Interesting Cyrano Jones would write an episode about a planet overrun with people like they were--Oh, gee, what critter is infamous for rapid and detrimental population explosions?
It's the G. Gordon Liddy deep cuts that I'm here for. As for overpopulation, it was still a real concern at the time. Norman Borlaug was fostering his Green Revolution, but many people were convinced by what Paul Ehrlich said in The Population Bomb, that the world would be unable to feed itself in the 80s.
I read Ehrlich's book over 50 years ago and it scared the bejezus out of me. I didn't hear about Borlaug until the '80s, even though he had won the Nobel Peace Prize long before.
@@CAP198462 well carrying capacity is established science. The problem applying it to humanity is technology means we're not entirely subject to the rules of our environment. Ehrlich forgot you don't know what you don't know. Humans will reach a stage where the planet can't support us, it's just going to be a lot farther down the road than anyone can predict.
I think it’s insane to think that this is basically an earth planet, HOWEVER it’s been so intensely populated that literally everyone all the time is standing in a crowd. Do the people not sleep? Or do they all lie down in place at night and just stand up? Where do they eat? Where do they get food? Who makes the food? How is anything done? Like is there any manufacturing on this planet? I’m not trying to be nit picky, but when they give us several intentional visual references to the idea that the entire planet is so packed that even their mock enterprise can’t get enough to to not have a clear view out the window, and that they won’t even let people scan the planet, I think the episode invites those questions. But I don’t think they thought for one second about HOW MANY PEOPLE it would take to cover an earth like planet that densely. Are there oceans on the planet? Do they have boats/floating cities, they could build oil rig like sculptures in the water to let people spread out, but of course it goes back to that idea of is this planet even capable of producing resources to use in construction? And another thing, the enterprise isn’t able to scan the world, but like wouldn’t that many people be visible from orbit? Jesus Christ while typing this I read the wiki on this planet and it says in outside material like books they estimate that the disease killed more than 99% of the population, but that the population had been more in this one planet than the entire federation’s population. They use the phrase “several hundred billion” to describe the quantity that were killed by this disease and Kirk didn’t even put up a fight, and what’s worse… THEY GOT INTO THE FEDERATION Sisko was about to throw hands over Bajor using a caste system and a government that committed genocide the likes of which the universe had never seen against its own people was able to just join after a few years
@@alexturlais8558 according to the wiki there’s only a few hundred thousand people left after the pandemic so I assume now every person has their own country sized portion of land
If the planet were about this size of earth, or at least had a comparable amount of land area, the total population would actually be MUCH larger. Like somewhere closer to 1 quadrillion than 1 trillion. At a 1% survival rate hundreds of trillions would die, but on the bright side ~9 trillion people would still be alive. But the smell would be awful, I'm sure.
@@TheEvox81 thank you! It’s insane to think this planet somehow got filled with so many unfathomable people and they also all have perfect immune systems? Like their would be crazy nasty bacteria evolving in the disgusting state of their planet if everyone was crammed against each other constantly like krill Where are they washing their hands, showering, using the bathroom? It’s a premise that wasn’t well thought out
This episode must have been written by someone who thinks the Christian Bible is inerrant and perfectly describes the creation of the universe, earth, humans, and everything that happened since then.
Regarding Mark, it took me years to work out why Juggernaut in the X-Men is called Cain Marko. Maybe, if he'd been called Marko Cain, I might have made the connection more quickly.
This plot never made any sense, and I had forgotten that this episode was even a thing until you brought it back in this review. And wow does it feel even goofier in light of COVID.
Considering that during COVID I actually saw screeds about how the death toll would be good because of overpopulation, it feels less goofy than ever. A huge fumble in actually interrogating how fucked-up To Serve Gran is, but that weird-ass plan suddenly seems more plausible. ETA: To be clear, I don't think it's at all a good episode. But unfortunately, we've now seen "A certain amount of the population will die and that's a good thing" being argued as potentially valid state policy in some locations.
Maybe the issue of birth control had been focused on more in the story that Stanley Adams sold to the producers, but by the time the network gave feedback on the script they were pushed to minimize that focus. That sounds likely considering what happened to The Cloud Minders, where the allegory to slavery was watered down to, "let's provide them with masks to protect them from Zenite gas and they'll be happier about their oppression."
Actually, the resolution of TCM is that the Trogs and the City dwellers would share both working in the mines and enjoying the City. So, much fairer than you imagined.
And if not wouldn’t any sufficiently lethal disease or i dunno poison do? It’s just some insanely convoluted hand waving to kill people/ have them commit suicide while saying that actually they didn’t kill them directly. Could’ve just provided phasers with a Russian roulette setting.
@@BlackCover95 Yeah, but then why don't they welcome aliens all the time, hoping for a disease that would knock them out? Seems strange to insist on isolationism when there's a whole galaxy of weird germs that could solve their problem. Look at me, expecting logic from this weirdly sloppy story, LOL.
Extra points for Airwolf and Sting references. Also nice: "Emptyprise." (And yeah, you couldn't resist a Gideon Bible.) This episode has always grimly fascinated me, because as easy as it is to point out it's bad, I'm still left wondering: could it possibly have been done RIGHT? Back in the 1960s, discussion of overpopulation tended to be as simplistic as "Oh no -- crowding!" The novel that the movie Soylent Green was based on was literally titled Make Room! Make Room! Could the plot have been any better if, say, the planet Gideon had been trying to cover up its own Soylent Green program? I mind stories not working, but I tend not to mind noble efforts, however badly conceived, so I tend to go a little easier on this one.
Kirk: "Hey, we have a whole Federation of starships. Why don't we work out a plan to move billions of you to a Gideon II? Problem solved." Roll credits. Each time I watch it, it gets worse. Hodin commits genocide at levels that would make Kodos the Executioner blush, and we're just supposed to walk away from that? Worst episode of TOS, IMHO.
Logical. Heck, set up the planet as a destination health spa retreat. Anyone can stay for one year and "get well", then they have to leave. People may revisit from time to time as a "top up" for life extension. Assuming the same properties of the planet that are keeping these people perfect would work on other species. The lack of imagination in problem solving dilemmas in tv shows is astonishing. I blame producers and higher ups mucking up stories - "giant mechanical spiders in a western!"
