Working an equation where X = an adolescent male who’s never seen another living person. Throw in superhuman powers and there’s a real problem to address on this week’s Mission Log!
Mission Log #3: Episode 003- Charlie X
Working an equation where X = an adolescent male who’s never seen another living person. Throw in superhuman powers and there’s a real problem to address on this week’s Mission Log!
@Alfred Hitchcock’s Ghost
That show sucked, so it doesn’t count.
Didn’t have my own weekly show? Was it some other Hitchcock that was doing Alfred Hitchcock Presents?
I’m with TJ — get rid of Siri! It distracts from the quality podcast that you’re putting together. It shouldn’t be hard to find someone to narrate your transitions on even a volunteer basis. I also agree with Alec and Kathy — socialization was key and a female perspective would be welcome.
While you were describing Charlie X I wondered about how this might play if we were to think of Charlie as on the autistic spectrum (plus superpowers, of course).
Finally, I can see where “power corrupts” might be a moral, but it’s hard to get that to fit too… power didn’t corrupt the child — it was the only tool he had available to him to cope with his situation. And when the Thasians come back at the end to take Charlie away, you *might* be able to say that’s an abuse of power, but as was pointed out Kirk didn’t stand up to it, so it’s possible that it was something bordering on an Outside Context Problem.
This episode puts me in mind of stories like:
The ‘Jungle Book’ or even ‘Tarzan’ where the human child
is raised by nice meaning non-humans and the conflict comes when
he is at last confronted by ‘normal’ humans.
One thing that bugged me about this episode was the fact that the Enterprise crew seemed to expect Charlie to behave like a normal adolescent. He would do something wrong and they would point it out like “hey don’t you know that was wrong?” sort of reaction when they should have been at least more tolerant and half expected him to screw up on a regular basis. Given a situation where one is forced to survive alone one tends to be an introvert, self reliant, and self sufficient and Charlie acted more like social jerk.
I did learn something I did not know about the message from the galley being Gene himself, thanks for that.
Looking forward to next week.
Yeah, when you guys were talking about assimilation, I think the issue was actually socialization. It wasn’t just that he didn’t know what was appropriate and what wasn’t, it was that he lacked the tools to even start picking up on that stuff.
You guys really need a female commentator on this podcast asap. I didn’t think Charlie’s problem was so much wanting to be liked as the fact that he couldn’t wrap his head around the fact that being liked doesn’t entitle you to control people or disrespect them. When I saw this episode I kept thinking “man, I really wish some phasians would show up and get rid of a few people I know…”
Love it.
One thing that’s amusing is how douchey it is of Rand to throw Tina under the bus the way she did. “Hey, there’s this totally immature jerkbag who keeps hitting on me like he’s never seen a woman before. You’d totally hit it off.” Yeah, thanks Rand!
Please get rid of Siri. Please?
OK, you -all missed the big message. The theme that “Power Corrupts” is a recurring one throughout Star Trek, particularly TOS. You will see it again next week in “Where No Man Has Gone Before.” Charlie X shows power corrupting a child. Next week power corrupts an adult. I would suggest that The Cage showed power corrupting a whole society.
Another thing to remember is that TOS was made in the middle of the Viet Nam War. Think of Charlie as the US and Janice Rand as SE Asia.
That kind of stuff got me A’s on my college papers. 😉
Excited to listen to this again, but before I start, I believe the actor who played Charlie was also in my favourite John Wayne movie, War Wagon.
Poor Charlie…so misunderstood. I had nightmares about that weird stare.