Are you of the body? Are you here for Festival? Is this technology run amok or order so stringent, it’s killing the society it was set up to protect? Much to consider as Mission Log returns with “The Return of the Archons.”
Mission Log #21: Episode 021 – The Return of the Archons
It’s interesting – and probably no coincidence – that around the same time this episode aired, The Prisoner aired the episode, “The General” (November 3, 1967.) The General featured a sophisticated, experimental mainframe computer which the Prisoner destroys by asking it, “why?” I’m sure if we dug deeper, we’d find more shows along the same lines. I’m betting we’d also discover a spate of articles on the future of computer intelligence, that inspired – and frightened – a lot of people.
Star Trek, if anything, was about the human adventure (a line which Rodenberry included in TMP). He was clearly obsessed with the idea that humanity must find a way to prevail, not just against the aliens, but against our own technology, in both the “mad computer” and “Amusing ourselves to Death” sense. It’s a recurring theme throughout the series. Rodenberry seemed even prepared to live with a future characterised by human foibles and imperfections. Actually, so am I.
I see Festival as an outlet for the inhabitants of Beta III to periodically vent their base emotions and actions. Landru uses Festival as a tool to keep them more manageable as part of the body.
At the very start of the show, Sulu lets them know that the clothes they thought the people were supposed to wearing on the planet was wrong.
He even holds out different clothes to prove his point.
This is the reason the Captain and others wear different clothes than Sulu.