1.1.24 The Spore Drive

This Side Of Paradise

(My thanks to friend of the blog and friend of the me @hammard_1987 for steering me round the sharp corners of Brave New World, a book I continue to refuse to read, on the grounds that life is already miserable enough.)

There’s something rather pleasingly ironic about “This Side Of Paradise”, a story about everyone pulling in the same direction in blissful harmony, which managed to bitterly divide not just fan opinion, but the two people who wrote it.

Version Control

This is a story with a difficult and complicated gestation. Or, since we’re dealing here with troublesome plant life, perhaps we should think of it as a rather awkwardly spliced hybrid. Jerry Sohl wrote the early form of the story, only for Roddenberry to hand to DC Fontana to “fix”. Fontana for her part made so many changes that Sohl demanded his name be removed from the finished product.

When you get a cut-and-shut story like that, there's always a temptation to pin the stuff you don't like on the writer you have less respect for. That's particularly attractive with an episode like this, in which its best and worst ideas seem to be fighting for dominance. It's then particularly particularly attractive when all the best ideas involve Spock, and come from the typewriter of the writer who gave us both "Journey To Babel" and "Yesteryear".

Like a crotchety Kirk, though, let’s do our best to resist what seems superficially pleasing. Sohl wrote "The Corbomite Maneuver", after all, which included some lovely ideas, even if the whole didn't quite fit together. Fontana, on the other hand, gave us what’s generally considered to be the best episode of the whole Animated Series, but which also casts the Vulcans as hypocritical fascists who force each of their children to risk death in the desert.

In short, both writers have a history for producing the goods, but in ways that could be messy or even problematic. It's fitting then that not all of Fontana's changes to Sohl's script are clearly for the better (though spreading the plants from a single cave to across the area, to make them harder to simply avoid, was clearly the right call). You can clearly see the rationale for each change. The problem is there are knock-on issues to the alterations that didn't get considered, giving us one more fascinating instalment that's also something of a mess.

Cowboy Builders

There are two primary changes Fontana made to Sohl's story beyond the spore spawn points. One was to take Sulu's romantic subplot, and hand it to Spock instead. On the one hand this is a huge shame, and I'd love to see some alternate-universe version of this episode that actually let George Takei speak more than half a dozen times in an episode. Sulu was always my favourite character as a kid, though I couldn't possibly tell you why beyond the fact Star Wars gave me a lifelong yen for pilots. I mean, my favourite Original Trilogy character is Wedge Antilles. WHO THINKS THAT?

I digress.

This is another one of those times where we want to be careful about blaming a single episode for not pushing back against a much larger problem, though. Sulu deserved more, six films at eleven. The road not taken here is a very attractive one, sure, but the truth is centring a love story around Spock as part of this episode is an absolutely inspired decision.

I'll have to come back to just why that is later, though. We need to consider another change first. Specifically, the decision to sever the original ending, which involved discovered plants were a sentient hive-mind, that was completely baffled to learn anyone would object to them permanently blissing out everyone they came into contact with.

And yes. There are good reasons why you might want to avoid that being a part of your conclusion. I talked all the way back in August about how "Strange New World", despite riffing on the Aldous Huxley title, deliberately chose a more interesting angle to enforced drug taking than the one we see here. Actually revealing a paternalistic consciousness is deliberately dosing people with joy-pollen covers far too similar a stretch of ground to a novel released 35 years earlier (which itself has far more to it than so simple a summation gives it credit for).

So the problem doesn’t lie in throwing the idea aside. The problem is that, while the keystone of the story has been prised out, the rest of the narrative arch has been left alone. The inevitable result is a collapse inward. While Sohl's basic riff is somewhat clichéd, there's a way in which what he's saying is interesting and subtle. As Kirk points out at the end of the episode, man hasn't just been expelled from paradise once again. This time, humanity has chosen to leave.

This isn't a story about the importance of struggle. It's a story about the importance of consent. And Fontana's changes shifts the impediments to that consent in a way that isn't necessarily to the episode's credit.

