“We talked a lot about every character and when is the moment that they realised they’d stepped from a high adventure story into a horror movie. It’s different for every character and some characters never cross that line, either because they never see the world that way or they refuse to. And that speaks to the warmth of these people. They thought they were going to live, most of them until the very end. They brought with them their ingenuity, their humour, their humanity. We wanted those things to be more important than any plot demands of a horror show, so we wanted to make sure the characters were driving the genre elements of the show, that it didn’t get out of hand and start leading the characters around.” (x)

i am OBSESSED with this oh my god. i love that the terror is such a weird genre mashup and i love the concept that like…it is how the characters perceive their situation that controls the genre of the show at any given time. it is so so fun to think about where and why those turning points happen for each character, how it affects the choices they make, how those shifts in tone or perspective are conveyed thru film techniques. i feel like a lot of this show is driven by the tension between characters who still feel that they’re in an adventure story with an achievable goal at the end vs. characters who feel like they’ve fallen into an apocalyptic ghost story

also this ties in with the whole “the terror is a science fiction story even though it’s not” thing? the more behind the scenes stuff i read the more i realize that the use of subtle sci fi genre markers was DEFINITELY intentional, and i think it’s meant to put you in the mindset of the characters. for THEM this isn’t a period drama, for them this is the equivalent of a trip to the moon and they are dealing with some apollo 13 shit

frankly hell as an operation functions much better than heaven, despite forcing Every demon to work out of their mother’s musty basement with a leak and one shared lightbulb. like, crowley actually had to report back about what he did. when he meets hastur & ligur in the cemetery, they all share their “evil deeds” of the day. crowley had to give a presentation about the m25. hell not only had to jumpstart the chattering order of st beryl and work out the plan to deliver the antichrist, but also handle the hellhound. heaven did basically nothing & knew nothing….. aziraphale gave away the flaming sword and no one noticed? gabriel checked in on aziraphale and was like “gross sushi” and hightailed it out of there? they knew so little about earth they thought it was appropriate to talk/buy porn in a soho bookshop ?? tbhhhh if anyone was in jeopardy of losing their job during those 6000 years it wasn’t aziraphale

Aziraphale got one rude note in 1790 and that was it. Like some poor angelic secretary got handed his P-Card folder and was like, “Holy shit - the dates on these receipts go back to 4,000 BCE? They really expect me to dig through every single miracle this minor principality has ever performed since the dawn of recorded time and make sure they all add up? Just… fuck, I don’t know. Just tell him to do fewer miracles. Put on a sticky note that says ‘you’re over your monthly allowance of miracles.’” And then she promptly shoved the folder to the back of the shelf and no one ever mentioned it again.  

going off of this, I can imagine crowley explaining away so many of his minor miracles that hell is sufficiently explanationed out, bc no matter how ridiculous his excuses are, they make sense and it’s infuriating and it’s at the point where they really really just don’t care anymore

hell secretary, surrounded by stacks of dirty & damp paper, smoking a cigarette: no I don’t want to know why you made hamlet popular just shut up & leave

crowley, leaning heavily on the desk, sending papers toppling: no no you have to hear. don’t you want to hear? seriously. you have to. it’s bc now he’ll be known primarily for his dramas and not his comedies, isn’t that just diabolical? I mean—

secretary: sure.

crowley: just think, generations of misery from one minor miracle!

secretary: Go Away go away GO awAY

Okay, that is the funniest explanation for the Hamlet miracle. Centuries later schools start teaching Hamlet to 9th graders and Crowley receives an award for fomenting discord among the youth. He has it hung up in his office. 

the scene in men in black where will smith’s character thoroughly explained why he shot little suzie, a cardboard cut out of a small child holding advanced physics textbooks instead of the scary aliens all around her is an excellent allegory to racism. will smith’s character, a black man, has no doubt had to deal with various authority figures assuming he is the threat when context clues could easily explain away his behavior and with that backstory in mind, it is easy to see why his character identified with aliens simply existing in the world and explained away the supposed cause for concern by using the context clues provided. on the other end of the spectrum, the white characters who all elected to shoot the aliens on sight did so for no other reason then ‘they look like a threat’, ignoring the fact that a 7 year old child out in the middle of the street alone with advanced physics textbooks should raise more eyebrows than a tentacled creature with allergies. in this essay i will

his understanding for these immigrant aliens is exactly why they made him an agent and why he did so well (in the next movie, which seems to be be set only a few years later, he’s already a very high ranking and we’ll respected agent) The job of the Men In Black is not to police the aliens on Earth or make sure there aren’t too many here; it’s to keep those aliens safe, keep their identities a secret and stop anyone who actually IS breaking the law from ruining things for everyone else.

brilliant

my favourite line is Terror’s foretopmast staysail downhaul because—no, I apologize, I will take it no further. 

there are some excellent lines in The Terror—I think “I am hungry and I want to live” is excellently understated (like i 100% get why the Monologue strikes some people as slightly bathetic, but it works for me); “Close is nothing” remains solid; “Does one not bring one’s habits to Terror” is as I have said I think before a pretty enjoyable exploitation of the inaudibility of italics—but I would like to mention one that is much less of a showpiece and also I think quite excellent:

I don’t know what you’re due.

