Matt and Sean talk about the rare late-season bright spot in Star Trek TOS Season 3, Episode 21, "The Cloud Minders." After weeks of episodes that dragged, this one finally feels like real Trek again. They pick apart why it works, where it still limps, and what a bigger budget might have done for the back half of a struggling season 3. First aired February 28, 1969.

Chapters

  • 00:00: Intro
  • 03:46: Mailbag
  • 05:53: Today’s Episode
  • 06:24: This Time in History
  • 10:48: Today’s Discussion

Transcript

Intro

Sean Ferrell: In today's episode of Trek in Time, we're going to be talking about what might have been. Welcome, everybody, to Trek in Time. This is the podcast that takes a look at all of Star Trek in chronological Stardate history. We've worked our way through a lot of, strangely, through the prequel and sequel programs before we've made our way this far in the original series. That's right. We're in season three. We're well past the halfway mark in season three. So we're maybe five episodes away from wrapping up the original series and moving on to the motion pictures, which, to give everybody a heads up, we will be doing the motion pictures. But we've got some news to come in a minute. But I was gonna say quickly, but who are we? I'm Sean Ferrell. I'm a writer. I write some science fiction. I write some horror. As a matter of fact, I have a novel coming out in April of 2027. I always have to think very consciously about the year because what I want to say is, I don't know, 2023 feels right. So I have a horror novel coming out in 2027 in the fields. We thirst more about that as we move forward in time. And with me, as always, is my brother Matt. He is that Matt behind Undecided with Matt Ferrell, which takes a look at emerging tech and its impact on our lives. Matt, are you enjoying the Canadian wildfires as much as we are here in New York City?

Matt Ferrell: Oh, I'm, I'm. I'm loving the bouquet in the air, the smell of smoke, the healthcare, the health warnings that keep coming up on my phone. Loving it, Sean. It's great.

Sean Ferrell: Yeah. Yeah. The healthcare warnings coming fast and furious here in New York City. And I had to. I had to go out this morning and I was wearing a mask because the smell, I knew it was going to impact me. I did end up getting a severe headache, possibly as the result of all of that. But as I was out, I was the only person wearing a mask. I saw people jogging and I saw a couple stand outside having a 15 minute long chat while holding a newborn baby. And I thought, all right, come on. So here we go. As Matt hinted at a moment ago when he raised a finger and was like, hold on a second. As we were talking about what's coming up next. What's coming up next? We'll give you the teaser right now instead of waiting until the end of the episode. As we record this, we are one week away from the fourth season of Strange New Worlds dropping. So we'll do what we've been doing. We'll pause the original series rewatch and we will watch Strange New Worlds in real time as we did with Starfleet Academy viewers. Listeners, I hope you'll join us next week as we enter season four of Strange New Worlds. And then once that ten episode cycle is complete, we'll return to the original series. So we hope you'll be interested in joining us on that little cul de sac. So what are we talking about today, Matt? That's what you're wondering. Well, let me tell you. Today we're going to be talking about episode 21 of season three of the original Series. This is the Cloud Minders. This is originally broadcast on February 28, 1969. It is the 74th produced, the 76th aired overall. It was the 21st of the third season. Directed by Jud Taylor, story by David Gerrold. We'll get back to that in a minute. And Oliver Crawford. Teleplay by Margaret Armen and as I mentioned, February 28, 1969 this episode has some guest stars in it.

Jeff Corey as Plasus, Diana Ewing as Droxine, Charlene Polite, Fred Williamson and Ed Long also star in this episode. Before we get into the details of this episode, we always like to jump into the mailbag and see what you've had to say about our previous episodes. What did you find for us in the mailbag this week?

Mailbag

Matt Ferrell: We talked about Mark of Gideon last time, so there were some comments on there and we were not alone in our opinions of that episode. Let me just say old Trekkie ouch. This one left a mark. That's kind of really good summary. We had one from RH1962. This episode and also Miri are the only two that I watched once on the first release and would never watch again. They both give me the heebie jeebies. Then we had Babarudra chiming in saying it's a terrible episode, but that's no reason to thrust the trauma of mummenschanz on people. We were cursed to have grown up on that crap. It should have stayed dead and buried in the 70s moment.