The whole thing has a ring to me of modern US political dialogue about birth control vs gun control - pro-life for featuses vs school shootings as a fact of life.
This ep always reminded me of Soylent Green. There were scenes in that film where Heston had to literally step over people in stairwells & on the street. Over population was a big concern in the 60s & a popular theme in scifi. The myth of exponential pop growth still exists today & is a big reason eugenics caught on & is still an idea proposed by ...uh...certain people...(because it's too many people & limited resources not wealth hoarding & failure to share that's the problem 😮)
I too concluded that watching this review. Although, I think my impression watching the episode would be that it was the bruise on Kirk's arm where they got his tainted blood that was "The Mark of Gideon" as in a mark left by the Gideons.
I want to think that G. Gordon Liddy got his look from this episode. Consider the timeline. I think he was working for the FBI when this episode came out. "I think I'll go for the Gideon Elder look!" I mean, do we know what the "G" in his name stands for? Gideon Gordon Liddy?
James Blish's novelisation has The Mark" being a medal, I think McCoy pulls out of a drawer after curing patient zero. The idea is that The Mark would be a badge of pride the families of those who sacrifice themselves could retain.
Smh....as a kid, I always thought this was such a weird episode. The faces of the Gideons was super creepy though. Although it was creepy, there was no explanation for it
I first watched this as a teenager, and thought it had the makings of an effective horror episode. For a minute I felt it had something to say about the need for private space, the breakdown of respect for boundaries, how something as seemingly simple as never being alone could give a society a completely different moral compass and view of the value of individuals and autonomy. Life, in the abstract, may be sacred, but people's lives are cheap. Kirk is violated in multiple ways and no one thinks anything of it. What will this civilization look like if it does lose a massive percentage of its population to suicide? There doesn't seem to be a plan, more a vague idea that things will be better. Imagine a bunch of government officials plowing ahead with a harebrained scheme because their constituents wanted to see some action. Never happens, I know. Even the stonewalling of the crew effectively generated some frustration. It would be a nightmare scenario, to lose your captain and get nothing but gaslighting and orders to play nice and give up. But the episode never fully goes there, or maybe doesn't lean into where it's gone, and feels a bit unsatisfying. It would have been better as horror, is all I'm saying.
There was one bit of business that I quite liked about Mark Of Gideon. The team who planned the caper for Hodan(sp) found out that most of the crew of the Enterprise and almost all of the command staff were humans. So they deceived the crew with a mistake that humans make all the time; transposing two numbers in the beam-down/beam-up coordinates. That was clever. Also, Stanley Adams did a remarkable impression in Trouble With Tribbles, I'd have sworm he was Zero Mostel. (just my opinion)
re: the title. I couldn't find any reference to an actual "Mark of Gideon" anywhere, but in the Bible Gideon is a leader selected by Yahweh to battle an enemy of Israel. Gideon raises a force of 32,000 soldiers, but Yahweh says that nobody would believe that such a large force needed Yahweh's help to win, so Yahweh tells Gideon to cull his force twice. He ends up with an army of only 300 soldiers. I think this is what The Mark of Gideon is supposed to refer to.
I always assumed Hodin's plan is just intentionally bad. I mean, not intentional on his part, but intentional on the writers' part; the idea being something like "those who strongly object to the obvious solutions may go to extremes to avoid them".
The "Mark" referred to in the title is the apostle Mark from the Gideon Bible. That is the planet Gideon's version of the bible. The episode number informs us that the relevant chapter and verse is Mark 3:16 "These are the twelve he appointed: Simon to whom he gave the name Peter." Which I think you'll find makes perfect sense if you think about it.
Remembering that Roddenberry always intended ST to be allegory, I think TMoG has a very good point: If you privilege religious dogma over the real needs of people and other creatures, you are likely to end up in a horror story. What Kirk and the rest of the crew does after they arrive at Gideon is moot, the horror is inevitable. Could the TV episode have been more entertaining? Probably, but the allegory still works in the existing episode.
I always wondered why the Gideons didn't just leave to colonize other planets. Takes care of the overpopulation problem and you don't have to cause the death of anyone.
I got the impression that it was because only their planet had the special ‘perfect health/prime of your life’ effect. But that also suggests that if nobody wants to leave, nobody would be volunteering to die either.
@@Ash______ Thanks for posting the link before I had the chance to! Yep, I reviewed "The Cloud Minders" last year as part of my "labor episodes" batch! Also directed by Jud Taylor.
Yeah, it always bugged me that the Gideon people were ok with an infectious, deadly disease, but were not ok with (gasp!) contraception. It just seemed like a plot hole you could drive a starship through. "Life is so sacred to us that we can't prevent it... but we can cut short already existing lives!" Ya, no. Doesn't work for me, either. Funny thing - the shot of Kirk arguing with the Gideon council with the camera facing up through the glass table is one of my earliest memories. At the time, I couldn't even understand what they were talking about, but the memory of watching that odd shot sticks with me over a half-century later.
Great video! I loved the reference to the wonderful Ticonderoga TOS set recreation. It's definitely worth a visit! If you're ever near Kingsland, Georgia, the Neutral Zone is also an excellent recreation.
I think you were a bit harsh on this episode. Is it great? Not particularly. But, the message was quite clear. At the time, as you said, people were fighting for access to birth control and people were worried about terrible overpopulation. This episode was clearly a cautionary tale for both. Want to live in a dystopian future with horrible overpopulation and depleted resources? No? Birth control could have prevented this issue all along! They make that point with Kirk literally saying that to the Gideons. The Gideons were past that point though. It was a pretty clever way to shoot a cost effective episode while making a point/comment on social issues that were important at the time. I think the episode just really needed a B-plot or something else in the middle of the episode for Kirk and Odanna to do. The doe-eyed, naive girl with nothing to offer is a little tired and quite frankly insulting to the character. To make a commentary about empowering women with reproductive autonomy, while doing so with a female lead who has nothing to offer and plays dumb throughout the episode isn't the best look.
