Don't understand the dislike for Turnabout Intruder
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Star Trek
davidhkii — 9 years ago(October 16, 2016 06:16 PM)
It seems like a serviceable episode. Certainly not Spock's Brain though. When I read the reviews though people just savage this episode.
Why did you like or dislike it? -
WyldeGoose — 9 years ago(October 16, 2016 07:40 PM)
My issue with it is that it's probably the biggest episode where Shatner's overhamming was a detriment, so it's a little painful to watch, especially given that it's TOS' last episode.
A lot of people think somehow it denigrates women, as if Janice Lester represents all women. She was insane, and obsessed with Kirk and the power of being a starship captain. Apparently she also had a beef with Starfleet, at the time, not allowing women to be starship captains, and Captain Janeway and Lester doesn't help with this issue. This episode wasn't about this issue, and I don't really see it as a riff against any particular issue, except perhaps the notion of trans-identity, that at some point you have to accept who and what you are rather than focusing on what you're not.
I think to make this point more powerful, I think it would've also been pertinent to have Kirk, in Lester's body, also become destabilized over time because having such a thing happen ought to wreck havoc on one's mind (not to mention the physiological issues that may have also been plaguing Lester affect Kirk's own mind and soul as well), thus increasing the stakes for Spock and Bones to swap them back in order to save the Captain's sanity. -
cind5 — 9 years ago(October 17, 2016 07:03 AM)
Wylde you have me curious, I never watched Voyager, so what did Janeway do that would not help the women cause to be a ship's captain? She couldn't have been as bad as Janice Lester? Or was she?
Spenser with an "S", like the poet. -
timmytony80 — 9 years ago(October 17, 2016 11:22 AM)
Cind 5; In my opinion, Capt' Janeway does nothing 2 defeat the idea of woman captaincy. In fact, she seems wooden. A female derivative of Jean Luc Picard. I believe the reason Kate Mulgrew won that role was because she c/d play the role like a man. She all but completely submerges her femininity in Janeway. Not like Remo Wms., Mrs. Columbo, or her Soap Operas.
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grizzledgeezer — 9 years ago(October 17, 2016 12:25 PM)
The part was to be played by a well-known French actress, but she was so distressed the first day of shooting she felt she couldn't handle the work that she quit. Kate Mulgrew was called in.
Just as there are effeminate men, there are effeminate women. Janeway isn't one of them. "Command" is traditionally considered a male quality, and female leaders have to express some degree of "mannishness". -
WyldeGoose — 9 years ago(October 17, 2016 01:38 PM)
Well, Janeway was the chance to show that women can be as competent as men in the leadership department, and Star Trek Voyager blew that, by making Janeway a narcissistic megalomaniacal psychopath, and nobody ever bringing this to light because of her gender.
She's a psychopath because she strands her crew and the Maquis 75,000 light years from home based on her twisted interpretation of the Prime Directive concerning the Ocampa, breaks regulations and Federation laws based mainly on whim, commits acts of Treason with the Borg, and is never called on the carpet for any of it for fear by these moronic writers that questioning her integrity, judgment, and sanity is undermining gender equality, but gender equality is a myth. If Janeway were a man, he would've been killed, probably by Tuvok. For female characters to engender respect from men, they have to be held to the same standards as men. -
jxh13 — 9 years ago(October 17, 2016 03:12 AM)
Why did you like or dislike it?
My biggest quibble is the mind-switcheroo technology, which is introduced and discarded with no explanation; the machine is never really discussed, the philosophy behind the process is ignored, and how Janice Lester found exactly the device she needed is glossed over. In a science fiction show, the "science" should be taken more seriously, rather than simply used as a gimmick. It feels more like a
Gilligan's Island
idea than the basis of a
Star Trek
episode.
Beyond that, I tend to agree that the episode works pretty well in a dramatic sense. I think Spock and Scotty come out pretty well, and the passive resistance of the bridge crew was well considered. The idea that Security could act as a private army for the Captain was scary.
