Star Trek: The Original Series

“The Return of the Archons”

2.5 stars.

Air date: 2/9/1967
Teleplay by Boris Sobelman
Story by Gene Roddenberry
Directed by Joseph Pevney

Review Text

The crew beams down to a world inhabited by people exhibiting strange behavior: a single-minded zombie-like trance state that explodes into temporary anarchy when "red hour" approaches. Kirk & Co. become involved in an underground movement to oppose the all-knowing Landru, a manipulative dictator that has apparently forced all of his citizens into uniform submission. Appropriately enough, Landru ultimately turns out to be a computer.

This episode is a metaphor for a lot of things, many of them approached with sophistication: anti-communist and anti-oneness sentiments, a warning of calculated technology replacing flesh-and-blood anticipation and adaptability, and the argued need for fighting authorities. But the plot flow lacks a cohesiveness to make it all come together into a unified, strong story with an underlying message. The "red hour" craziness is bizarre but confusing in narrative terms, and other small details of the plot are never fully developed.

Also, we have a slightly goofy resolution in which Kirk Outsmarts the Computer™ by feeding it some sort of circular logic that makes it fry itself and explode—arguments that just aren't convincing enough on story terms to be wholly worthwhile. Still, "Return of the Archons" has an intelligent underlying structure to it; it's just too bad the plot couldn't deliver on all fronts.

Previous episode: Court Martial
Next episode: Space Seed

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Comment Section

57 comments on this post

    This is one of my least favorite episodes. I don't get how the people were incorporated into "the Body." Was there some computer chip in their brain? It didn't look like it. And what the heck happened at the red hour, and why? They all went nuts for 12 hours because...? And was that the so-called "festival?"

    I liked the idea of there being an underground resistance, and Kirk et all almost automatically gravitating toward it, rather than the established authority. That's good American mythos right there. At least in the 60's, we still saw ourselves as the rebels fighting for the underdog.

    Barely tolerable. Maybe I'm missing the point because it's steeped in metaphors revelant to the 60's. Furthermore we've seen this setup before. We've got Kirk and his landing party trying to find and defeat another omnipotent super computer that holds godlike sway over a people. Of course he wouldn't interfere except the god computer has got the Enterprise locked in orbit, firing heat beams or something at it that will eventually destroy the ship. There were way too many of these shamelessly by the book plots in the original series and this one is as unremarkable as the others.

    The Festival allows selected townsfolk to rape, dance and beat one another, getting all their bottled up emotions released.

    "Kirk Outsmarts the Computer ™" seemed to happen a lot in TOS. It's kind of an interesting artifact from a time when computers were huge, room-filling mechanical devices. Hard for us to comprehend with our present-day definition of "computer", but probably worked as a sensible idea for the audiences of mid-to-late 60's.

    -I assumed the "festival" was Landru's way of letting the people blow off pent-up aggression and frustration, so that they could sustain their politeness the rest of the time. But that was just my assumption. . . they certainly didn't address it in the episode itself, which I thought was odd because it was a big deal at first and then never mentioned again.

    -I also laughed out loud when the guards were left gaping at their destroyed Landru computer while Kirk walked by and said "If I were you I'd start looking for another job". Look at it from the guard's point of view. Some alien guys show up and destroy their system of government, philosophy, and religion all in one brief logic- conversation. Then head-alien (Kirk) just says, "see ya later suckers!" If I were the guards I'd be like: What the hell, man! We were fine before you got here!

    -At this stage going through TOS's first season for the first time, I am noticing that almost all aliens they encounter look pretty much exactly like humans. With the exceptions of Spock, Romulans, Balok (Corbomite Maneuver) and the Gorn, pretty much all aliens they find on other planets are just humans. (The one with the kids who fear the "groups", this episode, the "Taste of Armageddon", etc.)

    I recognize that budgets for makeup etc. were limited back in the day, so it's not a big deal, but it is a noticeable deviation that I'm glad the later Star Trek Spinoffs corrected. In those later shows, they would almost always add a little brow ridge, ear deviation, or even just a different hairstyle to show that someone is not human.

    Easily one of my top 10 episodes of the original series. I liked this one as a kid, but it's really grown on me over time. This is the first episode Kirk talks a computer to death. Classic. "It is almost the red hour" - that was absolutely the line used in college that we were about to party somewhere. And my personal favorite line in maybe all of Star Trek - "Are you of the body?" That was stoner code for - "are you baked?" The corollary to that - McCoy's angst ridden "you are NOT of the body!" was almost more classic. love, love love this episode.