Overpopulation was on the brain in the the late 1960s; the novel "Make Room, Make Room!" (which would become the film "Soylent Green") had come out in 1967, and John Brunner's "Stand on Zanzibar" would come out in 1969; both science-fiction stories about overpopulation on Earths with no advanced space program focused on terraforming Mars for colonization or other "put the excess population on space stations or Moonbases" plans. I never thought "Mark of Gideon" was a good episode; it was probably pushing it with Standards and Practices, and if you look hard enough, you can see it as a what-if for countries like India and China. The writing gets around the reality of human populations plateau-ing and then dropping because they are aliens who live for a long time, but you would think they would have come up with the vaporization booths from "A Taste of Armageddon" and saved themselves the disease.
Stand on Zanzibar predicted that by 2010 the human population would be 7 billion, this was way off as it was only in 2011 that the human population reached that level. Stand on Zanzibar also depicts 2010 New York as a domed city. The most real prediction in Stand on Zanzibar to me is that one of the main characters goes to a costume party where you are supposed to dress in 20th century style, but the character misses this. However they are saved from being punished/hazed for this transgression by the fact they are wearing clothing 10 year old clothes from they year 2000 and "oh yeah I remember back then they were talking about how it wasn't actually the 21st century yet). Real debates about population are only slightly less unhinged than Mark of Gideon, so what can you do... 🤷♀
Okay, I’ve always scratched my head about the obsession around the kislux book totes and their practicality, but this one is adorable!! Congratulations
This episode uses one of my favorite Star Trek tropes: A character finds themself alone on an empty ship. Voyager's One and Enterprise's Doctor's Orders use a similar premise, however, those are actually good episodes. I do however like this episode's creepy atmosphere on the Empty-prise, especially when all those faces outside the window are revealed. It still doesn't make any sense, but it makes for a scene that feels creepy in all the right ways.
Listen, I always give you a courtesy laugh for your puns. The one opening this video was probably the first to upset me. I still gave you a courtesy laugh, but an annoyed one.
The ambience on the fake Enterprise and the faces outside the windows and viewscreen have always given me goosebumps. The rest of the episode is about as hard hitting and impactful as being punched in the groin by the Snuggles bear.
Interesting take on MOG, Steve. FYI, this episode and Let That Be Your Last Battleground were two favorite episodes of mine growing up. Your points are well taken, and I appreciate your voicing them, it's just interesting that MOG left such an indelible mark on me when I saw it, and given the ballooning of the population since the episode aired, I think population is an important topic. Thank you. ~ Peter Ferber
After seeing the tumblr post about the "we are incapable of destroying life" scene, I watched this episode last week expecting it to actually attempt to deal with the issues presented by that scene. It did, for part of that scene and then none of the rest of the episode.
So, I was 5 or 6 when this episode aired (back when there were only 3 billion people on the planet). We had just gotten our cat neutered recently, and I said, "Well, this is really dumb. Instead of making people get sick and die, why not just take a bunch of people to the vet? If everything was chopped off by the vets, maybe those parts wouldn't grow back. That seems a lot easier."
"It is I! The G Man!! G. Gordon Liddy!! Let me regale you with my fond stories in J. Edgar Hoover's FBI! And also how I would handle a home invader!" He said he had a gun in every room of his house. Real smart announcement that over the radio. Now if a listener invades his home without alerting the G Man, they're one Easter Egg hunt away from arming themselves in the room they're standing in, or maybe the next room, or the next. There's one in every room!!
//sigh// What nono word did I use to get auto-filtered this time? (Complaint leveled at Skydaddy RUclips; this isn't an accusation of malicious moderation. I'm just annoyed because I think I had a good point for once.)
I remember watching this episode for the first time when I was a kid and even then the Emptyprise on a planet that is "so overcrowded there's no where to go to be alone" , didn't make sense. You know the writing is bad when a child can spot the plot holes.
For all its flaws, it's one I remember which isn't true for a lot of TOS. Suffering chronic fatigue from untreated sleep apnea back then there was a lot of media I consumed I could not remember well. But this one I do remember.
I have a soft spot for this episode because it happens to be one of the first episodes I remember seeing as a kid. Like, little kid. Sci-fi as social commentary was still brand new to me, and the imagery of a planet too crowded to move scared the heck out of me. I know it doesn't hold up, and it's goofy seeing it again as an adult, but it left an impression on me.
Yes the color of the kislux is beautiful and it is a great decision, maybe one day they will add feet and straps. It would be nice to have a bigger bag during the colder months when we have to store gloves, beanies, scarves, etc…
I saw this episode as a little boy and it scared the crap out of me. The idea that a place could be THAT crowded was terrifying. It’s also important to know that when this episode first aired, the fear of overpopulation was VERY much common. The fact that population growth has slowed is a miracle - but not to a lot of rich people who worry about fewer consumers.
Gonna build another model of the Enterprise so when people say "Oh, hey, the Enterprise!" I can respond "No, actually, this is the EXACTLY REPLICA of the Enterprise from the Episode "The Mark of Gideon."
I always assumed the whole episode was a big condemnation of the Catholic Church’s teachings about birth control. I just thought it was obvious that the plan to release disease and the ideology behind it was stupid and evil.
The Federation desperate to get their hands on a planet with a mysterious, life-preserving atmosphere? A villain using the Federation to advance his own plans to reduce the local population? Throw in an inexplicably evil admiral and this reads like a first draft of Star Trek: Insurrection.
Dude, way to bury the lead! This episode is a horror movie! You didn't mention the psychological horror of them hearing the constant marching! They and/or the audience see the hidden green faces multiple times! The enterprise turned into a liminal space! The idea that everyone on the planet has to constantly move or else they would be trapped in space! The idea that advancement could so unbalance nature that it be our demise! There is a LOT here and you don't even give it a chance!
If the plan is "Hey, anyone want to die?" they don't need anything that isn't on the planet already. Like, do they not have AI written books on mushroom foraging? Do they not have cliffs?
I watched this in its original run back in the '60s. I missed two details (one minor, one major) that Steve brings up. The minor one is that I didn't pick up on the fact that Kirk and Odonna made the beast with two backs. The major one is that, for over 50 years, I was oblivious to the plan only being for people to _volunteer_ to die. I really assumed that this (like other sci fi pieces at the time, e.g., ""The Winnowing" by Asimov) would involve killing a random but large segment of the population. No volunteers. I almost don't know if Steve or I is right, and I may have to suffer through the episode again to be sure.