Sean Ferrell: Mummenschanz are like vampires, Babarudra. You can't get away from them.

Matt Ferrell: And then finally we have wrong answers only from Mark Loveless. He's been absent for a few weeks, but he's back. Plot of Lights of Zetar. Spock gets out a rare Vulcan musical instrument, a Zetar. When he plays it, the lights attached to it in combination with the music cause an odd reaction similar to a trance which stops as soon as the music stops. As a result of several crew being in a trance and neglecting their duties, a near fatal accident happens and the zetar is banned from everywhere except Spock's quarters. As McCoy sums up at the end of the episode, it's not like we have a group of musically inclined space hippies who are soul searching for the meaning of life on board. Yes, Sean, we are two episodes away from my fave Cringe fest.

Sean Ferrell: Yeah, I know what you're. I know. I know exactly what you're heading toward. Yes, yes, Mark. Yep, it is just a few episodes away, but like I mentioned, detour into strange new worlds. Which means we've got 10 weeks with which to prepare. Those lights you see that sound you hear? That's the read alert. Time for Matt to tackle the Wikipedia description. As is the trend with season three. Matt, I think you'll find this very brief and to the point.

Today’s Episode

Matt Ferrell: Kirk races against time to acquire plague fighting minerals from a world in the midst of a civil uprising.

This Time in History

Sean Ferrell: Doesn't get simpler than that. This message, this message from Star Trek that minerals can fight disease, well, it dropped on February 28, 1969. What was the world like at the time of original broadcast? Well, Matt, you may be anticipating that you're gonna sing You heard it through the grapevine, but not anymore. No, that's right, you've moved on. You are now singing along to Everyday People by Sly and the Family Stone. Take it away, Matt. That's right. That we are everyday people. And at the box office. Yeah, we got. We shed one thing that we've been talking about quite a bit. But we can't shed all the things we talk about quite a bit. Funny Girl was still the number one film in the theaters. Yes, that Funny Girl with Barbara Streisand. And we've been taking a look at the 1969 top rated programs. We of course have had shows like Rowan and Martin's Laugh In, Gunsmoke, Bonanza. They were all above a 24 in the Nielsen ratings as compared to Star Trek's third season, which was kind of like bouncing along. Some of these episodes got as low as the mid sixes in the Nielsens. Some of them have reached as high as the mid eights in the Nielsens. Not a great run for season three. And we've talked over the past few weeks in particular about the show feeling weaker as it's gone on. So here we are with yet another entry into the 1969 top rated programs. Here's Lucy with a 23.9. And for anybody who's thinking, well, we've talked about Lucille Ball's program before in our rewatch of the original series. No, not this Lucy. That was a different Lucy. Here's Lucy is an American sitcom starring Lucille Ball. The series co starred her longtime comedy partner Gale Gordon and Ball's real life children, Lucy Arnaz and Desi Arnaz Jr. It was broadcast on CBS from 1968 to 1974.

It was Lucille Ball's third network sitcom following I Love Lucy and the Lucy show, which was the second one. That one stopped broadcasting in 1968. And that's the one we talked about the last time we talked about Lucille Ball. This program originated as the result of Desilu Studios having been fully purchased. She lost control of all of the programs that she owned, including her own show. No longer being able to be in control of her show, she ended the Lucy show and started here's Lucy on rival network CBS. This show would go on to run for several years and this was the first one that starred her real life children. So when I was a kid, I remember watching reruns and there was a sudden jump in, in what the program looked like in these reruns. Where it would go from Lucy living with her neighbors in the country to suddenly Lucy being in a city with her children involved. And I never understood why these episodes seem so mismatched. It was literally yesterday as I put together these show notes that I was like, oh, oh, that explains was two different programs. And in the news on this day, February 28, 1969, we have of course, headlines revolving around recently sworn in President Nixon. He was already traveling the globe. He had visited Berlin and he had visited Rome in a European tour. He of course called for the Berlin Wall to be taken down and for a reunification of Germany that would of course take place in decades later. There was also an article on this day in the New York Times that the US warned that Hanoi's attacks could imperil the halt in bombing in Vietnam. Of course, and spoiler alert, Matt, the bombing would continue and guess what? It would expand. That's right. We were still, you know, Nixon's expansion of the bombing in Vietnam and extending it to the point where it was technically war crimes by going into Cambodia and Laos.