A Life Less Sporedinary

An immediate consequence of Fontana’s fiddling is that Kirk's claims at the end of the episode no longer holds water. Humanity hasn't just walked away from paradise; Kirk forced them out. The implication - though only Sandoval states this on-camera - is just about everyone agrees that this was for the best. Once free of the spores, there is a consensus that humanity isn’t meant for the existentially horrifying state of subsistence farming while immune from disease. I’m tipping my hand with that summary, but even if the idea of living in this episode of Gardener's World disgusts you, there’s still the issue that Kirk feels comfortable making a decision about the future of hundreds of others.

In the original script, the metaphorical weight to Kirk's claim is fairly clear. The Old Testament describes how Adam and Eve make the decision to defy God, and as a result are banished from Eden. Here, the intent was inversion. Kirk makes the decision to reject Eden, and as a result must defy the plant-hive representing God. Yes, Kirk is just one man, but then so was Adam. What matters is the fact that what once was punishment is now a necessary component of human existence. It’s not that we can’t stuff our self-awareness and self-knowledge back into the apple. It’s that we don’t want to.

Removing the story's analogue for God while keeping the Eden metaphor has the distinctly unfortunate side-effect of casting Kirk in the role instead. He's the main character, most senior officer, and somehow the only person in the whole episode who is able to free himself from the influence of the spores. His role both within the show in general and within the episode in particular is uniquely powerful. Humanity doesn't choose to leave Paradise here. We are once again forcibly expelled, only this time it's by one of our own.

And not just by anybody, either. Kirk is a Starfleet captain, a man who we've seen again and again has made any number of sacrifices in his personal life in the service of his career. He's the youngest captain in Starfleet, entrusted with one of their most advanced and powerful vessels. This is a dude that just sweats ambition. In possibly my favourite shot of the episode, we see that even under the influence of the spores he feels compelled to pack every one of his different uniforms to take down to a planet where he'll become a farmer. It's no wonder he's horrified by the idea of giving up the Enterprise, and making every sacrifice he made to get her meaningless. A quiet life of soil-tilling is completely anathema to him.

But that doesn't mean the same is true of everybody else. The spores have no sinister motives beyond the basic need to spread (note how the episode fails to make the link between the plants' need for colonisation, and Sandoval's horror at not being able to take over more of a planet than he actually needs to). Now that they've been discovered, keeping them on the ol' OC Three seems like something within Starfleet's power - indeed given the settlers deliberately scuttled their own ship, the fleet's need to keep the planet under observation to prevent outbreaks twill be essentially the same whether there are people down there or not. [1]

With the threat of interstellar spread cut off, the decision as to whether to accept exposure can become a personal one. Are you willing to accept a chemical alteration of your brain that rules out all career paths other than farmer, in exchange for *checks notes* endless happiness and a cure for all illness and disease? Hell, given the restorative powers of the spores, it seems very likely you're looking at an extended lifespan as well. How does that deal strike you?

Kirk is well within his rights to decide his ambition outweighs the advantages that a life of Omicron Ceti III could provide him with. It's simply a more extreme version of a choice he's made many times before, after all. We might even argue that by its very nature, a life in Starfleet could only be chosen by those for whom a quiet life in agriculture wouldn't be attractive - otherwise they'd have signed up for a quiet life in agriculture. That said, it feels ableist for Kirk to decide no-one in his crew with severe health issues would value perfect health above a berth on his starship (just as it would be ableist to assume the reverse were automatically true). And he certainly has no right to decide the colonists must all value struggle and expansion over health and happiness - indeed it's pretty explicit that Leila at least very much does not.

