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"Requiem for Methuselah" Full Reaction! - Star Trek: TOS Season 3 (Patreon)

Published:
2024-12-06 19:00:07
Edited:
2026-02-23 01:46:19
Imported:
2026-06
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Follow along using your own copy of the episode!

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"Requiem for Methuselah" Full Reaction! - Star Trek: TOS Season 3

Comments

Mike Collins

"I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream" was my favorite Ellison as a teen. Try to find a story called "All the Birds Come Home to Roost", a powerful non-scifi story.

Skyman's Follies

After 2 "meh-pisodes" and, near the end of the "dreaded" Season 3 of TOS, no Coon, no Justman, no Fontana, Roddenberry barely around, and yet we have one of the most affecting episodes and perhaps, one of the most emotional endings, of the entire series. Gorgeous performances by James Daly and Louise Sorel - both of them embodied their characters fully. True: Kirk's passion for Rayna is quick, but, come on, they've got 53 minutes to get to the point and, I think we can allow for some compressed storytelling. Bunny, about half way through the episode, I realized I was watching you watch Flint watch Kirk and Spock and wondered... is anybody watching me? Maybe M4? Cheers to a good episode and fasten your seatbelts for next week, ; )

Greg

I totally agree with what Skyman said. I always liked this episode -- it's not amazing, but it's above average for me, and one of the better episodes of the up and down Season 3 IMHO. First off, Bunny, that painting of Flint's house was added to the 40th Anniversary remastering (that's why it looks so damn amazing!). Originally, Flint's home was represented by a reuse of the matte painting of Rigel VII from "The Cage" Other things added was that Planet Holberg 917-G is now more realistic, with two moons orbiting behind it and the effect of the Enterprise being miniaturized from space is remastered. (I think all of this makes this one of the episodes that got enhanced the most, although I may be forgetting about a episode or two). It's a complex story, and it was fun watching your face and reactions during the course of the episode as you tried to figure things out, and it totally benefits from more then one watch. I don't love the entire story -- just how did Flint manage to luck out gaining immortality? How did no one detect the patterns with everything he made when he was living as famous people before? Where did he get all of his technology from? However, it's very powerful and thought provoking, and I've always enjoyed it for how it examines the human condition, the relationship between men and women and human and robots, and what it can mean as a man to love and loose a woman. I also detect shades of Shakespeare's influence here in the story. Great guest acting once again -- James Daley and Louise Sorel both had long TV careers and were very good actors. I agree that Rayna's dress was amazing, it's one of my favorites from the whole show. I do agree with you that the virus part of the plot is kind of weak. It just feels like it was draped over the story the writer -- Jerome Bixby, who wrote a lot during his lifetime -- wanted to tell to give some sense of urgency and framing to it. And it does feel weird for Kirk and the others to socialize while the crew of the Enterprise is in such danger. However, they had no choice -- they had to wait for the cure to be made, and they were being controlled by, and used, by Flint the whole time. It's one of those really deep, though provoking episodes that Star Trek does now and then, light on action and contributes very little to the overall theme of Star Trek but takes a issue and really examines it, and makes you wonder about it afterwards. I also really like the overall idea that not everyone is on board with what the Federation is doing and just wants to live out a quiet, peaceful, less advanced life somewhere -- themes that Star Trek has explored before and will continue to explore both in later episodes and later shows. Finally, that ending -- VERY interesting. It's such an abrupt end, but the idea that Spock decides to make Kirk forget about the girl -- when he's NEVER done that in the past -- is curious, and I'm not sure I agree with it. After all, Kirk has loved and lost before, and he understands that in return for the power and prestige and the importance of being a Captain of a starship means you will forever be alone besides brief flings here and there. Perhaps Spock was moved to action based on what McCoy said. (BTW, I don't think it's against Federation regs for officers to date each other during this time period, so it's not like Kirk couldn't fall for, romance, and marry someone in the crew. You CLEARLY see it happen in later shows. I think the writers and directors were just afraid in the 60's to 'go there', much like they didn't want to show Earth or what it might be like.) Lot of interesting trivia about this episode. again taken from Wikipedia: Its repeat broadcast, on September 2, 1969, was the last official telecast of the series to air on NBC. Star Trek immediately appeared in syndication on the following Monday, September 8, a full three years after its debut. According to fantasy and science fiction scholar Ace G. Pilkington, "Requiem for Methuselah" is a Star Trek adaptation of the film Forbidden Planet (1956). Actress Anne Francis reported that Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek, had talked to her about lifting some ideas from Forbidden Planet. Actor Leslie Nielsen noted the similarities between Forbidden Planet and Star Trek, suggesting that the film served as a pilot for the television series. Flint and Rayna both show up a lot in non cannon books. comics, and fan made shows. Rayna's last name, "Kapec", is an anagram of Capek, after Karel Čapek, whose play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots, 1920) introduced the term "robot". The author of the Star Trek screenplay, Jerome Bixby, would write a film script at the end of his life which has many plot elements of this previous story, including an ageless man who is 14,000 years old, and has been a student of the Buddha, while he himself was the basis for the story of Jesus. This film, The Man from Earth, was released in 2007.