I though Miss Smith did pretty well as she-Kirk; opinion is sharply divided on Shatner's performance, but I think he did okay with what he had to work with. -
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jozzcooper — 9 years ago(October 17, 2016 05:14 PM)
In a science fiction show, the "science" should be taken more seriously, rather than simply used as a gimmick.
Star Trek's science leans heavily to the science fantasy side, much like Star Wars. Any nod to science is usually along the "reverse the polarity" route. Teleportation, FTL travel, "subspace" radio, gravity on a starship, etc. All a bunch of baloney. I never watched much of Next Generation, but I recall the Data character saying something about a "positronic" brain and Asimov. Too bad that the writers didn't show Asimov more respect and scratch the positronic nonsense. He did. -
grizzledgeezer — 9 years ago(October 17, 2016 07:46 AM)
My gripe about "Turnabout Intruder" has always been its revelation that Star Fleet won't allow Terran women to captain a starship. This isn't explicitly stated, but implied ("If only").
Given that
Star Trek
is implicitly liberal/progressive, it's hard to understand how this got into the story other than as a plausible contributor to Janice Lester's mental unbalance.
The
Star Trek Continues
episode "The White Iris" handles the issue of gender discrimination more believably, with a nominally qualified female officer criticized for what others consider her weak decision-making skills. It ends with no resolution (an unexpected event closes the opening she's trying to fill), and fortunately, no lecture. -
kerryedavis — 9 years ago(October 17, 2016 03:45 PM)
Similar to something like The Odd Man Hypothesis from the original Andromeda Strain movie (not the dreadful TV miniseries remake) it's not inconceivable that future research might find some quantifiable reason why females are not suitable for starship command, especially in earlier riskier times such as shown in much of TOS.
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jxh13 — 9 years ago(October 18, 2016 03:03 AM)
It's been a while, but my memory of the Odd Man Hypothesis from
Andromeda
is that it was invented to convince the government to let them have a nuclear weapon to cleanse a breakout event - in other words, it was a convincing lie. -
kerryedavis — 9 years ago(October 18, 2016 02:20 PM)
Maybe that was in the book, it's been a long time since I read it and I don't remember either way. But that was definitely not part of the movie.
It seems more likely that Robertson was doing research for the government on who should be making nuclear decisions in all sorts of situations, and for the Wildfire situation it meant that Hall should be the one "in charge." -
kerryedavis — 9 years ago(October 20, 2016 03:38 AM)
The biggest single problem with both the book and the movie is that, according to the information given, Andromeda would not have killed the mice and monkeys used in their testing. The normal blood pH of mice and monkeys is outside of the range that Andromeda was said to grow in.
Which raises the question, how did Crichton make that mistake? He seemed too smart for that. -
jxh13 — 9 years ago(October 20, 2016 05:59 AM)
Which raises the question, how did Crichton make that mistake? He seemed too smart for that.
Yeah, smart and experienced. I remember reading somewhere that he based
Andromeda
on Arthur Conan Doyle's
The Poison Belt,
and perhaps Crichton was inspired to let medical facts slide in the interest of what he saw as dramatic tension, which is something Dr Doyle was certainly capable. of. -
ben-thayer — 9 years ago(October 20, 2016 06:41 AM)
Speaking of female anatomy
In one episode of Farscape, Crichton and Aeryn Sun's minds switch bodies. There's a scene with Crichton looking in the mirror, reveling in the fact that he has female parts, saying something like "this is every teenage boy's dream"
The wife and I were highly amused
Oh, just realized some were also discussing Michael Crichtoninteresting coincidence! -
grizzledgeezer — 9 years ago(October 18, 2016 03:05 PM)
it's not inconceivable that future research might find some quantifiable reason why females are not suitable for starship command
People vary so much that it's hard to believe there might be a single factor that disqualifies every member of a group from performing a particular job.
Things have changed so much in 50 years that the opposite error of reasoning has taken over that anyone can do anything, if they simply want it badly enough.