Reviews Series / Star Trek The Original Series

Plato's Stepchildren: Too Much and Not Enough Credit

Plato's Stepchildren is, despite taking place in that third season everyone writes off, a pretty standard episode of the original series that could've aired while Gene was still helming things. It's got the old-fashioned setting that saves money and lets everyone use their props from other productions, it's got a pretty standard Immortal Immaturity plot where a bunch of godlike beings use their nigh-omnipotent powers to treat the cast like human toys for their own amusement. Albeit, at least this time, they have a utilitarian objective in mind, hoping to force Doctor Mc Coy to stay among them and use his advanced medical skills to make up for their deteriorated immune systems, and he's Forced to Watch as most of the episode consists of his friends being psychologically tortured until he agrees to stay. But it's clear that their childish sadism is also a major factor, so a lot of it's very much psychological Torture Porn.

Special effects and music are pretty standard for a budget-saving episode, and as usual, most of the actors are at least making a token effort to salvage a mediocre script, each in their own way, although as usual Shatner and Nimoy can't quite avoid looking like fools. But overall, it's kind of a turkey, especially with the constant info-dumping and stock plots in ready supply better-done elsewhere in the franchise.

What this episode is most famous for is Kirk and Uhura's interracial kiss, which, laundry list of caveats about what the "actual" first televised interracial kiss was, was a pretty big deal in the 1960's while the Civil Rights movement was still ongoing. And to be fair, there's something modern in both parties admitting that they'd normally be thrilled to kiss if it were consensual, but are deeply uncomfortable with being forced to.

Still, in context, that's not the saving grace of the episode. Oh, when I saw this episode as a kid, that did stick out to me. I wasn't yet ten years old, and growing up in the American South, I didn't fully appreciate that biracial relationships were, you know, a thing? I don't think my younger self meant anything racially insensitive by it; just wasn't something I was exposed to. But it didn't go much further than going "Huh, that's weird. I didn't know that could happen."

What is the saving grace of the episode is Michael Dunn's incredible performance as Alexander, the put-upon and much abused court jester, mocked and shunned by the inhabitants of the planet for his shrunken physical stature and his inability to manifest their psionic powers, something which they credit to his lacking intellectual potency. In the context of the plot, it turns out this is bunk, and that the same genetic disability that made him a little person also made his body incapable of absorbing the local mineral that is the actual source of their psionic powers. And ultimately, he goes through a complete character arc and the full spectrum of human emotions, emerging the most heroic of the cast.

In the process, my younger self, raised on The Wizard of Oz and other programs for children that treated little people as jokes, or at least as exotic window dressing, suddenly had to reckon with Michael Dunn's humanity. That he really was a human being, just like me, with hopes and dreams, and that he deserved to be treated like one rather than a joke or a toy, got under my skin, made me think about that when other little people showed up in future programs. It was, in my mind, the ancestor of the modern decision to give little people more humanity, and in the process treat them like people.

Of course, Michael Dunn was already a successful actor in other programs before this, and there were other little people after him. But to the extent to which some portion of this episode is worth watching and remembering, it's he and Alexander rather than the kiss.