Interlude 2
This was an early season 2 episode and was the episode right before The Doomsday Device. It's also one of the few episodes to take place on Earth, even if an earlier version. Yes, it's time for another time travel episode!
We start with the Endeavour returning to Earth after some time away. Upon reaching Star Fleet headquarters they are greeted by Admiral Sela. Monroe had just finished filming of her Oscar nominated turn in The Trial of Mata Hari and when this script went to her she saw this an opportunity to explore Sela in a similar fashion.
The result is a mixed bag. This episode was written by Gene Roddenberry himself. And boy does it show. Of course, you would not see this kind of naked patriotism in later series. Anyway, back to the episode.
When Pine, Spock and Boyce address her, she says that since she is no longer an Admiral, she should not be addressed by that rank. She is now a civilian scientist, working on a special project. That's why Pine and the Endeavour were called back, Sela wants to test her device and Pine and the Endeavour are the only ship and crew that she can trust, in spite of what happened last time.
Sela: This device will change a lot of lives, captain.
Pine: If you say so.
Then Admiral Archer comes in to say that, the device has been beamed aboard. And then he just walks off with an expression on his face that says "Well, at least I got a paycheck this week." The reason for this was that Shatner was filming a TV movie about the Civil War called Gone to Glory. Makes you almost wonder why he decided to turn up here at all.
Anyway, on board the Endeavour, the device is tested, but it doesn't seemed to have worked other then making the ship's model turn around. Once they beam down to Earth:
Sela: Is this Earth?
Boyce: It is. Just not the right century.
Yep, Sela has invented a time machine. She explains that she created it to go back in time to save the lives of her crew and the ship. It's interesting that she puts her reasons in that way, seeing as how Romulans are usually portrayed as uncaring and cold.
This is also the first episode that both the Romulan and Vulcan languages are used. Both Nimoy and Monroe could speak Yiddish, though obviously Nimoy more than Monroe. Apparently, they both created some very basic conversations for this episode, which was later built upon by fans. Both languages are different, yet similar, like Hebrew and Yiddish.
As Spock and Sela get into their argument, Boyce finds a newspaper. It's 1967. Seems that they landed in Los Angeles just before an anti-Vietnam War rally. At the time America was really escalating it's involvement.
This is where Gene really goes off the deep end in terms of his patriotism, and also on damn stinking, dirty hippies. Because, right after saying that they stay out of sight, Sela goes right up to the protesters and gives them a piece of her mind. Pine, Boyce and Spock have to physically pull her back to prevent her from getting mobbed.
Returning to the ship, they find that the device just overheated and they return home. There's a little epilogue at the end about trying to go back in time to change something but let's just get out of here.
Post episode follow up:
Annoying character goes to Sela, though that was mainly due to Gene than Sela herself.
We have an Ancient Chinese Secret, Huh? for calling the Vietnam War ancient.
Final score for Once Again is four out of ten. The only thing keeping this from getting a lower score is the performances of the actors. What really hampered this episode was that Gene didn't know what he wanted to do with the episode. It would have been so easy to make the episode better.
For example, Sela wants to go back in time to save her crew. Fine let her. But let the twist be that she either can't or does something that inadvertently causes the explosion. Either way she'll come back to the present even more guilt ridden than she already was.
Like I said before, this was the last episode Monroe ever did on TOS, whether it was due to this episode or her hiatus after her husband, Joe DiMaggio, was killed is uncertain. What is certain is that she would not appear in anything Star Trek related for over 20 years.
-SFRemains review of Once Again, December 4th, 2012.