Roddenberry strikes again, somehow the person we have to thank for this entire franchise manages time after time to riddle his inputs to the show with American Propaganda Nonsense and 'Return of the Archons' is amongst the biggest of such examples.
So let me get what I enjoyed about the episode out of the way. Firstly I appreciated the main cast's performances, specifically from Kelley who actually manages to make these zombie hippie-commies seem interesting. Indeed one of the episode's few redeeming scenes comes mid-way when McCoy is left to sit in the background like an oblivious child until he suspects Kirk and Spock's whispering. I also thought Roddenberry's dialogue was good enough throughout, it's just a shame that they are constantly blabbering on about how a different society is unacceptable.
So naturally now I'm going to go on about what I disliked about 'Return of the Archons'. Firstly the whole 'festival' thing, although a very feasible concept, I felt was very poorly produced. The end result ends up coming off as completely absurd, wacky and unconvincing. It's dramatic and pleasing to watch just for the sheer insanity of it all, but when you take it in context of how seriously the script seems to take itself, you have to realise how poor it is implemented here. Half way through the episode however I found myself craving some more of this anarchy in place of the extremely dull and repetitive plot which moves along frustratingly slowly, heading for a conclusion that doesn't pay off at all.
The final scenes involving Kirk defeating and outsmarting the computer lacks conviction, focus and is simply unconvincing. Never does Kirk or Spock justify how lack of creativity destroys the 'body'. In fact I could come up with a thousand reasons as to justify the exact opposite. Don't you think if creativity was necessary to keeping the 'body' alive that Landrau would have programmed such rules for the computer to enforce? Essentially the whole episode boils down to a message that any society different from that of 1960's America is unacceptable- how could anything be better than the great Democracy? Specifically however, this is a blatant attack on Communism, stinking of cold-war propaganda that I am actually ashamed Trek and Roddenberry actually thought was intelligent or justified; the sheer ignorant and biased nature of the scripts political and philosophical themes is totally unnecessary and unpleasant; this is something that I never could or would associate with any respectable production of Star Trek.
Furthermore the society that is presented here is ridiculous in itself, with little grey to be seen between the black and white. Instead of real characters posing a threat to the Enterprise crew, what we get is a bunch of chess pieces and nothing more; mere placeholders for personal ideals and ideas about another society that the writer clearly has no grasp of. According to 'Return of the Archons', people who serve the 'body' are nothing more than zombies, walking around speaking about peace all day. So who then made the houses, harvests the food and maintains the cities on this planet? Indeed if there is no creativity in such a society, who came up with the idea for the festival? Who designed the roads, the buildings, and the clothing which seems to be an apparent fashion rather than a uniform? So in this respect, if this is indeed a warning against the great evil of communism, then it's clearly nothing more than biased capitalist propaganda at best. Never does it discuss the pros and cons of both societies. Instead the Enterprise crew is portrayed as ignorant fools, rushing in to meld things the way they want it.
Sure there is oppression present, and sure creativity should be allowed if not encouraged, but the problem with the script is that it forces such ideals down your throat and uses them unjustly- to condemn a form of society that is unified and spiritual. The problem with Landau's society isn't that it's a strong community and the problem doesn't lie in the people's nature- it lies in the obvious dictatorship of Landau, something similar to Communist Russia of the time, I admit, but not something inherent to a society that serves a 'body'.
The end of the episode comes to a frustrating halt with the final discussion between Kirk and Spock on the bridge. Kirk is actually pleased that domestic quarrels have begun arising in the city and laughs it off, dismissing Spock's only intelligent line of dialogue in the episode. Oh yes, quarrelling is human alright, but so is discrimination, war, injustice, corruption and greed. Where will Kirk be when such circumstances arise? Well it's doubtful he'll be there to clean up what he naively encouraged.
When it comes down to it, 'Return of the Archons' has definite potential, but it lacks the detail and discussion that such heavy topics require. So instead of being a coherent and solid piece of thoughtful science fiction, we end up with simple misguided writing with little to no intelligent discussion to justify its claims. As a piece of TV it fails also thanks to it's sluggish pace, dodgy acting from supporting cast and a distinct lack of any significance to main character development or Trek lore. There are some exciting moments here and there and a few good performances that help redeem some points but when it comes down to whether the episode works or not, 'Return of the Archons' just doesn't cut it; A real low-point for Trek.
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