Today's Discussion

That's still in the future at this point. They were still trying to figure out how to make some kind of peace early in Nixon's presidency. On now to our discussion of this episode. Matt, it's been a rough run. We've had the lights of Zetar. We've had the mark of Gideon. I'll take us all the way back through Whom Gods Destroy. We've had episode where we're like, this feels like it could have been an animated episode. This feels like it was thrown together as a first draft and filmed. We've had a lot of questions about why and how the quality of the episodes dropped this one. I would like to open with an opening question to you. Did this feel to you like a kind of return to form while not being a perfect episode? Did this land in a better place than the previous episodes that we've been discussing over the past few weeks?

Matt Ferrell: Yes, with an asterisk in the sense that it felt more Trek to me, dealing with a heady topic, picking it apart, not having that Hanna Barbara cartoon style of we're walking down the same hallway five times plot device they kept doing for the past several episodes. I don't think it's a great Star Trek episode, but it felt more Trek.

Sean Ferrell: Let's deal with your critical response before we get into kind of an overall dissection of thematically and plot wise, what the. What this episode seems to be wrestling with, which. The reason I want to do that is because I feel like this episode is a. In another way, a very strong return to Trek in that it is very thematically of its moment because it really feels like it's a late 60s take to say, like, what is our current world look like and why does it look that way? So I want to. I want to lean into that as well. But the critical response, the one that says it's still not firing on all cylinders. What did you see and what were some of the causes that you think might have been playing out in your viewing?

Matt Ferrell: I don't say the word boring. That's not the right. It's not exactly it. But it felt. Didn't feel as tight. It dragged. How they handled the structure was so paint by numbers that we've seen in the original series before. So it was kind of like they used a blueprint they've used a few times and just used it again. Just different characters, different place, different like motivation. But it was still that Mad Libs plug verb here, adjective here, this. You know, it's like, then you've got your story. It still felt like that to me, which is why that's my critical response of it doesn't reach the heights of previous original series, but it feels more Trek because they're using a blueprint from previous episodes. And this blueprint, not against the original series. It's been used in Next Generation and Voyager. Like pick every. Every single Star Trek series uses this exact blueprint at least once. So it's a good blueprint to use, but it's so overused. And so for me, that was the critical response of just in general, why it's not quite reaching the heights that I would hope for.

Sean Ferrell: So if I'm hearing you, it's a little bit like, oh, this feels like Trek on autopilot, as opposed to Trek being inventive. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I could see that. And the formula is right there. Come to a place, there's a ticking clock in the background and somebody says, oh, well, we could help you, but we're having this insert civil strife here. And then the results play out the way you would expect it. I, I completely agree with the. It is a formula that you see a lot in Trek. You see it a lot in all television writing. It's a great way to. You mentioned paint by numbers. It can be a paint by numbers approach to, to building in drama into a. Any show. Leaning into the discussion around thematically what this one is about, I'm picking. I'm picking up a lot of what it feels like a very progressive take on the civil rights movement and the. And pushing back very, very hard on the arguments around, well, if these, if this group of people were actually able to function at a higher level, they would have done so by now. And the response being they have been forced into circumstances where they have been held back for so long in circumstances that do not allow growth, that what you are seeing is a system of inherent racism that has kept a group in a position where you can continue to say, well, look, they aren't any better than this. And this felt to me like ripped out of the headlines of 1969. 1968, of course, was a year of tremendous strife in the civil rights movement with the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Robert Kennedy, the riots around the Democratic Convention, the images that came out of that. The ongoing strife of the Vietnam War, which had its own angle, was also charged with a racial component.