    Of course it was a bit silly (again human-looking aliens, everything looks like puritan paradise), but I liked the premise and especially this sort of adventure/mystery, that many later ST-series failed to create. Dark chambers, etc.

    Yeah I used to have some affection for this one in spite of its flaws. Or maybe because of them.

    Note: I like how easily Sulu gets 'absorbed' and yet Kirk is allowed to get away with blue murder.

    Much like dgalvan's comment above about Kirk's smugness at the end, I also laughed when Scotty says something about Sulu being back to normal and Sulu gives a coy little smirk and then says to the con officer 'relieving you'.

    Okay, being passionate about TOS since its original run doesn't keep me from seeing it clearly and analytically.
    The Festival.
    5 PM until 6 AM.
    Freak all night and clean/rebuild all day?
    Is this every night? The streets were clean and unobstructed when Kirk and the Boys arrived so either all of the detritus and destruction from last night's mayhem had been dealt with already or there had been no Festival last night.
    Broken glass, burned rubble, physical injuries.
    I saw the prelude to rape, people hit with large sticks, rocks and other formidable objects being hurled about....Reger's daughter suffering obvious post-Festival trauma;
    Who picks up the pieces and when is the laundry done?
    When do these people sleep? Do they sleep at all? They do have beds.
    And when Kirk and Co. arrive at Reger's hideaway, how is it that the torches are already lit?
    Did you see the shadow of Reger's hand on the LightPanel, bottom right corner, as he sets it down? A shadow on a luminous light source such as this? A reflection perhaps, but not a shadow...Unless you're on a soundstage with overhead lighting and the LightPanel is a prop.
    Oish! I'm only 19 minutes into the episode!
    Oh, and the one who directs our Heroes to Reger's house for shelter soon after their arrival-worst overdub EVER.

    Oh, and they walk so slowly. How does ANYTHING get done?
    And McCoy gets absorbed but he's not set free by the LawGivers to experience FESTIVAL?
    He's absorbed. He's Of The Body.
    He should've been let free. "We were told to wait here" he says.
    In the same prison cell as the infidels?
    Strange. And then he's surprised and agitated when he realizes that Kirk and Crew are not Of The Body. There's just no logical continuity.
    Agonizing.
    A real winceFest.

    Jonn, Festival is not every night. It's once in a while. They thought the landing party travelled in from the Valley to attend it. You wouldn't travel in from the Valley every night.

    Did anyone else find it really annoying that none of Kirk's party tried to escape the jail cell under their own steam? That cell door took aeons to close and the guards never even looked behind themselves, but everyone just waited quietly in the cell to be absorbed one by one. WTF?

    Why does this seem like the quintessential TOS episode? It seems to hit all the tropes: alien planet conveniently reminiscent of a Paramount set, absurd special effects (throw a firecracker inside an empty tube, that'll be dramatic), an utterly goofy plot, Kirk outwitting a computer, overacting, what more could you want? As silly as it is though, I think it has a certain charm to it.

    I love all the little details that went into the plot. It's not just some sort of talk about joining a utopia, you must be "of the body." Kirk and company aren't just outsiders beaming down, they are the Archons. This isn't just a typical brainwashed community, they have a red hour where everyone goes insane. The crowd on the planet aren't just obstacles for Kirk to work around, there was an active resistance movement hidden within cells of three. And, of course, the computer wasn't the overseer or some cliche name like that, he was Landru. Whatever one can say about this episode, it was certainly wasn't dull. Despite the goofiness of it, there's a bit of an epic feel to it I think.

    BTW, as for the Festival, I agree that it's a relatively rare phenomenon that is there to allow for pent-up emotions to be released. Plot-wise, I think it's there to drive home both the horror of Landru's rule as well as to provide a reason for La Resistance. Of course, it also worked to start the mystery of what's going on here. Other than the teaser of Sulu and the random other guy getting caught, of course.

    I'm gonna say that I felt the episode lacked "cosmetic" consistency. Ok, you want to do an episode in random TV sets, fine, but at least try to follow a theme. The main one is like old western town, then when they are in the safe spot / Jail it looks like medieval thing and, finally, the computer room/mindbreak room were the classic minimalist high-tech place. All of them looking pretty cheap and unconvincing. Plus, they never comment how similar to old earth this place is? The streets reminded me of Miri's "planet".