At the time i first saw this episode, my childish mind wasn't able to fully comprehend some of the stuff going on in an episode and this one always made me uncomfortable. Now, much much much later, i am torn, between - still having a turmoil in my stomach about the damn creepy picture of crowded green lit people, all in the same clothing, just existing and shuffling around or something - and being at ease with my younger self, because i was able to realize that, despite having an actual message (or more, idk), this episode is just really bad and stupid. And, like people often do, if there was a list of episodes i would skip, that one would be on it. right along the inter dimensional one with the inverted color scenes that i don't care to remember the name off of now. On a high note: I really like these videos, and grab bag is a cool concept, because as a trekkie who remembers most of the episodes of a specific topic and is not too surprised what's coming (the topics were great too, don't get me wrong), these are!
For space meningitis read AR rifles. This episode predicted the America of today where contraception is anathema but mass murder by weapons of war is okay.
I’m just deeply confused as to how they knew what Kirk’s chambers looked like, or why they decided ‘voluntary virus’ was the only ‘voluntary’ type of mass death available. Or why they needed a living source - don’t they have replicators? Or regular science stuff that enables the virus to replicate itself naturally in a lab? (And how was Kirk contagious enough to infect this woman but not all the other women he’s slept with?) Or why the Emptyprise (great name!) had people viewing from without as an option… >_< I feel like the big dramatic political undertones pale in comparison to all the above missing factors..
Funny, I was just trying to recall this episode the other day, and all I got was "empty, fake Enterprise". And I watched Start Trek nightly for a lot of years when it was just TOS. Guess that's a fitting comment on it.
It was probably established in later 'Trek shows, but contact, opening of diplomatic relations and admission of into the Federation would require the civilization to have reached certain technological and cultural phases, such as a united planetary government, and FTL technology. Why not just start colonizing other planets! You get away from your atmosphere, and exposed to other diseases might curtail the regenerative properties they have. Those that leave can have a shorter but more fulfilling lives and you ease up on the overpopulation on the home world.
All the accounts I've heard surrounding Season 3 of TOS involved lack of money and time. By the third season, the selection of story ideas hand fallen in quantity and quality. The time pressure of the production schedule resulted in "no do-overs" when a poor story was selected for production - no time to pick a better story if there was a better story ready. I was twelve years old in 1969 and spent my childhood glued to the TV. TOS remains "standard issue television" for me - no better or worse than any other show from the 1960's. Thanks for your review Steve.
I'm sensing the potential theme of this grab bag is episodes called 'The blank of variable", but I guess we'll find out next week. Early prediction for the TNG episode being: "A Matter of Time".
The Empty-prise is a fantastic gag.
"The Gideons left it here..." I heard that...😂
Best joke in a video full of pretty good jokes. What Steve Sihves Trek video isn't? Love the delivery
Such a throwaway delivery too. He moves right along, but I had to pause and savor it. Fantastic joke.
Man, I feel old because I got that joke.
Just like Rocky Raccoon!
Me too.
Genius 😂
I cordially dislike puns,
but “Emptyprise” forced a snort of laughter from me.
You’ll be hearing from my lawyer.
Interesting Cyrano Jones would write an episode about a planet overrun with people like they were--Oh, gee, what critter is infamous for rapid and detrimental population explosions?
It's the G. Gordon Liddy deep cuts that I'm here for.
As for overpopulation, it was still a real concern at the time. Norman Borlaug was fostering his Green Revolution, but many people were convinced by what Paul Ehrlich said in The Population Bomb, that the world would be unable to feed itself in the 80s.
Thus the whole Soylent Green thing
I read Ehrlich's book over 50 years ago and it scared the bejezus out of me. I didn't hear about Borlaug until the '80s, even though he had won the Nobel Peace Prize long before.
Ah yes the old carrying capacity problem. They still discuss that in political science classes, along with “peak oil”.
@@CAP198462 well carrying capacity is established science. The problem applying it to humanity is technology means we're not entirely subject to the rules of our environment. Ehrlich forgot you don't know what you don't know.
Humans will reach a stage where the planet can't support us, it's just going to be a lot farther down the road than anyone can predict.
I think it’s insane to think that this is basically an earth planet, HOWEVER it’s been so intensely populated that literally everyone all the time is standing in a crowd.
Do the people not sleep? Or do they all lie down in place at night and just stand up? Where do they eat? Where do they get food? Who makes the food? How is anything done? Like is there any manufacturing on this planet?
I’m not trying to be nit picky, but when they give us several intentional visual references to the idea that the entire planet is so packed that even their mock enterprise can’t get enough to to not have a clear view out the window, and that they won’t even let people scan the planet, I think the episode invites those questions. But I don’t think they thought for one second about HOW MANY PEOPLE it would take to cover an earth like planet that densely.
Are there oceans on the planet? Do they have boats/floating cities, they could build oil rig like sculptures in the water to let people spread out, but of course it goes back to that idea of is this planet even capable of producing resources to use in construction?
And another thing, the enterprise isn’t able to scan the world, but like wouldn’t that many people be visible from orbit?
Jesus Christ while typing this I read the wiki on this planet and it says in outside material like books they estimate that the disease killed more than 99% of the population, but that the population had been more in this one planet than the entire federation’s population. They use the phrase “several hundred billion” to describe the quantity that were killed by this disease and Kirk didn’t even put up a fight, and what’s worse… THEY GOT INTO THE FEDERATION
Sisko was about to throw hands over Bajor using a caste system and a government that committed genocide the likes of which the universe had never seen against its own people was able to just join after a few years
Where on earth were all these people having sex? Or growing food?
@@alexturlais8558 according to the wiki there’s only a few hundred thousand people left after the pandemic so I assume now every person has their own country sized portion of land
If the planet were about this size of earth, or at least had a comparable amount of land area, the total population would actually be MUCH larger. Like somewhere closer to 1 quadrillion than 1 trillion.
At a 1% survival rate hundreds of trillions would die, but on the bright side ~9 trillion people would still be alive. But the smell would be awful, I'm sure.