A majority of the soldiers fighting in Vietnam on behalf of the US were people of color where the options for getting out of service, getting out of the draft, were not as easily available to people of color. So you end up with this very uneven year of 1968, which would have been when this would have been being constructed, and that it ends up on the screen in 1969. And as I was watching it I kept going back to this really feels like 1969 projected on the screen. And I felt like from that perspective, this for me is another one of those episodes that I remember very clearly from my childhood. I think the message is so clear from a certain perspective. It is such a nice distillation of a complex issue into easily readable segments. So that from a child's perspective I was able to pick up on the importance of fair treatment means equal standing. Equity is key. And I couldn't have said it in those words, but I could have explained as a kid what they were trying to get to, that the unfair treatment started well before any of these people were even born.

Matt Ferrell: I had the same feeling that it's 1969 on the screen. Like it is loud and clear. But the thing that resonated with me, this is part of why it felt very Trek. It's also a universal truth that they're arguing here that is timeless. And sadly, what you just said right now, Sean, still applies, still applies today and the things we're having happen. But I also found it interesting you could take on the surface level of this story it is today. It's about people who are being forced to literally mine and damage themselves for the benefits of the wealthy. And cobalt mining. Anybody literally, like the exact story, it's like for 1969, it's an abstract idea for racism. And then today it's like, well, literally this actually is something that is actually happening today around mining. I thought that was absolutely fascinating of we're kind of pillaging countries that are less wealthy and have less availability to them for the benefits of the United States and Europe and the wealthy nations of the world. And it's just like this episode is kind of blowing my brain of yeah, yeah, racism. But it's literally what's happening today.

Sean Ferrell: It's both racism and capitalism. It's a takedown of, of late stage capitalism in the form of you. You can't just be happy that you have work. We take care of you. The kind of paternalism of. I just saw a headline recently which was a billionaire was claiming that the solution to the Social Security crisis that is looming is for people to work longer, to work longer through their life. Okay, this, of course not the solution. Like, oh, Social Security cuts are going to hurt, then maybe don't retire.

Matt Ferrell: Says the person who has billions of dollars.

Sean Ferrell: Yeah, said the person who has billions of dollars. So, like this, this episode feels like it's cutting through a lot of these a way that, as you mentioned, like the best Star Treks become more relevant as time moves on because we see, as they get older and are still relevant, how universal those truths are. They cut deeper. And I think this is one of those that does that. I also want to commend this episode in a way that may seem counter to some of my normal criticisms of Trek regarding its sexism. This episode certainly does have sexism in it. If it were being made today, I don't think it would be made in exactly the same way. Diana Ewing, as Droxine is in this. In this one, as well as Charlene Polite, who is Vanna. Both of them, there's a. There's a certain amount of either ogling or. Or when Kirk faces off against the somewhat murderous Vanna and turns it into a moment of like, well, I'm kind of enjoying this. It's. It's a little bit like, ooh, yucky. But I think that the depiction of the One as a leader of the rebellion and that she has gained this ability to plan and to think strategically. I like the element of like, we brought you into our home. It's kind of like you're one of the good ones because we brought you into our home and you repay us in this way. Which is like a direct civil rights callback of the treatment of people of color. Except for the good ones that could. You know, we would work with them. But why are they upset that it's a woman? I think is important in. In the depiction there. And that when there is a depiction of other members of the society, they sh. There's a little bit more of a plurality. We only see a handful at this point. Star Trek's extras list was very, very short because these episodes had very small budgets.

So the fact that this one has multiple locations and it has some extras in it meant that they were putting a little bit more into this episode. I think that may be a result of it being a story from David Gerrold, who at this point, if his name is involved in the story creation, it gets a little bit more effort. And I think that that's. That throws back to what we've been saying over the past couple of weeks. His name wasn't connected to storylines. They were running with probably very little work onto certain screenplays and just filming what they got. But the ones that he was involved with got a little more money, a little more attention. So I think that the depiction here of the leader of the Disruptors being a woman was one step that I was like, I like that. I also think they give a Lot of good screen time to Droxine. She's not written the way she is. Accidentally, I feel like she is written with a kind of egalitarian naivete by design. She is not who she is because she's a woman first. She is who she is because she's out of touch. She's one of the elite and she doesn't realize her privilege. So she is the voice of the entire people in the floating city. I'm watching the remastered version, so the special effects in the show have been added to with some additional cgi. I just want to say I love the depiction of the floating city here. I love the fact that it is talked about in the way it is. It is depicted the way it is, and it is literally. It looks like something out of a fantasy fairy tale, literally a castle floating in the sky. And as absurd as it is, if you just stop for a minute and think, like, well, what would the logic of this be? At some point, I get the impression that at some point in this planet's history, the people were like, the air down here is poison.