    I liked the mistery and weirdness factor in the beginning, even when some things don't add up in the long run. Happy McCoy and Zulu were very funny as well.

    while were doing the "Computer ™" and "Kirk Outsmarts the Computer ™" thing think "Wesley Crusher Outsmarts everything ™" of TNG for comparison:)

    An episode that touched on a number of classic Trek themes that would be re-visited in subsequent episodes -- so something of a landmark episode even though it's not that notable in itself.
    There is definitely the theme of communism under Landru (communal society without a soul/individuality) and Kirk & Co. quickly recognize that it's not a productive society -- applaud Trek for taking on this theme -- the heat beams on the Enterprise make their mission clear.
    I enjoyed the episode except for the ending where Kirk (with Spock's help) use logic to cause the computer to destroy itself. Why didn't the computer use the soundwaves again to knock everybody out?
    The festival/red hour was left to the viewer's interpretation - but omitting it would not have affected the plot - a non-sequitur, I think maybe to fill time.
    Like many TOS episodes, an excellent premise with some questionable plot twists, some things unexplained, but still an enjoyable hour. For me 2.5/4 stars.

    @ Rahul,

    I would suggest to you that Festival is the most relevant event in the episode. The argument against controlling people through an enforced 'peace' would be that they only submit to it through force, not through agreement or good will. The episode seems to me to show that although passivity was forced upon the populace on the surface (in this case, technologically), brewing beneath it was a chaotic frenzy that no threat could squash. Festival was that society's way of venting those angry and frenzies impulsed brought on by the everyday tyranny of life there. Although it's notable that even the need for Festival already admits to a flaw in that kind of forced control of human beings, nevertheless by actually seeing the ugliness of it we're shown the ugliness of what that system really is. There is nothing at all peaceful about civility at the point of a gun.

    This morning I watched the first half of the episode for the first time in many years. I was struck by a few things I never noticed before. For one thing, the manner of calling the citizens members of "the body" is an automatic Christianity reference, implying "body of Christ", which is a term for the Church. Looking at the episode from memory I remembered thinking it was about communism as Jammer suggested, but watching it again made it clear that it was meant to be a Christian community. The tone of the citizens support the idea that they are supposed to be Christians, on account of the apparent mindless glee on their faces, the 'vacant minds', the friendliness (at first glance), and the absolute requirement to take in strangers and put them up for the night. This strikes me as exactly the way someone critical of some aspects of Christianity would view a Christian community, and especially so for the fact that everyone was brainwashed by a central authority.

    To hammer in the point that this is about Christians (and how new members are 'absorbed' rather than killed if possible) we have the "red hour", which seems to me clearly to imply the pandemonium and violence associated with communism. In Russia, for instance, communism was ostensibly a response to a very Christian society, where all of the old values were turned on their head through force and mayhem. Within the context of the literal details in the episode Festival serves to vent the frustrated energies of the people, while on the interpretive side it seems to imply that when you enforce an unnaturally perfect behavior code on people it will result in extreme blowback, which on a cultural level can lead to very bad results like communism.

    A side note I'll make about this episode is that it seems to almost serve as a counter-argument against the future of humanity as depicted in the later TNG series. In TNG we're told that humanity has evolved beyond the point of aggression and violence, and that the people on Earth are peaceful and resolve all differences intellectually. But for those who are TOS fans we know that in Kirk's time there was plenty of 'red blooded' heartiness among the Starfleet officers we see, including lust, aggression, sometimes the desire for vengeance, and so forth. And as humane as Kirk's approach typically was to resolving conflicts, one thing we cannot realistically say is that the methods on TOS were universally non-violent. "Errand of Mercy" is a good showcase for that. The events of "Return of the Archons" seem to suggest that mankind naturally has a kind of aggression and pent up energy (including sexual) which must be expressed in some way in order for people not to explode from time to time. In TNG we seem to be presented with a sort of sanitized society free from those visceral impulses, except maybe for Riker, who almost stands as a commentary on the docility of the other humans on the show. But here in TOS we're being shown that being docile or perfectly calm isn't the end-all in becoming an advanced culture. Rather, the key probably ought to be to integrate all of the darker impulses into a constructive way of life, rather than to pretend they're not there. Right or wrong, TOS seems to frequently argue for the Kirk way of life, which is passionate but logical, adventurous but humane. In Voyager Janeway basically refers to this crew as cowboys, and from the perspective of TOS it seems like the idea is being put forward that anything shy of having the gusto of cowboys is selling humanity short.