The barb on it! In the aftermath of the previous episode’s flogging, the crack of the cat is right there. Crozier is at this stage barely competent as a commanding officer, but he is also, perhaps more significantly, no longer functioning as a gentleman; he is not dressing or speaking or conducting himself as a gentleman must. And Fitzjames informs him it’s been noticed in such a perfectly gentlemanly way: this little assertion of class and power, of the hierarchy which underpins every interaction on a warship (and this is a warship, because Crozier by his methods of discipline has made it one). What is a thief due? Well, that depends on his station. What are the conditions for mutiny? Shipwreck, alcohol, flogging—and a captain without authority. Which authority Crozier has just spent on those 16 bottles. 

I love too that we don’t see Crozier’s face; he looks away from us and from Fitzjames as the line is delivered, still in the dregs of the belief he can disguise how far things have slipped. Instead we get that understated, unconvincing “I did no such thing”, cut across Fitzjames’s line and overwhelmed by it; instead we see what he sees, Blanky and Goodsir’s unsurprised embarrassed resignation. Whatever he’d thought he was to them, in this instant he has become a circumstance to be managed: they believe Fitzjames without question, and he is locked out of that circle. This is the moment, I think, at which he understands that he is no longer in control. For Crozier the end of vanity happens here. 

#also of course “she asked you ‘why do you want to die”’!! exquisite. #and i would also love to know what follows 'we both know what is happening’ #that must have been a hell of a conversation however long it lasted. #(i love too that francis has been testing the elasticity of polite society essentially since we met him and this is the moment it snaps) #(his boxer’s bounce and his come-on-then nod) #(the dual effect of his look-round before he throws that punch: #half can you believe this shit (they can) #and half dirty fighter’s fake-out.) #(lovely.)

