By 
Title: The Empath
Airdate: 12/6/1968
Plot Summary
The Empath begins with the Enterprise comes to a science station that’s been studying a star that’s about to go nova. When they investigate, they find that the scientists have been kidnapped. Soon Kirk, Spock, and McCoy are also taken and thanks to a solar flare, the Enterprise must leave for a while to save the ship. The landing party meets a mute they name Jem (or Gem?) who is being tested by some big head aliens to see if she can learn compassion or something.
Kirk and McCoy get tortured near death and Gem (Jem? Truly outrageous) must overcome her fears of her own death to use her powers to heal them.
Risk Is Our Business
Kirk gets tortured but cured by Gem. Later on, he basically guilt-trips the Vians into saving not only McCoy but Gem’s planet as well. To be fair, he’s not wrong, but it was surprising that it worked.
Logical
Once again, Spock shows great affection and worry towards McCoy when it appears Bones is dying. McCoy compliments him on his bedside manner.
He’s Dead Jim
McCoy hits Kirk and Spock with the hypospray so that Vians take him instead of his two friends, resulting in him being near death if it weren’t for Gem.
Helm Sluggish Captain
Sulu gets the Enterprise a safe distance from the planet and, more specifically, the solar flare.
Nuclear Wessels
No Chekov this time.
Hailing Frequencies Open, Sugar
No Uhura either.
My Wee Bairns
Scotty takes the Enterprise out of range. He also mentions the story of the merchant that the others are not familiar with. This is a turnabout when he didn’t know his Milton in Space Seed.
Canon Maker
Science outposts with minimal personnel are established as a thing to observe various scientific and stellar phenomena.
Canon Breaker
So I’m going to put this under canon breaker but I’ll admit I could be dead wrong. Why couldn’t the Enterprise just position itself behind the planet to protect itself from the solar flare? I suppose maybe it’s better safe than sorry but it seemed like just an excuse to get them away from the main trio for a while.
Dr. Ozaba quotes Psalms and intimates that God is messing with the planet. Admittedly it was just minor snarky comment but it does once again throw the whole idea of religion in Star Trek into more confusion. While he wasn’t all preachy or anything, it also didn’t sound completely dismissive either. Hard to say either way but just something I observed.
Man It Feels Bad To Be A Red Shirt
No deaths! Although a hologram Scotty and a redshirt search party disappear. Oh and Linke and Ozaba die and get put in tubes. That’s close enough.
Technobabble
While I’m not confident on whether or not the Enterprise could definitely shield itself from a solar flare with a planet, I am confident that a solar flare could wreak havoc if it hit the Enterprise. That sort of thing was a problem even in TNG time. Shields can only do so much.
I Know That Guy:
Kathryn Hays plays Gem in The Empath, the eponymous character of this episode. She was most known for playing Kim Hughes in As the World Turns from 1972 to 2010.
Willard Sage played Thann. He was probably most known for playing the villain in the 1954 Dragnet film. Alan Bergmann played his cohort Lal.
Davis Roberts plays Dr. Ozaba. He was mostly known for playing Sanford’s doctor, Caldwell, in Sanford and Son. He tended to play against stereotypes by playing mostly dignified and refined roles.
Jason Wingreen played Dr. Linke. He was most known for playing the bartender Harry in All In The Family and later the spinoff Archie Bunker’s place. Fun fact, while Jeremy Bulloch played Boba Fett in costume, Wingreen supplied his voice in the original Star Wars trilogy before it changed to Temuera Morrison’s in the (not so) Special Editions.
Richard Geary was apparently cured of being a hyper-accelerated Scalosian, changed his name, enlisted in Starfleet, and got assigned to the Enterprise as a security guard. I’m guessing he did the academy training and all while he was still accelerated. Or maybe the actor is playing a different part but I choose this for my head canon.
What It Means To Be Human – Review
Several times in these reviews I have mentioned that I love a concept that gets let down in execution. A giant space amoeba? Cool, if only it wasn’t paced so poorly. An alternate universe made of antimatter? Cool! Too bad it’s the worst episode of the series. The list goes on and on.
Here in The Empath we have a fairly well-executed episode on a really shitty concept. So two aliens who I guess are the only ones left on this barren world in a system whose star is going to nova are performing sadistic experiments. On top of that we have other planets in the system that are populated.
The two aliens spend their time dicking around with Gem to see if her race is worthy of being saved. So… the other races aren’t getting tested? Or here’s an idea, if you only have the ability to save one, is it because you only have so much time? Maybe don’t spend it doing these grotesque tests you might be able to save more people?
Wait, are there multiple races on the same world or more than one world? How do these two have the ability to save the races? Is it a transporter thing? I didn’t see any massive Death Star ships that could hold a world’s population floating around anywhere.
And even if this Gem passes the test, how is she the representative of her entire world? Glad they didn’t pick a criminal, drug user, or just general asshole. Point is, how is one person being worthy mean that the entire race is worthy?
For that matter why in the world would they be UNWORTHY? For god’s sake, a planet is about to be vaporized, let’s save the people! You can’t tell me there aren’t several million “Gems” in there no matter how she passed or failed.
And fuck me, why is the Federation completely unconcerned by all this? It’s not even remotely suggested that the Enterprise or Federation should be trying to evacuate these planets. They are only interested in “cool, big star go boom. Let’s take some readings.”
Kirk gets all smug with the aliens about their lack of compassion but really, who is he to judge?
McCoy calls Gem an “empath.” My understanding of an empath is that it’s similar to a telepath except instead of reading thoughts, you read emotions. Nowhere in any definitions that I’ve found does it mean take on someone else’s injuries to heal them. I suppose in the way McCoy explained it you could, if you twist yourself up, could see it as the ultimate empath. But I still think it’s weak sauce.
The Vians claim that the death of the two scientists was because “their fear killed them.” Really? Judging from Bones and Kirk’s wounds, I bet it was the internal injuries that killed them, ya liars.
That all being said, if you can get past all that (which I really can’t), the specifics of the episode itself are pretty cool. The Vians bear a passing resemblance to the Talos aliens. It has the trippy feel of The Cage and even more so by just using a big sound stage with minimal sets and a lot of creative lighting.
Hays does a nice job portraying Gem, given she has no lines thanks to being an alien with no vocal cords. The idea of learning sacrifice for others is a noble goal.
Then of course, you have the general interplay between Kirk, Spock, and McCoy which is really pitch perfect. Their concern for each other’s well-being is shown everywhere. Spock’s concern for McCoy, Kirk for all of them, McCoy and Spock objecting to Kirk’s offering of himself, it’s all nicely played.
But in the end, I just think the Vians are complete assholes, the Federation has some explaining to do on their end, and all of it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Did not like.
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