    @Peter G.,

    Thanks for your comment - sorry I didn't notice it until now. I can see where you're coming from re. Festival. I think you're right in that it has a significance for what it says about the society under Landru's control, but it didn't seem to factor into Kirk & Co.'s plans for freeing the society and the Enterprise. Once it was done, it was done and it seems to just be treated as another bizarre aspect of the computer-controlled society.

    What I think about is, if Festival is a period when the people are not under Landru's control, wouldn't they try to do what Kirk & Co. are trying to do i.e. figure out how to "unplug" Landru rather than destroying and going bananas? Or maybe they've simply lost the ability to think independently and can only rebel mindlessly.

    @ Rahul,

    Rather, I would suggest that Festival wasn't an unforeseen blip in the system, but was a control mechanism introduced by Landru when it became clear that the oppressive control was unacceptable on some level to the people. The computer system would recognize this and introduce a pressure valve. Not only do I not think the people were independently rebelling during Festival, but on the contrary, I think Landu forced them into periodic frenzy to release the tensions introduced by the forced peace. As they said in The Matrix, it's just another layer of control.

    Intriguing deep thought episode of TOS that is richly layered and provocative despite some hokey computer stuff at the end. I like all of the little details we learn about this society and its resistance movement. But what makes "Return of the Archons" linger so strongly is the iconographic moments like the "Red Hour" -- an instant pop culture classic in which the computer Landru regulates the ID of the people by letting them get out their repressed aggressions -- and the brown-robed lawgivers zapping people with mysterious happy rays. One reason I love TOS is that it preserves a sense of mystery and adventure rather than stopping to talk everything to death with nonsense science, unlike later Trek series, and yet it still preserves time to talk about big issues in language even a 12-year old can understand. This one is a classic Roddenberry critique of fundamentalist totalitarian societies -- whether secular or religious -- which stage-manage people's emotions and I give it 3 stars.

    Not much else to add here; it's just a cool mysterious episode with almost a Doctor Who vibe of hokiness mixed with intelligent analysis of big issues. But I will say I enjoyed Sulu's landing party teaser and McCoy's later absorption into the body, as well as Spock's look of bland indifference and even boredom as he's strapped to the wall for absorption -- and his sly smirk as he says "peace and contentment on his way out is a hoot. You may capture Spock, but there's no way you'll ever intimidate him with things which make no scientific sense like hollow tube guns. Nobody puts Spock in the corner.

    Side note: It's cool seeing the Landru communication hologram today, as DS9 experimented with hologram comm systems on the Defiant toward the end of its run and Discovery now uses them as the norm instead of view screens. I don't recall that TNG, Voyager (other than the Doctor), or Enterprised used holograms for communication in this way. But holograms pop up on TOS every now and then, a decade before Star Wars gave us the "help us Obi Wan" hologram. Fascinating stuff.

    PS -- I also love how casually the Prime Directive makes its first appearance in the Trek universe here, with Spock mentioning the "non-interference directive" and Kirk casually pointing out that it doesn't apply since this people's natural growth has been hijacked by the computerized personification (a less sophisticated version of the Doctor hologram on Voyager) of a long-dead dictator. (Imagine if Lenin or Stalin had impressed themselves into a computer and subjected the Soviet Union to their pre-programmed ideological directives for all time, fooling the people into gradual submission and acceptance of routine, a shockingly believable scenario when you think about it.) Classic Kirk and dead-on right, not to mention the fact that Landru is destroying the ship with heat beams and must be stopped in the interest of self-defense. The critique of the machine's idea of a peaceful and harmonious society achieved by suppressing human freedom, lacking even the dead dictator's human wisdom and capacity for development, is smart stuff.

    I found this to be an excellent episode, and agree with Trekfan's wonderful comments above. I would add one point: TOS' abstract, expressionistic and broader style allowed it to briskly convey more than later, more "realistic" Trek. Here, in less than an hour, we have an entire revolution against a totalitarian society portrayed (complete with underground resistance cells and interesting layers of propaganda and control)!

    I've been rewatching TOS and I just realized, thematically Landru and the Body are very similar to the Borg. The loss of individuality in favor of the "collective good", assimilation - er I mean absorption - there are quite a few similarities, enough to make me wonder if the TNG writers were "inspired" by this episode in any way.

