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Episode
058
The Paradise Syndrome
Amnesia! Ancient technology! Asteroids! Hardly sounds tranquil, but it’s everything a forgetful Jim Kirk could ever want. Find out why when we put The Paradise Syndrome in the Mission Log.
Um, “Syndrome” is spelled wrong.
Thanks!
Alternative explanations for the prevalance of humanoid life in the galaxy were proposed in “Return to Tomorrow” and TNG’s “The Chase.”
Jud Taylor this episodes director – would also direct 1975 television made for TV movie Search for the Gods – about a mysterious golden tablet that would have brought to light
evidence that ancient astronauts from another world visited Earth & had a profound effect on the technological advancement
of the human race.
It did seem like a precarious notion of the Preservers, to transplant the various tribes on another planet and then leave their survival resting on one person knowing the right password to get in and set off the deflector beam. At first I thought that maybe it was a further test (“Guys, if you can’t be bothered to do this one thing to save yourselves, you deserve everything you get”).
Or maybe many of the first generations planted there knew the secrets, but gradually certain folk who wanted the power for themselves made sure they ended up the only ones who knew?
There’s a third theory why it was like that – It’s In The Script – but that seems too farfetched to me.
Is there a list somewhere of your pop culture references? Wolf and sheepdog in this one. Ken mentioned “Americathon” once; I thought I was the only person who remembered that movie.
Not really because, my gosh, there are so many! Someone did pull together a glossary for Mission Log though which includes some of our pop-culture references. Have fun! http://www.missionlogpodcast.com/the-mission-log-glossary/
I was mostly kidding, but you guys definitely go into the dusty corners of the attic for some of your references.
Now, please pass the sweet and sour shrimp.
About the memory wipe machine: it could be something the Preservers had to fulfill their own version of the prime directive. We don’t know how they brought the civilizations to other planets. If members of lower-tech societies had been on board a spaceship, they could be “contaminated” by the memory of seeing the high-tech devices on board. So the Preservers wiped their memory of the journey when they deposited them on a new planet. If this is the purpose of the machine, it wouldn’t be a complete memory wipe, which would explain why Kirk randomly retained some memories, such as how to do CPR and make a lamp.
To go into complete speculation, what if some of the Preservers also stayed behind with the people they relocated? The tribe’s first medicine chief could have been one of them, with the machine selectively erasing his/her memory to wipe out most things that wouldn’t fit with the new lifestyle but leaving the knowledge of how to operate the asteroid-basher.