo villain. This is early in his career, but he's as great here as anything else he's ever done.



* You can buy wigs like that in shops on Bourbon Street.



* She's a Ruskie. Probably a commie, too.

* Yeah, Chekov, go get some of that groovy free love!



* This is like a community college production of The Cherry Orchard or The Three Sisters.

* Fantastic! A real 60s hippie riot. I mean, you know, it's only five people, but they're very convincing.



* Typical arrogant asshole hippie: he carries a deadly disease, but calls it a government plot.



* Sulu's gonna get some of that free lovin' action, too!



* Adam again bursts into song, a nice off-kilter anti-authoritarian quickie.



* The guy playing Sevrin played Melakon in the second season's "Patterns of Force." From Nazi to hippie. Actually, that's not such a stretch. I mean, David Horowitz went from hippie to Nazi, so why not?



* Spock: "Doctor Sevrin is...insane." Great line, well delivered.

* There's that weird alter thing in Spock's quarters again.



* Adam: "Hey brother, do you play? Oh ho, that's now, that's really now. I reach that brother, I really do."



* Now Spock's going to play.



* And Adam totally digs it.



* So, naturally, they're all going to jam together.

* More bad community college twentieth century Russian realism.

* She's really coming onto him. Fucking hippie slut.



* They might as well be plotting to take over the dean's office.



* I've performed this first one in front of live audiences.



* This is so incredibly retarded that it's great.

* I did this second one, too.

* The crew fucking digs it!



* Spock arrives.



* Spock takes the stage. Once, years ago, my buddy Shane had this episode playing with the sound turned down while we were listening to a Ministry album or mix tape or somesuch. When the song "Stigmata" came on, someone in the room noticed that this scene was playing and it appeared that they were jamming along with the Ministry song. I assure you, this was way cooler than watching The Wizard of Oz turned down with Dark Side of the Moon playing could ever possibly be. Okay, we might have been on acid, too.



* Okay, how is it that these lame-ass hippie fucks are able to take over the ship? Well, Spock did say they were all grad students and scientists and shit. Typical. But I just don't see a bunch of grad students taking over the Enterprise.



* I love that Spock is in philosophical sympathy with the hippies. He also fit in with the fascist mirror universe, too. I'm liking this Nazi/hippie theme they're pushing.

* Adam croons a slow ballad about Eden.



* You know, I should adapt this episode for the theater.

* Now Sevrin wants to kill the crew. It's like Charles Manson and the Symbionese Liberation Army and the Weather Underground and the Black Panthers and Altamont and the Viet Cong and Jane Fonda all rolled into one.

* Scream, Chekov, scream!



* Adam o.d.'d. Bummer, man. It's just like Janis and Jimi and Jim.



* Nasty foot.



* What's with the mirror shots of Kirk in this one?



* Five stars. Yeah, this one's bad. Really bad, just spectacularly bad. But it's bad in all the right ways. And it's a musical. The only Star Trek musical I know of that's considered canon. The hippies are spot on, and Doctor Sevrin makes for an excellent groovy sunshine villain, like something from an issue of Superman's Pal Jimmy Olson, or The Teen Titans. And the dialoge is some of the worst, and by "worst" I mean "best", in all of Star Trek. Yeah, five stars. Fuck you, fucking smelly self-righteous hippies.

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