    If Kirk had been around in TNG days, his solution to the Borg probably would have involved making out with the Borg Queen before talking the Borg into a logical feedback loop that blows them all up. :)

    A couple of thoughts I've had over the years. Doesn't Festival resemble Pon Farr? Pon Farr affects only a few, and is not as violent. It happens every 7 years, while I assume Festival is yearly. But there are similarities.
    If the Landru computer is 4000 years old, why is it even working? I would have expected the priests or lawgivers to know the truth, and to be in charge of maintenance and reprogramming. It may be like that because it's suffering the computer of senility. Don't destroy it. Repair it.
    And if you want to know why things are the way they are in New Orleans, "it is the will of (Mayor) Landrieu."

    Okay episode, but just curious— didn’t the Enterprise go to the planet in the first place because another starship had gone there some time before and was never heard from again? Did that plot thread get resolved? I was waiting to hear that the whole computer-run society evolved from the past crashed starship but nothing like that was mentioned.

    Hello Everyone!

    @Joe M.

    It has been a while, but I always thought they figured the Archon crew had been absorbed into "the Body", but they had fought it long enough they had earned Legendary status among the rebels. That was my take anyway. The Landru computer seemed to have been around for a long time before the Archon arrived.

    Regards... RT

    When Landru’s Projection first appears to announce to Kirk: Landru said “Your individuality will be absorbed into the greater good...”

    Borg Assimilation, anyone?

    Kind of silly and a below average ep overall - I don't much care for "Kirk outsmarts the Machine" eps, in general. It's Shatner at his worst.

    I did like the way it reminded me of The Borg.

    I dont what it is about this episode I find very uncomfortable to watch.

    Starlight Starlight Starlight Glimmer... sorry ignore me...

    Wasn't a fan of this, most of the episode dragged. French Andrew then gets told to blow up with a dose of American Dream logic, and does so. It probably seemed deep at the time though.

    I think Peter G got this right, that much of the phrasing, costumes, and gesturing were trying to mock Christianity to an extent. However, the episode isn't consistently anti-Christian as the solution to beating the machine is telling them how important soul and human spirit are (which is a message aligned with Christian values).

    Otherwise, yeah, it's a pretty generic Kirk versus the cult of bad ideology episode. The messages here get better treatment in "The Ultimate Computer", "This Side of Paradise" and even "The Apple". I did find it a pretty fun watch however, and you got to love Kirk being all cavalier the whole episode. The part where he tells one of the law guardians that "you better start looking for a new job" came off really funny considering the circumstances.

    @ Chrome,

    "However, the episode isn't consistently anti-Christian as the solution to beating the machine is telling them how important soul and human spirit are (which is a message aligned with Christian values)."

    Yeah, I would say that the message seems to be against what I would call 'fake Christianity', i.e. the sort of society that forces a bunch of conduct and for everyone to walk around pretending to be happy all the time. It's the Christian-shaped tyranny that I think is being criticized, which to be fair many Americans probably equate with Christianity as a whole anyhow. But I think Kirk and co. are effectively operating as "real Christians" here insofar as they see it as their obvious goal to save people who are in trouble and to help them start thinking for themselves.

    I also agree that this is another "look for a better structure" type episode, and it's probably most like The Apple in that a happy-seeming people are told it's not good enough. The difference here is that the people aren't really happy, they're just forced into a mode of conduct that in reality leads to explosions. So basically the episode is saying this model doesn't work at all. In The Apple that type of society actually does work, but at the expense of keeping the people like children for all time. The Side of Paradise is actually a funny one and I'm not even sure where that one lands in Trek ethics. Basically it's a strange case of mutualistic parasitism where the spores get what they need and give the humans everything they need, albeit also at the expense of their ambitions. I feel like that one is closer to really asking "do people really need their ambitions, or are those just a means to get to the pleasure they want?"

    I find this episode to be slightly sad. In my opinion, to be evil is to knowingly and consciously take the free will from a living, sentient being against their own will. So by that logic, the computer was not evil, it was just doing wht it thought was right.

    @ Atomguy,

    Just a thought - you may find eventually that most bad actions are done with a sort of ignorance of their real implication. There's an expression "they know not what they do", which is to say maybe they know on some surface level but that doesn't mean really knowing the long-term effects and their implications. People take a little bribe, eh, they know it's a small offense and what's the difference. They don't know that if that creates a culture of corruption then the small offense is actually building up a major problem likely involving a lot of death.

    Is the computer running on autopilot really different from most of us when we do things we shouldn't? I'd say only a handful of people do things that are wrong, they know they are wrong, they know exactly the full implications, and still don't care.

