Sadly, this episode is very lowly rated by fans, and a recipient of much unfair criticism. This is undoubtedly due to a misunderstanding regarding the origin and premise of the story.
This story was one of the two dozen or so, that Roddenberry presented to the networks, when initially pitching to them the idea of "Star Trek." At this early stage, it had not been established just how far into the future the series would supposedly take place. Some of his story ideas were set in a future only a few decades from the present, while others were set centuries, or a thousand years, into the future. This story was envisioned as being set *many* centuries into the future. The people on Omega IV were the descendants of two Earth colonies, one American, one Communist Chinese, which had left Earth centuries before, and had long since been forgotten and "written off."
This concept was even part of the original television episode, as evidenced by this bit of trivia:
..................................
Another McCoy-Spock debate was filmed for this episode, but edited. Just before the landing party left the Yangs' flag room, Kirk cut short an argument which seems to be about nothing. The reason McCoy and Spock were in an argument was cut from the episode. The dialog excised from the final print was as follows (taken from the final draft shooting script for the episode):
McCoy: Jim, the parallel's too close. They seem so completely Human. Is it possible that... ?
Kirk: The result of Earth's early space race?
Spock: Quite possible, Captain. They are aggressive enough to be Human.
McCoy: Now listen, Spock, you...
.................................
But instead, over the years, we have been presented with a plethora of ridiculous "parallel development" theories, and such. Sad.
If taking into account the original concept behind this episode, I easily rate it a 10 out of 10.
This story was one of the two dozen or so, that Roddenberry presented to the networks, when initially pitching to them the idea of "Star Trek." At this early stage, it had not been established just how far into the future the series would supposedly take place. Some of his story ideas were set in a future only a few decades from the present, while others were set centuries, or a thousand years, into the future. This story was envisioned as being set *many* centuries into the future. The people on Omega IV were the descendants of two Earth colonies, one American, one Communist Chinese, which had left Earth centuries before, and had long since been forgotten and "written off."
This concept was even part of the original television episode, as evidenced by this bit of trivia:
..................................
Another McCoy-Spock debate was filmed for this episode, but edited. Just before the landing party left the Yangs' flag room, Kirk cut short an argument which seems to be about nothing. The reason McCoy and Spock were in an argument was cut from the episode. The dialog excised from the final print was as follows (taken from the final draft shooting script for the episode):
McCoy: Jim, the parallel's too close. They seem so completely Human. Is it possible that... ?
Kirk: The result of Earth's early space race?
Spock: Quite possible, Captain. They are aggressive enough to be Human.
McCoy: Now listen, Spock, you...
.................................
But instead, over the years, we have been presented with a plethora of ridiculous "parallel development" theories, and such. Sad.
If taking into account the original concept behind this episode, I easily rate it a 10 out of 10.
Tell Your Friends