@@TheEvox81 thank you! It’s insane to think this planet somehow got filled with so many unfathomable people and they also all have perfect immune systems? Like their would be crazy nasty bacteria evolving in the disgusting state of their planet if everyone was crammed against each other constantly like krill
Where are they washing their hands, showering, using the bathroom? It’s a premise that wasn’t well thought out
This episode must have been written by someone who thinks the Christian Bible is inerrant and perfectly describes the creation of the universe, earth, humans, and everything that happened since then.
The long setup for a “the Gideons left it there” joke was excell!
Regarding Mark, it took me years to work out why Juggernaut in the X-Men is called Cain Marko. Maybe, if he'd been called Marko Cain, I might have made the connection more quickly.
Wow, I dont wanna admit how many decades I've read X-Men & never made that connection... smh 😏
This plot never made any sense, and I had forgotten that this episode was even a thing until you brought it back in this review. And wow does it feel even goofier in light of COVID.
I grew up with the "0 Population Growth" bumper stickers. This was a metaphor for that potential ecological problem.
Considering that during COVID I actually saw screeds about how the death toll would be good because of overpopulation, it feels less goofy than ever. A huge fumble in actually interrogating how fucked-up To Serve Gran is, but that weird-ass plan suddenly seems more plausible.
ETA: To be clear, I don't think it's at all a good episode. But unfortunately, we've now seen "A certain amount of the population will die and that's a good thing" being argued as potentially valid state policy in some locations.
Maybe the issue of birth control had been focused on more in the story that Stanley Adams sold to the producers, but by the time the network gave feedback on the script they were pushed to minimize that focus. That sounds likely considering what happened to The Cloud Minders, where the allegory to slavery was watered down to, "let's provide them with masks to protect them from Zenite gas and they'll be happier about their oppression."
Actually, the resolution of TCM is that the Trogs and the City dwellers would share both working in the mines and enjoying the City. So, much fairer than you imagined.
"They couldn't move to a moon or something?" The literal thought of eight year old me when I first saw this episode.
Also, wouldn't the Super Magic Disease-Defeating Atmosphere just knock the meningitis out so they're right back where they started?
@@Serai3
I’m assume they’re working on _War of the Worlds_ logic, where they’re immune to native diseases, but still be vulnerable to foreign ones.
And if not wouldn’t any sufficiently lethal disease or i dunno poison do?
It’s just some insanely convoluted hand waving to kill people/ have them commit suicide while saying that actually they didn’t kill them directly. Could’ve just provided phasers with a Russian roulette setting.
@@BlackCover95 Yeah, but then why don't they welcome aliens all the time, hoping for a disease that would knock them out? Seems strange to insist on isolationism when there's a whole galaxy of weird germs that could solve their problem. Look at me, expecting logic from this weirdly sloppy story, LOL.
Just look at how Uhura is looking at Scotty ; of course they grow closer later in life.
Extra points for Airwolf and Sting references. Also nice: "Emptyprise." (And yeah, you couldn't resist a Gideon Bible.) This episode has always grimly fascinated me, because as easy as it is to point out it's bad, I'm still left wondering: could it possibly have been done RIGHT? Back in the 1960s, discussion of overpopulation tended to be as simplistic as "Oh no -- crowding!" The novel that the movie Soylent Green was based on was literally titled Make Room! Make Room! Could the plot have been any better if, say, the planet Gideon had been trying to cover up its own Soylent Green program? I mind stories not working, but I tend not to mind noble efforts, however badly conceived, so I tend to go a little easier on this one.
Ah, that explains how they all were getting fed, since there was no more space for farming. Just giant recycling processors.
Kirk: "Hey, we have a whole Federation of starships. Why don't we work out a plan to move billions of you to a Gideon II? Problem solved." Roll credits.
Each time I watch it, it gets worse. Hodin commits genocide at levels that would make Kodos the Executioner blush, and we're just supposed to walk away from that?
Worst episode of TOS, IMHO.
Logical. Heck, set up the planet as a destination health spa retreat. Anyone can stay for one year and "get well", then they have to leave. People may revisit from time to time as a "top up" for life extension. Assuming the same properties of the planet that are keeping these people perfect would work on other species. The lack of imagination in problem solving dilemmas in tv shows is astonishing. I blame producers and higher ups mucking up stories - "giant mechanical spiders in a western!"
@@sterlingmullett6942 , that is a great idea.
@@nunyabizness6595 , that's fair. ATCSL was my personal worst for a very long time. But, each time TMOG came on, it made me hate it more.
The crowd of people actually scared me as a kid. This show has horror move vibes.
Yeah, it was spooky for half the episode.
Soylent Green of Krypton !
The whole thing has a ring to me of modern US political dialogue about birth control vs gun control - pro-life for featuses vs school shootings as a fact of life.
I love the behind the scenes for this one, gosh to be an extra on star trek shiffling around in the back lmao.
I like the allusion to „Monty Python's The Meaning of Life“ 😂😂😂
Every sperm is sacred!🎵 Every sperm is great!🎵 When a sperm is wasted, god gets quite irate!!!!!🎵🎵🎵
This ep always reminded me of Soylent Green. There were scenes in that film where Heston had to literally step over people in stairwells & on the street. Over population was a big concern in the 60s & a popular theme in scifi. The myth of exponential pop growth still exists today & is a big reason eugenics caught on & is still an idea proposed by ...uh...certain people...(because it's too many people & limited resources not wealth hoarding & failure to share that's the problem 😮)
I mainly know this episode for the shot of the empty Enterprise bridge being reused for Scotty's entrance onto the holodeck for Relics from TNG.
Kirk was supposed to be the "mark" of Gideon...as in they were trying to fool him. (That's the best I've got.)
The Smark of Gideon, and the Jabronis in the Viewscreen
I too concluded that watching this review.
Although, I think my impression watching the episode would be that it was the bruise on Kirk's arm where they got his tainted blood that was "The Mark of Gideon" as in a mark left by the Gideons.
I want to think that G. Gordon Liddy got his look from this episode. Consider the timeline. I think he was working for the FBI when this episode came out. "I think I'll go for the Gideon Elder look!" I mean, do we know what the "G" in his name stands for? Gideon Gordon Liddy?
Concepts of a plan
James Blish's novelisation has The Mark" being a medal, I think McCoy pulls out of a drawer after curing patient zero. The idea is that The Mark would be a badge of pride the families of those who sacrifice themselves could retain.