    @Peter G

    Then many are ignorant, or trying and failing to help, and few are evil. I suppose that if you keep trying to help and it is only making things worse, then they are ignorant, but the computer eventually seems to realize in its last moments that it was in fact the problem.

    Far from perfect, with some really dragged out scenes in the middle to fill it up. But as some have already pointed out, it's strength lies in its goofyness.

    The end, especially, had me laughing several times.

    Mr. Lindstrom reporting from the surface to Kirk.
    "How's it going?"
    "Couldn't be better. Already this morning we had half a dozen domestic quarrels and two genuine knockdown drag-outs. It may not be paradise but it's certainly human."
    "Sounds most promising."

    or when the computer has been destroyed and Marplon and the robed servants looks upon it as Kirk leaves.
    "Let's go see how the others are doing. Marplon can finish up here."

    Yeah, they can thank them later XD Let me tell you, had it been Janeway instead of Kirk people would absolutely LOSE it.

    1,5 Stars.

    Not the best episode, but it's the first to feature a fun aspect of Trek that I love. It's always fun to see the crew dress up and go undercover.

    Is it just me or does this episode seem to be the birth of the concept of The Matrix...

    Fascinating @Peter G. Of course authoritarianism can be just as easily secular and confessional, but until I read your comment, I had never really thought of this episode that way.

    In the end, I have to go with @Chrome, just as you did.

    I'm not sure if you (@Peter G.) or @Chrome have read "Radio Free Albemuth" by Philip K. Dick (who also wrote Blade Runner), but I think you might really, really enjoy it!

    @NCC-1701-Z, LOL! I would pay good money to see Kirk make out with the Borg queen. "What are little girls made of," indeed :-)

    The Red Hour reminds me of this article on German nudity during communism I was reading recently:

    "For Germans living in the communist GDR, where travel, personal liberties and sales of consumer goods were curtailed, [free body culture] functioned in part as a “safety valve,” according to Bauerkämper; a way to let off tension in a deeply restrictive state by providing a bit of “free movement”."

    Man, life on the other side of that iron curtain must have been so different...

    An intriguing episode. To begin with, one could easily say this would have made a better segment for "The Outer Limits" rather than Trek - it's inventive sci-fi that holds up just for its length but no further.

    You could also say that it's a forerunner of 'The Handmaid's Tale', except that the conditioning applies equally to men and women. Notice the hoods on the brown-clad enforcers? Very similar to the white hoods the Handmaids wear. And when McCoy is conditioned, he comes out with "Blessed be the Body!". I wonder... did Margaret Attwood unconsciously reference this episode for T.H.T.?

    There were weaknesses in the story. Why did the brown enforcers talk and act like computers, yet were actually revealed to be men after a fist fight (in the 4th episode in a row!!)? Why was there no explanation of an alien planet kitted out like a 19th Century Wild West set? Why, when the away team arrived, everything was perfect, yet when 6 a.m. sounded after the first night's Festival, the mess from rioting was all around - no-one cleared up? And, of course, the end scene - a computer powerful enough to trap the Enterprise and keep an entire population enslaved, falls for some very limp logic from Kirk.

    However, it's nevertheless a good episode and has some good moments. The first ever mention of The Prime Directive (ironically also used by the computer to assert its own motives!); and Kirk makes a good speech near the end about the importance of freedom to make mistakes being an essential part of the human condition.

    3 stars (just about...)

    I just read the other comments: several mentions of Christianity including "fake Christianity" - which rather enforces similarities to The Handmaid's Tale.

    Just rewatched Archons for first time in many years. Agree with all the previous comments on the clash between free will and totalitarian control. From the perspective of a 6,000 year old society with too much anarchy, aggression and lethal high tech, however, the appeal of turning decisions over to a “benignly-objective” artificial intelligence inspired by a powerful historical leader could be appealing.

    Funny recollection: I always thought the holographic “Landru” had more than a passing resemblance to Pres. ANDREW Jackson (look at a $20 bill). Same hairstyle, face and robed garment. Not suggesting any metaphorical significance though.

    There are great comments from @Peter G, @Chrome and @Mal above. I'm not sure if the Body is meant to explicitly represent Christianity (certainly not as a whole but maybe certain offshoots and sects of it); if anything the Body has parallels to just about any cult or oppressive ideology that you can imagine. In particular, an allusion to the horrors of Communism can strongly be implied here, especially with the emphasis on collectivism at the expense of individuals, and the "Red Hour." And ironically my mind first found the Reger "triad" to be evocative of the Christian Holy Trinity, and so this episode could even be seen as pro-Christian / pro-Western in certain cases. This was the Cold War, after all.