The idea of the plants possessing intelligence at least slightly offsets this, in that the story then becomes about two (for want of a more accurate term) individuals disagreeing over how people should live their lives, and how one of them feels compelled to force through their vision in response to the other doing the same thing first. These hypothetical hypno-hyacinths had the option to offer their vision as a choice, and chose instead to enforce it. Kirk's arguments about what human life should be aren’t actually any more persuasive - the line that "We must march to the sound of drums" is particularly ugly, especially in an episode about how colonial expansion is preferable to subsistence farming. But the original script at least had him attempting to counteract a deliberate violation of people's free will in the only way open to him. Absent a will behind the spores, Kirk becomes the only violator of consent here. Moreover, he takes that role at least in part because he realises he is helpless without people to order about [2], and isn't willing to live in a world where he doesn't command respect (again, note how he insists on packing his dress uniforms before heading down to the planet).

The Personal Is Political

This is all something of a problem, in terms of coherence if nothing else. It also provides an opportunity to discuss the Protestant work ethic, and the damage that it has done by persuading millions of people that life is supposed to be filled with pain and labour. That spending a third of your life working (almost always for someone else's benefit) isn't an economic necessity, but a moral good. I take exception to this on basic philosophical grounds in any case, but the bigger issue is the extent to which this idea has metastasised into a belief that not wanting or even being able to work is somehow inherently suspect.

I've touched on this before, though, and it’s really not much fun to write about. Fortunately, we haves a more interesting angle to take on this occasion, one which also helps us drag at least some parts of this episode into the win column. In terms of how much we might take exception to Kirk's position and actions, it's worth noting that Fontana here allows me to violate my standard rule that the show agrees with Kirk at all times unless the script explicitly states otherwise.

It's time to talk about Spock.

This is something else I've talked about before, but just to put it all in one place: Spock functions terribly badly as an advert for Gene Roddenberry's view of how to apply logic in daily life, he functions quite well as an example of how hard it can be to live in another culture, particularly as a mixed-race person (or at least I think so), and he works amazingly as a metaphor for maintaining both a career and relations with one's co-workers when in the grips of chronic/ clinical depression.

"This Side Of Paradise" takes us back to the consideration of that last idea. We can of course read Spock's happiness here as stemming from the same chemically-induced bliss experienced by almost everybody else here. That "almost" is doing a lot of work, though. Why is it Kirk who proves the only person capable of shrugging off the spores' effects? This seems a situation tailor-made for Spock, someone who has spent his entire life refusing to allow strong emotion of any kind intrude upon his judgement. Combined with this partially-alien DNA, which repeatedly has been shown to make him more resilient in a host of situations, the idea the bliss-release of the plants hits him harder than it does Kirk seems a little odd. [3]

But what if that's not what's going on? Or at least, not all of what's going on? What if this isn't about the euphoria in itself, but the other thing the spores induce in people - healing. What if the spores can cure us of mental health problems in the same way they can smooth out scar tissue or regrow tonsils? What if Spock's happiness stems, at least in part, from just not being depressed as hell anymore.

This might actually have been a link that was more obvious on first broadcast. The first synthesised anti-depressant drugs weren't created until 1951, and it took quite a while for them to begin supplanting the, well, plants that made up the medical treatments for depression that were then in use. A lot of those treatments made use of opioids, which of course are also used recreationally to dull pain and bring on a state of euphoria. The link to the extra-terrestrial spore-splatterers isn't hard to find. They even look faintly like opium poppies, albeit with a central structure that looks more like a slightly sinister rose.

That latter part is presumably a nod to Spock and Leila's romance, and it's a hell of a nice touch, design-wise. Personally, though, I find their brief relationship entirely and wonderfully wholesome. In part that's simply because it's just so nice to see Leonard Nimoy getting to play Spock as something other than emotionless, or upset/furious about the fact he isn't able to be emotionless. Mostly, though, this is about, as the kids once said, feeling seen.

Not So Great Gonzo

So, then. Looks like I'm going to have to gonzo the hell out of this. Please strap yourself in to a cart on my personal emotional rollercoaster. Keep your arms inside the cart at all times. I DON'T LIKE TO BE TOUCHED.

I've been battling with depression and anxiety since I was 12 years old. Unmedicated, my emotions are like my walking preferences - downhill wherever possible. Anger in particular is easily generated and almost impossible to shift, like curry stains on a drunken Friday night.