Smh....as a kid, I always thought this was such a weird episode. The faces of the Gideons was super creepy though. Although it was creepy, there was no explanation for it
Ya, for me this one was a sci-fi horror / romance and PG, memorable as a kid.
I first watched this as a teenager, and thought it had the makings of an effective horror episode. For a minute I felt it had something to say about the need for private space, the breakdown of respect for boundaries, how something as seemingly simple as never being alone could give a society a completely different moral compass and view of the value of individuals and autonomy. Life, in the abstract, may be sacred, but people's lives are cheap. Kirk is violated in multiple ways and no one thinks anything of it. What will this civilization look like if it does lose a massive percentage of its population to suicide? There doesn't seem to be a plan, more a vague idea that things will be better. Imagine a bunch of government officials plowing ahead with a harebrained scheme because their constituents wanted to see some action. Never happens, I know. Even the stonewalling of the crew effectively generated some frustration. It would be a nightmare scenario, to lose your captain and get nothing but gaslighting and orders to play nice and give up. But the episode never fully goes there, or maybe doesn't lean into where it's gone, and feels a bit unsatisfying. It would have been better as horror, is all I'm saying.
And since they have no intention of changing how they do things… it will all happen again some day.
Thanks, Steve. The Emptyprise and the bible were hilarious.
There was one bit of business that I quite liked about Mark Of Gideon. The team who planned the caper for Hodan(sp) found out that most of the crew of the Enterprise and almost all of the command staff were humans. So they deceived the crew with a mistake that humans make all the time; transposing two numbers in the beam-down/beam-up coordinates. That was clever. Also, Stanley Adams did a remarkable impression in Trouble With Tribbles, I'd have sworm he was Zero Mostel. (just my opinion)
re: the title. I couldn't find any reference to an actual "Mark of Gideon" anywhere, but in the Bible Gideon is a leader selected by Yahweh to battle an enemy of Israel. Gideon raises a force of 32,000 soldiers, but Yahweh says that nobody would believe that such a large force needed Yahweh's help to win, so Yahweh tells Gideon to cull his force twice. He ends up with an army of only 300 soldiers. I think this is what The Mark of Gideon is supposed to refer to.
Man the Israelis have been doing some messed up stuff for a while
A transporter accident where you end up in the backrooms
I legit held my breath hoping you were going to say the next one was "The Magicks of Megas-Tu"
The re-introduction of disease is handled much better as a background detail in the opening of Cordwainer Smith’s story “Alpha Ralpha Boulevard”
A very strange story indeed.
I always assumed Hodin's plan is just intentionally bad. I mean, not intentional on his part, but intentional on the writers' part; the idea being something like "those who strongly object to the obvious solutions may go to extremes to avoid them".
That makes sense. Whether The PD allows Kirk to interfere is a bit moot but it isn't obvious what he could do anyway.
Thanks, for these, Steve. IMHO, there's not enough *new* videos covering Classic 'Trek on RUclips!
The "Mark" referred to in the title is the apostle Mark from the Gideon Bible. That is the planet Gideon's version of the bible. The episode number informs us that the relevant chapter and verse is Mark 3:16 "These are the twelve he appointed: Simon to whom he gave the name Peter." Which I think you'll find makes perfect sense if you think about it.
Remembering that Roddenberry always intended ST to be allegory, I think TMoG has a very good point: If you privilege religious dogma over the real needs of people and other creatures, you are likely to end up in a horror story. What Kirk and the rest of the crew does after they arrive at Gideon is moot, the horror is inevitable. Could the TV episode have been more entertaining? Probably, but the allegory still works in the existing episode.
I always wondered why the Gideons didn't just leave to colonize other planets. Takes care of the overpopulation problem and you don't have to cause the death of anyone.
I got the impression that it was because only their planet had the special ‘perfect health/prime of your life’ effect. But that also suggests that if nobody wants to leave, nobody would be volunteering to die either.
You should review The Cloud Minders at some point. I can't wait to hear what you'll have to say about that one.
ruclips.net/video/rEy8hYgMeT4/видео.html
@@mattthericker it's been done by Steve. Part of his labor video series. Earlier this year during the writers strike.
@@Ash______ Thanks for posting the link before I had the chance to! Yep, I reviewed "The Cloud Minders" last year as part of my "labor episodes" batch! Also directed by Jud Taylor.
@@brianbaker2455 Oh, wow. No idea how I missed that. I'll check it out right now! Thanks!
Yeah, it always bugged me that the Gideon people were ok with an infectious, deadly disease, but were not ok with (gasp!) contraception. It just seemed like a plot hole you could drive a starship through. "Life is so sacred to us that we can't prevent it... but we can cut short already existing lives!" Ya, no. Doesn't work for me, either.
Funny thing - the shot of Kirk arguing with the Gideon council with the camera facing up through the glass table is one of my earliest memories. At the time, I couldn't even understand what they were talking about, but the memory of watching that odd shot sticks with me over a half-century later.
You say it’s a plot hole. I say that that arbitrary line in morals is more realistic than you give it credit for.
@@BlackCover95
Anthony (Clockwork Orange) Burgess, who was a Catholic himself, wrote a grimly comic novel about a similar scenario.
Great video! I loved the reference to the wonderful Ticonderoga TOS set recreation. It's definitely worth a visit! If you're ever near Kingsland, Georgia, the Neutral Zone is also an excellent recreation.
I think you were a bit harsh on this episode. Is it great? Not particularly. But, the message was quite clear. At the time, as you said, people were fighting for access to birth control and people were worried about terrible overpopulation. This episode was clearly a cautionary tale for both. Want to live in a dystopian future with horrible overpopulation and depleted resources? No? Birth control could have prevented this issue all along! They make that point with Kirk literally saying that to the Gideons. The Gideons were past that point though. It was a pretty clever way to shoot a cost effective episode while making a point/comment on social issues that were important at the time. I think the episode just really needed a B-plot or something else in the middle of the episode for Kirk and Odanna to do. The doe-eyed, naive girl with nothing to offer is a little tired and quite frankly insulting to the character. To make a commentary about empowering women with reproductive autonomy, while doing so with a female lead who has nothing to offer and plays dumb throughout the episode isn't the best look.