    It's a very simplistic story here, its metaphors and allegories rather obvious. The brown-shirts and their Wokeblaster tubes are standing in for government minders and fascist enforcers, "absorbing" the populace and punishing the "wrong-thinkers." And if you think Mike is right and that this is just an old-fashioned and obsolete take on modern society, with outdated metaphors only "relevant to the 60's," I would tell you to play close attention to McCoy's crazed reaction, while "of the Body," upon realizing that Kirk is an interloper. It's as if McCoy was a member of today's Woke mob who's just heard someone say that men can't get pregnant. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

    The Festival / Red Hour also made me think of those stupid Purge movies. While the message is trite, both "Return of the Archons" and The Purge make the point that full-blown oppression is bad for the mind, and that such subjugated people would really need such a release ("pressure valve" was Peter G's good name for it) to blow off some steam. The episode clearly lands on the side of intellectual and individual freedom, showing that those of the Body are utterly bereft of ambition, passion and incentive in the name of passivity and "tranquility" of their society. Of course they would snap without the Festival Hour.

    Kirk's confrontation with the Landru computer (the "indoctrination center," of course) at the end was simplistic and silly ("YOU ARE THE EVIL!"), but it sure was largely accurate. The Computer reacted exactly as members of a brainwashed group do, whether they be part of an oppressive religious cult, the anti-vaccine movement or the Woke mob. When they are confronted with logic and facts, their heads explode.


    Best Line:

    Kirk -- “How’s it going?”

    Lindstrom -- “Couldn’t be better. Already this morning we’ve had half a dozen domestic quarrels and two genuine knock-down drag-outs."


    My Grade: C+

    I never could get why Sulu could be "absorbed" instantly with a shot from an empty tube, while those taken to the prison had to be marched down to be zapped by a big machine. Why didn't the lawgivers just blast them with a tube as soon as they realized they were not of the Body?

    Just one of the things I wonder!

    @ Trish,

    Clearly they knew Sulu already had extensive experience with the big stupid grin.

    Quite a disturbing opening sequence to this episode. Bearing in mind that Reger's daughter is so traumatised after the Festival that McCoy has to give her a tranquiliser - when everyone is meant to be back to their bliss-of-Landru state - the enforced release of ID type emotions is especially hard on the women as they are the targets of sexual assault. My take on Festival is not just that it's a "natural" effect of Landru taking the brakes off. When Latimer points out the creepy man with the teeth to Reger as the man who attacked (and presumably raped) his daughter, Reger says it wasn't him - it was Landru. My interpretation is that Landru, in a literal computer way, found out early on in its rule that suppression of normal emotion wasn't healthy for the population and caused neuroses, so decided to make sure all violent emotions were purged by actually forcing the population to experience them. Landru's rule is therefore evil and has to be put to a stop.

    The Festival is definitely not every night - I think it must have occurred annually and after harvest since the food must be grown for towns and cities in outside places such as the Valley and it wouldn't be much good if the farmers were ripping up and trampling the crops. The only thing that is odd is that no one cleans up afterwards although it does make it handy when Landru mobilises the citizenry who only have to pick up the handy bricks and other objects as weapons. In reality, you'd think that people would be tasked to clean up and at least put temporary repairs in place pending replacement of window glass etc.

    Another thing I found interesting is that the "resistance" isn't really that at all - Reger and his colleague are practically paralysed with fear at the prospect of actually taking action against Landru when Kirk tells them they have to do something practical. They mention prophecy - Kirk impatiently cuts them off when they bring this up - but it seems that they were expecting the Archons to come back and do everything for them. The "resistance" is really a talking shop about the magical time when the Archons will return. Reger's colleague is a bit more active - he does prevent Kirk and Spock being brainwashed and he guides them to the audience hall - but Reger, who had been a bit more active before, taking Kirk and co to a safe place, breaks down under the strain and tries to throw himself on Landru's mercy. So they aren't a real resistance at all because they expected someone else to do the job for them and when it comes down to it, at least in Reger's case, are sorry they ever questioned the will of Landru.

    @Ms Spock

    Good observations on both subjects. Concerning the Festival, I think it’s intentional and quite clever to leave most questions regarding its rules and purposes unanswered. We see the scene through the eyes of the Enterprise crew: at first the creepy, nightmarish atmosphere, the tension of imminent danger, and then the breakout of violence and total chaos. They don’t know what to make of this, how to behave and react… but it’s clear that any break of those rules they don’t know can be deadly dangerous.