We should live.

Matt Ferrell: Oh, yeah, oh, yeah.

Sean Ferrell: Above it. Then they built it. And then at some point, people were just like, well, if we bring everybody up here, it's going to be really crowded. Maybe we don't do that. And I like the fact that it's. Again, it harkens to a history of this planet, a history of these people, where the privilege and the historic misuse of a large group of people is given a blind eye. Boy, does that feel like it resonates for me with the parts of American history that are not talked about, because nobody wants to talk about how slavery was one of the ways that this country built itself in its early days. And the echoes of that continue through to today. So this episode, for me, like, it hit a lot of very good notes. And I found myself thinking, oh, if only. If only season two had gotten more viewership. Only the network was like, well, let's not strangle this show with a half as big a budget yet again, so that it's now a quarter of what the first season was. If only it had gotten a little bit more effort and a little bit more attention. If this was kind of the baseline for what episodes in the third season could have been, instead of it being the outlier. Because I think that this one is a demonstration of, like, it could have reached better heights. But if this is what the norm was, think about how good some of the episodes we've just kind of limped through the difficulty we had in talking about them in a way that actually felt productive. It could have been so much different. I understand we can't wave a magic wand to make that happen, but did you have a similar thing where you're like, oh, if only?

Matt Ferrell: Oh, yeah, I definitely had that feeling of. It felt like if they had more budget and more time, this would have been one of those episodes that would have been elevated to the original favorite episodes from season one and season two. I also had the feeling that Lando was gonna walk in at any moment. It's literally cloud city.

Sean Ferrell: Yeah.

Matt Ferrell: But this episode, like you said, it evokes the history of why they may have built this cloud city and not wanting to acknowledge the reasons why they did it or how they did it and just like, oh, this is the way it is. We magically have been here. The way it is today is the way it's always been and it will always be this way.

Sean Ferrell: Yeah.

Matt Ferrell: But there is an aspect to the storytelling that drove me nuts. I don't know if it drove you nuts. Again, this is me going thinking too logically about a science fiction show. It was the surprise of here's a Federation world that has basically an enslaved population.

Sean Ferrell: Yeah.

Matt Ferrell: We didn't know. Yeah. Wait, what? You just let any rando join the Federation and you don't, like, find out how their society works and do a deep analysis? They show that in future series. You know what I mean? Like, it's like. It's not like just, oh, you sign on. It's like you're invited in and there's a vetting process and certain criteria has to be met. So you'd assume back then it's the same thing, but here's a group that just had a whole enslaved people and you didn't know. Come on, what's happening here?

Sean Ferrell: Well, there's. I mean, there's a couple of different responses that I could take to that, one of which is, you're absolutely right, but that's because at the time they were just flying around the galaxy, visiting planets. And by the time you and I were adolescents and then watching through Deep Space Nine and heading toward Voyager. Yeah. They had created what would have been a much more realistic approach to what does this all mean? Also on display in this one for me was, as we learn from the later shows and the movies, they make it very clear we don't approach anybody who doesn't work, doesn't have warp capable technology. We don't just show up at planets. This is now, I think the ninth episode this season where they're visiting a planet that doesn't demonstrate having anything like a spaceship, even let alone warp technology. The thing that this one does have, at least they show that they have their own teleporters. So it's like, okay, they're advanced, they have stuff.

Matt Ferrell: They have a city that can float.

Sean Ferrell: It's like, they have a city that can float.

Matt Ferrell: I can see that being. Spock says they're not space faring, but they have floating cities.