The long term cultural impacts of the character of Spock really can't be overstated
Overpopulation was on the brain in the the late 1960s; the novel "Make Room, Make Room!" (which would become the film "Soylent Green") had come out in 1967, and John Brunner's "Stand on Zanzibar" would come out in 1969; both science-fiction stories about overpopulation on Earths with no advanced space program focused on terraforming Mars for colonization or other "put the excess population on space stations or Moonbases" plans. I never thought "Mark of Gideon" was a good episode; it was probably pushing it with Standards and Practices, and if you look hard enough, you can see it as a what-if for countries like India and China. The writing gets around the reality of human populations plateau-ing and then dropping because they are aliens who live for a long time, but you would think they would have come up with the vaporization booths from "A Taste of Armageddon" and saved themselves the disease.
Stand on Zanzibar predicted that by 2010 the human population would be 7 billion, this was way off as it was only in 2011 that the human population reached that level.
Stand on Zanzibar also depicts 2010 New York as a domed city.
The most real prediction in Stand on Zanzibar to me is that one of the main characters goes to a costume party where you are supposed to dress in 20th century style, but the character misses this. However they are saved from being punished/hazed for this transgression by the fact they are wearing clothing 10 year old clothes from they year 2000 and "oh yeah I remember back then they were talking about how it wasn't actually the 21st century yet).
Real debates about population are only slightly less unhinged than Mark of Gideon, so what can you do...
🤷♀
Okay, I’ve always scratched my head about the obsession around the kislux book totes and their practicality, but this one is adorable!! Congratulations
This episode uses one of my favorite Star Trek tropes: A character finds themself alone on an empty ship. Voyager's One and Enterprise's Doctor's Orders use a similar premise, however, those are actually good episodes.
I do however like this episode's creepy atmosphere on the Empty-prise, especially when all those faces outside the window are revealed. It still doesn't make any sense, but it makes for a scene that feels creepy in all the right ways.
Listen, I always give you a courtesy laugh for your puns. The one opening this video was probably the first to upset me. I still gave you a courtesy laugh, but an annoyed one.
Kirk: You want to die by germ warfare?
Hodan: It's my choice.
Kirk: What of the other Gideons?
Hodan: That's my choice too.
Mark is the second bald guy.
At least that's my headcanon.
I thought I read that there were actually two Marks in this episode, making it even more confusing. :-)
This is a planet that could definitely use a taste of armageddon.
Hodin and Anaan Seven do seem to have something in common.
I'm thinking they need The Man Trap (condoms), an Errand of Mercy (to get some of the people off the damn planet), or maybe A Private Little War.
LOL, Emptyprise!
The ambience on the fake Enterprise and the faces outside the windows and viewscreen have always given me goosebumps. The rest of the episode is about as hard hitting and impactful as being punched in the groin by the Snuggles bear.
The variety of textures in the kislux pack is impressive. From smooth leather to textured suede, there's something for everyone.
Interesting take on MOG, Steve. FYI, this episode and Let That Be Your Last Battleground were two favorite episodes of mine growing up. Your points are well taken, and I appreciate your voicing them, it's just interesting that MOG left such an indelible mark on me when I saw it, and given the ballooning of the population since the episode aired, I think population is an important topic. Thank you.
~ Peter Ferber
After seeing the tumblr post about the "we are incapable of destroying life" scene, I watched this episode last week expecting it to actually attempt to deal with the issues presented by that scene.
It did, for part of that scene and then none of the rest of the episode.
When I first saw this I wondering why there apparently weren't any multi-story buildings on the planet. After all that's how NYC deals with crowding.
I’d say there isn’t enough space to clear for construction, but they apparently have enough space for a fake _Enterprise_ (947' x 417'), so IDK.
So, I was 5 or 6 when this episode aired (back when there were only 3 billion people on the planet). We had just gotten our cat neutered recently, and I said, "Well, this is really dumb. Instead of making people get sick and die, why not just take a bunch of people to the vet? If everything was chopped off by the vets, maybe those parts wouldn't grow back. That seems a lot easier."
"It is I! The G Man!! G. Gordon Liddy!! Let me regale you with my fond stories in J. Edgar Hoover's FBI! And also how I would handle a home invader!" He said he had a gun in every room of his house. Real smart announcement that over the radio. Now if a listener invades his home without alerting the G Man, they're one Easter Egg hunt away from arming themselves in the room they're standing in, or maybe the next room, or the next. There's one in every room!!
//sigh// What nono word did I use to get auto-filtered this time? (Complaint leveled at Skydaddy RUclips; this isn't an accusation of malicious moderation. I'm just annoyed because I think I had a good point for once.)
Steve,
Your gag about the mysterious Mark wouldn't have been such a groaner if the episode title didn't have that pesky "The". 😉
I remember watching this episode for the first time when I was a kid and even then the Emptyprise on a planet that is "so overcrowded there's no where to go to be alone" , didn't make sense. You know the writing is bad when a child can spot the plot holes.
For all its flaws, it's one I remember which isn't true for a lot of TOS. Suffering chronic fatigue from untreated sleep apnea back then there was a lot of media I consumed I could not remember well. But this one I do remember.
I have a soft spot for this episode because it happens to be one of the first episodes I remember seeing as a kid. Like, little kid. Sci-fi as social commentary was still brand new to me, and the imagery of a planet too crowded to move scared the heck out of me. I know it doesn't hold up, and it's goofy seeing it again as an adult, but it left an impression on me.
Yes the color of the kislux is beautiful and it is a great decision, maybe one day they will add feet and straps. It would be nice to have a bigger bag during the colder months when we have to store gloves, beanies, scarves, etc…
I saw this episode as a little boy and it scared the crap out of me. The idea that a place could be THAT crowded was terrifying.
It’s also important to know that when this episode first aired, the fear of overpopulation was VERY much common. The fact that population growth has slowed is a miracle - but not to a lot of rich people who worry about fewer consumers.
and cheap labor
Gonna build another model of the Enterprise so when people say "Oh, hey, the Enterprise!" I can respond "No, actually, this is the EXACTLY REPLICA of the Enterprise from the Episode "The Mark of Gideon."
Thanks STEVE❤
Kirk was patient zero😂
at 12:59, when you do the ironic laugh to the camera, just know, I'm doing the same.