In response to all that, I've tried various forms of therapy, but for me personally (which is all I'm qualified to talk about), it never particularly helped. For me, drugs were the solution. Sort of. The problem I have with anti-depressant medication (and again, I've tried several different types) is that while it limits the crashing lows, it also renders the heights almost unreachable. Rather than being a fizzing ball of untargeted anger with occasional highs, I'm grey hummus spread out over flatbreads spelling out "MEH".

As a rule, I prefer the former. Or at least I did. I've been on medication for over eleven years now. The reason for this is, while I can just about keep it together unmedicated when single, I can't function unmedicated while in a relationship. I get horrifying, nauseating anxiety attacks every time I'm with my partner. It's like aversion therapy for romance.

So after the pull, the pills. This has the marked advantage of allowing me to actually, you know, see my girlfriend. The downside is the degree to which the enjoyment and happiness a good relationship brings is flattened out too. I can be with someone, and I can desperately want to be with someone, but I can't do both at once.

I tell you all this not to try and elicit sympathy. I am ludicrously lucky in almost all aspects of my life outside the state of my brain - including having been with the same wonderful partner or over a decade. I'm fully aware that many others have much more severe forms of depression, as well. I just wanted to lay all this out so as to explain the difference between seeing the OC3 spores as acting as a form of anti-depressant, and seeing them as having actually fully stripped out Spock's depression. They don't compensate for his chronic illness. They remove it entirely.

And I love this. I dream of it, for all that I'm aware my depression has shaped my life so totally that the idea of me existing without it is essentially incomprehensible. Seeing Spock finally get the chance to live the way he should be able to, to appreciate beauty and love and simple pissing about, is absolutely wonderful.

And then Jim shows up.

Kirk Blocker

Our brave captain's attitude toward Spock here is absolutely toxic. This is narrowly understandable, insofar as Spock is shirking responsibilities and duties he voluntarily signed up for. Kirk's astonishment quickly turns nasty, though, cumulating in a racist rant that would shame Mel Gibson, as though there exists no way to make someone angry other than to pummel them with bigotry.

The obvious reason for Kirk's reaction - and by "obvious" I mean doubtless referenced in hundreds of pieces of slash fiction - is he is jealous of Leila. And while there's not often a queer reading I wouldn't want to fully embrace, I actually think we can get more out of this by considering a different - or even just an additional - explanation. I think this is about people who are supposed to be your friends being awful about how you choose to cope with your depression.

We'll have to briefly dip back into my own history again for this one. I vividly remember being at the house of a former friend of mine, five or six years ago. He’d spent quite some time telling me how difficult he was finding his life. Like me, he kept finding positive emotions evaporated without trace as soon as they dripped into his head. Negative emotions, though? They kept froze into wickedly sharp icicles within his brain-pan, snagging and poking and ripping at every thought he tried to push from one side of his skull to the other.

My friend didn't know I suffered from depression, he just clearly needed to get out what he was feeling. Recognising a lot of what he was saying, though, I suggested he might want to talk to a doctor, in case what was bothering him was at least in part something that could be helped by therapy, and/or medication.

He told me only failures resorted to anti-depressants.

It's hard not to think about that day when I watch this episode. Kirk doesn't spend even a second considering the fact his supposed friend is finally happy. All he cares about is what he sees as an illegitimate route for that happiness to have manifested. It's an alien drug! That can't count! That can't be real! Better his friend be miserable than he be happy in the wrong way.

(We also shouldn't ignore how big a problem it is for Kirk that his friend's new happiness has also made him more aware of his own preferences. Relationships of any kind can shift ground when someone who's been depressed for a long time starts finding their way clear of the fog. Not everyone is able to cope with the change. Occasionally, you find a friend is valuing your consistency over your happiness.)