Sean Ferrell: So, okay, and Spock says, like, this is the most impressive demonstration of antigrav technology I've ever seen. And it's just like, yeah, you got an entire city floating in space, but it is that thing of yet again, does Starfleet have one ship? Yet again, there is a disease rampant on a planet. Yet again, the Enterprise is like, there's only one cure and it's on this one planet. We are the only ship that can go get it. I'm like, we're really bringing out that horse. That horse was dead in season one. And you just beating it and beating it and beating it.

Matt Ferrell: It's a disease and we're the only

Sean Ferrell: ones who can get there. And having somebody say, starships don't just show up to deliver medicine. And I was like, I liked the fact that that was in there. Like, yeah, a little bit of an effort at like, yeah, we're gonna do. We're doing this as a favor. We're doing it because we're the only ones available. But it does, you know, hit those moments of like, okay, the planet is the only source of this special cure, but the planet doesn't have spaceships to be able to say, like, oh, yeah, we're going to load up a bunch onto our cargo vessel and we'll be right there. It's no, you got to send your best crew that is supposedly on a five year mission to explore deep into space. They need to stop by and take this medicine to the sick people. And it's not even people. I like the fact that I did like the fact that this time they were like, okay, it's not going to be the people, it's the plants. The plants are going to die. And I was like, at least that's a. That's a little new wrinkle. So thank you for that.

Matt Ferrell: This is such a minor note, but did you enjoy the Khan glasses that everybody was wearing?

Sean Ferrell: I did. The moment they showed up, I was just like, were those in the prop room when they made Star Trek 2? I did really like it. I Was like, it kind of, for me, had a moment of, oh, would those have been something that would have been supplied to the Botany Bay when they were being left on that planet with the, like, you're going to have to have, like, you're probably going to be doing some mining. You're going to be doing these kinds of things that are going to require extra technology. It seems to me like within the mythos of Star Trek, Kirk would have given Khan and his people a bunch of technology and a bunch of equipment that might have helped them in settling in the world. So I found myself thinking like, oh, yeah, okay, so they've got the same glasses. That's great. I thought. I've actually did think that was pretty cool. And my brain immediately kind of retconned everything to. To fit it all together. And as I say, all of that, it just makes me want to. Once again, for our viewers and listeners pitch, if you haven't listened to it, we will talk about it, I'm sure, when we get To Star Trek 2 the Wrath of Khan. If you haven't listened to the audio, it wasn't even a po. It was a podcast. It was an. A radio play of Khan. And it's available. I listen to it on Spotify. It's available wherever you can get, I think audiobooks from the Star Trek universe, it should be available. And I just want to throw that out there as a reminder. It's a great story and it's a really, really neat bridge between the introduction of Khan in the original series and what his mindset was and the experiences of his people heading toward Star Trek 2. So recommend that. Having said all of that, this one landed for me in a place that felt a lot better. It, of course, at this late stage in season three, still feels like, oh, that you can see the cracks.

You can see them limping toward the finish line. But I did find myself enjoying this one just as a watch. So this is one of those ones where I would rewatch this one, whereas the last few episodes I'd be like,

Matt Ferrell: no, no, I don't.

Sean Ferrell: I don't need to revisit that. So, yeah, viewers, listeners, what did you think about this one? Jump into the comments. As always, we are very interested in hearing what you have to say. We want to share your thoughts. And we've had some hard weeks where it's been difficult for Matt and I to find something nice to talk about in the episodes. I feel like this one's a little different to this land in a similar terrain for all of you let us know. As always, liking subscribing, sharing with your friends, leaving comments. Those are all very easy ways for you to support the podcast. They really do help. And if you want to support us more directly, you can go to trekintime.show. Click the Join button. It allows you to throw coins at our heads and we'll also make you an Ensign, which means you'll be signed up for Out of Time, our spin off show in which we talk about things that don't fit within the confines of this program. Usually movies, TV shows that we're watching, a lot of horror, a lot of sci fi, a lot of things that are just the golden age of television, I would say. As we are perusing all the various streaming networks, we hope you'll be interested in checking that out once again. Next week we will be starting our watch of season four of Strange New Worlds. We hope you'll be interested in joining us there. We'll be talking about the first episode as soon as it airs, so we hope you'll want to join us for that. Thank you so much everybody for taking the time to watch or listen and we'll talk to you next time.