In Star Trek: The Original Series, there are some recurrent themes that assume different forms throughout the episodes. The purpose of such repetition may be merely to explore different perspectives on the same subject, or to address aspects and nuances not previously explored. Or maybe it’s just a lack of ideas. Anyway, as much as Star Trek has a philosophical ambition, it is a series and not an essay. In narrative art, ideas are only effectively transmitted if we feel that we are somehow emotionally invested in the characters. Plot and characters are so intimately intertwined that sometimes we do not know if the characters make the plot develop or if it is the plot that serves the characters’ development.
Tropes help us to understand the characters, sometimes in a very explicit way: for example, the trope of an alien agent that exposes a hidden part of the personality, as we see in The Naked Time, This Side of Paradise or The Enemy Within -let us not discuss here whether in that emergence the same personality trait shown is or not distorted; personally I do not give much credit to that kind of revelations, it may say something about the character, but not always what it seems to say.
The overused trope of flawed paradises that paralyze the progress and wither the spirit of their inhabitants is in itself the medium of a very american message generated in a cold war context, and it’s also the way we get to know James Kirk, the value he gives to freedom and hard work, and this idea he has about the necessity of pain in opposition to a hedonistic and patronized lifestyle. The value of Earth that the series opposes to Eden, Purgatory above Paradise. This tells us about Jim, and sometimes about Spock. Their ideals and priorities.
It is not always possible for the scriptwriters to explore certain topics directly. Some things are dealt with in a veiled way because of censure or as an artistic device. The text is limited, the audience has to interpret it by reading the symbols, seeing the relations, extrapolating what is not written from what is written. That’s the subtext, I think. It is not always intentional; works can say more than their authors intended -once they are released to the public, they no longer have control over their meaning. In fact, the classics are often defined thus: they are those works that never finish saying everything they have to say, because each person, each generation finds something new. So the subtext sometimes contains the deep meaning of what is shown, sometimes it just adds complexity and another levels of reading. The slash interpretation of the relationship between Kirk and Spock is sometimes extremely effective -it feeds off and simultaneously builds an interesting network of meanings.
Two recurrent and often mixed themes gravitate around Spock: they are linked to the concept of confrontation between human and machine, and/or between human and alien. And they both are related to the spockian tension between duality and identity, diference and union.
The first one: the machine-being which is destroyed when its logic weakens, when it contradicts itself, when it is exposed to human irrationality, or when it experiences emotions. This theme serves to express the fears of Spock, and it feeds them as he encounters these situations. It takes place in Requiem for Methuselah, What Are Little Girls Made Of, I, mudd, The Ultimate Computer, The Return of the Archons and The Changeling.
It is there in the show and Spock believe it too that his human side constantly weakens him: it even endangers him. In the episode Is There in Truth no Beauty?, Spock says that he shall endeavour to keep his human half under control not to go mad at the sight of the Medusan ambassador. Sometimes his feelings towards Jim lead him to make very bad decisions -The Tholian Web-, or even immoral -Requiem for Methuselah-. In The Enemy Within, Spock says: “I have a human half, you see, as well as an alien half, submerged, constantly at war with each other. Personal experience, Doctor. I survive it because my intelligence wins over both, makes them live together”. His intelligence is what allows Spock to articulate his two natures, which allows him to survive, but when his emotions prevail, his intelligence, understood as logic, falters.
The second one: the alien or the machine-being which only finds an answer to its longings when it integrates an emotional or human part. The best example of this theme appears in ST:TMP, in which not only does the transformation of Spock culminate, but there is also a parallel narrative that assumes what the scriptwriters would not dare to show in their main characters -the plot of Decker and Ilia/V'ger. There are some pretty good metas about this out there.
V'ger threatens to destroy Earth just as Spock intends to destroy his humanity. But neither of them is satisfied: V'ger wonders “is this all that I am?”; it has knowledge that spans the universe but it is barren and it cannot help but ask “is there nothing more?”. Spock fails to complete the ritual of the Kolinahr. In the novelization we see more of his doubts; he is thinking of Jim shortly before the end of the ritual, he remembers what Jim said -why fight to be part of only one world when he could be the best of both.
Kirk is proposed several times as a bridge between that two halves of Spock. In Journey to Babel, Jim turns out to be the solution to the dilemma that Spock is forced to face -well, he is not even a solution, he basically funtions as a deus ex machina that suspendes the tragedy, so Spock does not have to sacrifice the love of his mother letting his father die, or the respect of his father delegating his responsibility, ignoring logic and risking galactic peace. Jim’s intervention changes the rules of the (no-win) scenario so Spock does not have to choose between two terrible options. He helps Spock to satisfy both parties. 

When Ilia/V'ger joins Decker physically, they move on to a higher level of existence; likewise, only when spock reconciles and integrates his human part into himself is he able to find a new, satisfying dimension that fills his life with meaning -a moment that coincides with his reconciliation with Jim, that makes it possible.

In Metamorphosis, this same theme is developed and it would seem to be some foreshadowing. There is a human woman who has had no chance to love and to be loved and she is dying because a femenine alien creature keeps her tied up in a sterile planetoid in her effort to retain the man she loves. I admit that this is a very deliberately outlined summary. Spock represses his human side to the point of trying to annihilate it; he does not understand or know love, like the dying woman and the alien. I think this two individuals mirror his dual nature, that only when integrated into a single being can live and love and be loved. Spock fears that his emotions will destroy him or his loved ones -he says in Plato’s Stepchildren: “I have noted that the healthy release of emotion is frequently very unhealthy for those closest to you”-, so he also in his desire to retain the man at his side, Jim, without condemning him by exposing him to his dangerous emotions, he oppresses and lets his humanity perish.
It is interesting how much importance the show attaches to the touching, skin-to-skin contact. Love is a few times defined in sensual terms. In this chapter, the man can only correspond to the love of the alien when he can touch her and she can express her love physically -when the the alien and the human woman are integrated in one being. And there are similarities with what happens at the end of The Motion Picture.

Spock and the Companion are in some ways alike: they both do not understand the emotion of love, they both have the ability to “crawl inside” the mind of other people; they are long-lasting, more than a human; the Companion accuses Jim of being illogical before giving up communication with him in one scene -and curiously in the next one Spock accuses Cochrane of the same.
Jim says to the alien: “You haven’t the slightest knowledge of love, the total union of two people. You are the Companion. He is the man. You are two different things. You can’t join. You can’t love. You may keep him here forever, but you will always be separate, apart from him”. It is something he could say to Spock at the time. So there is an aporetic situation for Spock that only can be superated by facing his fears and accepting his feelings.
It has been emphasized that Jim defines love as union, as two parts that form a unit, and it has been related with Jim’ statements in The Search for Spock. Gene Roddenberry said that he had designed Kirk and Spock to complete each other, as dream images of the two halves of himself.

Thank you for reading me!