    I also agree with your thoughts on the “resistance”. It seems that Landru’s mental control over the people is so powerful that even those who resist aren’t “immune” to it… they can only fight against being “absorbed” into the Body, but just as everyone else they have lost their free will and thinking. As you say, all they can do is to wait and be prepared for the Archons to return – they could never have brought about Landru’s downfall alone. I particularly liked the short dialogue in the cell when Kirk says: “You said you wanted freedom. It's time you learn that freedom is never a gift. It has to be earned.” They wanted to be freed from Landru’s control, but this means they’ll be on their own again – which is clearly better but may not always be as easy as having a computer mastermind taking care of everything.

    Meh. Better than some episodes and not as good as others. Without creativity, the body dies. This episode could use a little more creativity. Given Kirk's womanizing history, I think that the red hour would have been a natural for him.

    Tuning into this midstream, it struck me I might have stumbled into another Mad Holodeck episode of the Next Generation.

    A fairly typical Roddenberry story, so it's idealistic, with dysfunctions obvious, and which institution he was now pillorying left vague so the viewer could decide. It's the Church, it's the Commies, it's the fill in the blank. I suppose it doesn't matter which since Gene's solution was always 1950s Superman's truth, justice, and the American way.

    Archons is a fertile ground for quotes. In school, I, too, remember lots of "Come for the Festival, aye ya?", "Festival! Festival!" and "Happy communing." I'd watched syndicated TOS in three different broadcast areas, and one station, can't remember which, always completely omitted the teaser, which was a bizarre way to trim the length.

    This has always been a middle of the pack episode for me, maybe just a bit below average. I think the plot ambiguity and loose threads were a bit too much, I appreciate a bit of mystery and I don’t need everything explained in detail, but there were several open ended points that seemed to just go nowhere and then get dropped. An example is Spock’s examination of the mind control sticks in which he notes that they’re just unremarkable hollow tubes. This could imply that there’s a certain placebo effect at work with these townsfolk, which I thought was taking us in a new direction, obviously that would complicate sulu’s experience at the beginning of the show, but frustratingly the whole matter seemed to just be abandoned. Stuff like that gets distracting, as it feels like poor storytelling.

    The red hour is an odd point in the story that always bothered me too, but I think if you view the violence and aggression on display during the festival as just as much a product of landru’s mind control as the docility and calm of the normal state of the townsfolk’s behavior it starts to make sense. These people aren’t venting pent up emotions, they’re being forced to do unspeakable things due to some lunatic’s delusional ideas of the perfect society. I also think it’s worth noting that the red hour doesn’t strike me as being a “normal” part of landru’s control, but is rather an escalating malfunction that could eventually destroy this whole civilization. I doubt that landru originally planned to have everyone beat the shit out of each other every so often as a way of blowing off steam, additionally the festival seems unlikely to be sustainable at any frequency given the level of carnage we see. So the computer, left running and improperly tended, has begun to falter like the first wobbles of a spinning top before it flails out of control, the result being the nightmarish brutality of the red hour. Maybe.

    I agree with the great comments above about the episode’s commentary on authoritarianism vs individuality, which I think is the saving grace for this outing. The creepy vibe of “the body”, in which people behaved more like insects in a colony than humans in a society was well accomplished. And of course, Kirk vs the computer is the kind of bedrock cliche that I so enjoy. Kirk snuggly dropping a one liner to a guy whose whole civilization lies in virtual ruins around him is just…amazing.

    Why did the crew not try to escape from the dungeon?

    Because they knew a giant black cat was on the other side of the door.

    Or, because they knew Ayelborne would open the door and let them out.

    The same set was used on multiple episodes, and maybe the original pilot too where Pike was taunted by the telepathic aliens.

    Why was festival only twelve hours once a year?

    Because it took them the rest of the year to replace all the broken glass and repair the doors and windows, moving awful slow.

    Does not the computer we all have in our pockets control our lives and tell us what to do and how to think?

    Forced peace is still force, and force will never equal freedom or happiness.

    This is definitely an episode I don't watch very often. Other commenters have discussed this episode in length, so I'll keep this brief. "Archons" has an interesting premise, but for whatever reason the story wasn't developed enough. There are too many questions that don't get answered or, at the very least, fully answered. There are some classic bits of dialog and being the first "Kirk Outsmarts the Computer" episode definitely counts for something. But this script really needed more work.

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