I always assumed the whole episode was a big condemnation of the Catholic Church’s teachings about birth control. I just thought it was obvious that the plan to release disease and the ideology behind it was stupid and evil.
Probably.
I would suppose Paramount wouldn't let them go all - in on the obvious anti - Catholic message.
Someone should have tried to sell them on the Suicide Booth. They'd probably go nuts for it.
Yes!! A Ticonderoga reference! I love that place!
I was a little kid, and I first heard of the existence of contraception from Captain Kirk. It's amazing I ever had occasion to use it as a teenager.
How the actual hell do the Gidiots have the schematics for the Enterprise, right down to the potted plants??
They watch lot of star trek.
The Federation desperate to get their hands on a planet with a mysterious, life-preserving atmosphere? A villain using the Federation to advance his own plans to reduce the local population? Throw in an inexplicably evil admiral and this reads like a first draft of Star Trek: Insurrection.
You made an episode of TOS sound like an episode of The Orville. Well done!
IE that one where the Federation should have just replicated the goofy backwater planet some condoms
agreed. even at 17, I recognized the points you are making.
Maybe Mark was the friends we met along the way.
Dude, way to bury the lead! This episode is a horror movie! You didn't mention the psychological horror of them hearing the constant marching! They and/or the audience see the hidden green faces multiple times! The enterprise turned into a liminal space! The idea that everyone on the planet has to constantly move or else they would be trapped in space! The idea that advancement could so unbalance nature that it be our demise! There is a LOT here and you don't even give it a chance!
It's absolutely a horror movie. This episode haunted me as a child. All the faces in the background... * shudder *
If the plan is "Hey, anyone want to die?" they don't need anything that isn't on the planet already. Like, do they not have AI written books on mushroom foraging? Do they not have cliffs?
With the overcrowding you would think people would get pushed off of those cliffs pretty regularly. Now I have images of Niagra Falls...
@@alanbear6505
Or they’d trample each other.
I watched this in its original run back in the '60s. I missed two details (one minor, one major) that Steve brings up. The minor one is that I didn't pick up on the fact that Kirk and Odonna made the beast with two backs. The major one is that, for over 50 years, I was oblivious to the plan only being for people to _volunteer_ to die. I really assumed that this (like other sci fi pieces at the time, e.g., ""The Winnowing" by Asimov) would involve killing a random but large segment of the population. No volunteers. I almost don't know if Steve or I is right, and I may have to suffer through the episode again to be sure.
oh, hi mark
Daaaaaaaaamn, man, you really outdid yourself with the jokes in this one! Actual laughter resulted!
At the time i first saw this episode, my childish mind wasn't able to fully comprehend some of the stuff going on in an episode and this one always made me uncomfortable.
Now, much much much later, i am torn, between - still having a turmoil in my stomach about the damn creepy picture of crowded green lit people, all in the same clothing, just existing and shuffling around or something - and being at ease with my younger self, because i was able to realize that, despite having an actual message (or more, idk), this episode is just really bad and stupid. And, like people often do, if there was a list of episodes i would skip, that one would be on it. right along the inter dimensional one with the inverted color scenes that i don't care to remember the name off of now.
On a high note: I really like these videos, and grab bag is a cool concept, because as a trekkie who remembers most of the episodes of a specific topic and is not too surprised what's coming (the topics were great too, don't get me wrong), these are!
For space meningitis read AR rifles. This episode predicted the America of today where contraception is anathema but mass murder by weapons of war is okay.
"The Elders of Krypton!" 😂 What a random way to plug your "The Best Superman Ever" series, Steve. Well played, sir!
“G. Gordon Liddy” is a dead ringer for Tom Hardy in Bronson. Time travelling Shinzon?
I’m just deeply confused as to how they knew what Kirk’s chambers looked like, or why they decided ‘voluntary virus’ was the only ‘voluntary’ type of mass death available. Or why they needed a living source - don’t they have replicators? Or regular science stuff that enables the virus to replicate itself naturally in a lab? (And how was Kirk contagious enough to infect this woman but not all the other women he’s slept with?) Or why the Emptyprise (great name!) had people viewing from without as an option… >_<
I feel like the big dramatic political undertones pale in comparison to all the above missing factors..
Couldn't you do a Logan's Run? How about a Soylent Green? Purge? Lottery?
10:41 STEVE. This single joke is the whole reason for the video, wasn’t it. (Perfect.)
Funny, I was just trying to recall this episode the other day, and all I got was "empty, fake Enterprise". And I watched Start Trek nightly for a lot of years when it was just TOS. Guess that's a fitting comment on it.
It was probably established in later 'Trek shows, but contact, opening of diplomatic relations and admission of into the Federation would require the civilization to have reached certain technological and cultural phases, such as a united planetary government, and FTL technology. Why not just start colonizing other planets! You get away from your atmosphere, and exposed to other diseases might curtail the regenerative properties they have. Those that leave can have a shorter but more fulfilling lives and you ease up on the overpopulation on the home world.
I don't suppose the *Warp capability* requirement was a thing at the time of TOS.
All the accounts I've heard surrounding Season 3 of TOS involved lack of money and time. By the third season, the selection of story ideas hand fallen in quantity and quality. The time pressure of the production schedule resulted in "no do-overs" when a poor story was selected for production - no time to pick a better story if there was a better story ready. I was twelve years old in 1969 and spent my childhood glued to the TV. TOS remains "standard issue television" for me - no better or worse than any other show from the 1960's. Thanks for your review Steve.
I'm sensing the potential theme of this grab bag is episodes called 'The blank of variable", but I guess we'll find out next week. Early prediction for the TNG episode being: "A Matter of Time".
Is it just me, who sees the parallels between 'the Gideons' of the episode and the MAGA people during COVID?
Nah. MAGA was in denial. They weren’t encouraging COVID. They refused to believe it was a problem. Not the same thing as Gideon.
The episode was co-written by the merchant who was selling the tribbles in The Trouble With Tribbles. I think that explains a lot.
Yeah, I always thought they should've been looking for "The Todd of Gideon", or "The Randy of Gideon".
I saw this episode once and thought it was remarkable. ReMARKable, get it?
I had the Mark of Gideon a few times........but theres cream to get rid of it!!haha.