This helps explain - though certainly not justify - the stream of appalling invective Kirk launches at Spock to try and "cure" him. This isn't just about shaking off an alien influence, or even saving the Enterprise. This is someone horrified that his friend has found happiness, has done it in a way he considers illegitimate, and as a result doesn't see that friendship in quite the same terms anymore. It's a spoiled child horrified to learn the people they rely on are capable of change, mixed in with the same toxically masculine idea that nothing can be worthwhile if not obtained through struggle that Kirk uses to justify his overall approach at episode's end.

Simply put, Kirk can't handle Spock happy, so he tries to make him miserable again, in the most unpleasant way possible.

Brilliantly, the episode doesn't skimp at all on the effects of Kirk's actions. Spock seems absolutely devastated by what he's lost. When he says "The spores are gone. I don't belong anymore", Nimoy's delivery is quietly heart-breaking. His break-up with Leila twists the knife still further. You can tell he remembers how he used to feel, and that memory carries enormous weight, but he's once again unable to access the parts of his brain that will let him feel what Leila needs him to feel. This is capped off by Leila asking whether Spock has another name, with him responding with obvious sadness (because clearly that's something he still can feel) that she wouldn't be able to pronounce it. On one level that's a reminder of the distance that exists between his culture and hers. But it's also a reminder that that distance has only resurfaced because Kirk wanted things that way.

The episode cumulates in Spock telling him so, too. This is why I'm letting go of my usual assumption that a given episode is endorsing Kirk unless we're explicitly told otherwise. I think Spock tears into Kirk as much as circumstances allow. Both his Vulcan heritage and his lower rank prevent him from fully detailing the harm Kirk has done to him. When his captain asks to comment on the planet, though, he makes his thoughts quite plain.

This isn't just a savage kicking (conditional on culture/rank), it's the final line of the episode. The last word we ever hear on this particular story is how Spock briefly got to feel joy, only to have it torn away by a man who claims to be his friend.

Seen through this lens, this isn't a story about how mankind no longer needs Eden. It's a story about how people assume Eden wasn't "meant" for us can result in deeply toxic attitudes and actions. The difference between the stories of Genesis and Gene's ship, at least this week, isn't between expulsion and emigration. It's the difference between the acquisition of knowledge, and a proud, unthinking outpouring of dangerous ignorance. The same ignorance, in fact, that leaves Kirk completely oblivious to the harm he's done.

"This Side Of Paradise" is a romantic tragedy, one of a kind you could probably only tell in science-fiction without it being so raw as to be almost impossible to watch. I'm not suggesting this is enough to save the episode from its own ugliness, but it's certainly not nothing.

I saw myself on screen here, in a way that basically never truly happens. For the first time in my life, I was recognised.

[1] I wonder whether anyone ever actually came back, to be voluntarily exposed? I'm sure plenty of people would accept the trade offered by the spores. Even if not, you could easily beam people down to get exposed in order to cure them of presumably all kinds of medical condition, and then bring them back up to insult them back to their senses. You could even potentially cultivate the plants on other worlds with the same effect, so long as you kept quarantine protocols thorough enough. There's probably a story in this, actually. It'd be a shame if this universe's Starfleet forgot the miraculous healing properties of the spores as quickly as their Kelvinverse cousins did the benefits of, er, Tribble blood.

[2] Watching Kirk realise how completely helpless a starship captain is once their people decide as a group that they simply won't do what they're told is, in some ways, a glorious message. A genuinely bloodless revolution. You can just decide to stop doing what you're told, if it's no longer working for you.

[3] There is admittedly also the argument that Kirk was the only character already in a foul mood when he was exposed, which might have limited the spore's effectiveness.

(I love the moment where he's infected, by the way. It's an astonishingly well-done jump-scare, especially for 60s television. Full credit to director Ralph Senensky, who's thoroughly on his game here (the moment where Sulu complains he'd have no idea what counts as "strange" on a farm with the alien plants just in shot is brilliant too). More than that, though, it's brilliantly set up by Kirk hurling one of the plants across the bridge in a moment of impotent rage. Which not only makes this the first instance of Chekhov's plant this blog has encountered since "The Infinite Vulcan", it means Kirk only gets taken over in the first place because he can't control the very temper the spores remove in everyone else.)