William Terry

First, thank you for another great reacts! Bunny thinks on her feet and gets to the heart of the matter. Spock's role is the key to the episode as the others are occupied with getting the ryetalin and figuring out what's up with Rayna. I like to think at the end that Spock isn't anesticizing Kirk of his emotions but rather taking them upon himself who can deal with the loss more effectively. RFM is (a bit loosely) based on a classic story, The Tempest by Shakespeare. The main characters, Flint is Propero and Rayna is Miranda, are the same in the play, though there's not the tragic death at the end, IIRC. Rayna's dilemna is like Desdemona's in Othello but when they ask her to choose between her father and Othello it's not a difficult choice, but she doesn't give the great I choose! speech either. Although it's sort of the gist of Miranda's "oh brave new world!" speech too, so good job to the writers. Lastly, though it's not Starfleet regulations I love the uniform with the belt!

Skyman's Follies

Good notes here, Greg and, yeah, agreed about no regs against Fed officers dating each other as we have precedent in S1 Balance of Terror with Kirk officiating (almost) the marriage of Lt. Tomlinson and Ensign Martine.

Greg

How did I totally forget about that? Your right, of course! I guess you could just look at it then that Kirk chooses on purpose to not get seriously involved with anyone so he can keep his mind and focus on the Enterprise (and not cause he's a womanizer, as I've seen some folks charge over the years).

Marcus Hicks

This was always a great episode IMHO, especially as a fan of the movie Highlander. Definitely shares some DNA.

SuicuneSol

There are two issues I have with this episode--the side plot (and it is a sideplot!) of finding a cure for a plague. (In fact, there have been several episodes like this in season 3 so far in which a dire situation is both introduced and resolved in the captain's log.) The second issue I have is how quickly Kirk falls for Rayna. They're there for a few hours and he's literally having a fist-fight over her. I'm guessing there are some parallels with the story of Pygmalion and Galatea (a man who sculpted his ideal woman who was brought to life). Perhaps Rayna was just that mesmerizing. But considering the urgency of the situation, it didn't add up. I would have accepted it if they were there for a few days. Rayna herself is pretty mesmerizing though.

timothy w moyer

Me? I love this episode, always have. The storyline is so creative with Flint being immortal and a plausible explanation. At the end, Spock shows he's as human as the rest of us,or even more so as I'm sure other beings would be just as receptive to emotions, in different ways perhaps, but just as intense and expressive. And WHO didn't just LOVE Rayna's dress??? 🥹. I Robot is a good read.

Lee

My experience reading Harlan Ellison is the same as Bunny's. I checked out a huge collection of Ellison's short stories a few years ago and couldn't finish it. In fact, I doubt I got more than a quarter of the way into it. I find his work far too bleak and downbeat to be entertaining. Not that all fiction has to be uplifting, but one would think the law of averages would allow him to write something different once in a while. Having said that, I encourage Bunny and anyone else who hasn't read it to pick up Ellison's original script for "The City on the Edge of Forever." It's available both in screenplay form and as an adapted graphic novel. I recommend it not because it's a great example of a Star Trek story but because it is just about as far from it as possible. For all his genius, Ellison was not adept at playing in other people's universes, and the original screenplay indicates quite clearly that he either did not believe in Roddenberry's idealized view of 23rd century humans, or he just didn't want to write it. Either way, it's a very compelling narrative but would never fit in the format that Roddenberry devised (and Gene Coon perfected, if you'll forgive me for opining). Regarding "Requiem for Methuselah," it would have been one of the greatest episodes of TOS if only it had been produced by people who understood/remembered Star Trek. This episode, possibly more than any other, leans hard into the notion that Kirk will fall for any woman he meets, especially as his love for Rayna seems to come from out of the blue. It is one thing for Kirk to be charmed by a beautiful woman (as he generally is), but quite another to act so irrationally when feeling attraction for her. As Bunny pointed out, the idea that Kirk would get distracted by a pretty girl when his entire crew is suffering from a deadly disease is completely ridiculous. Someone in the script department should have come up with a better reason for visiting Flint's planet. And, again, there's McCoy's conversation with Spock at the end. If there had been one single person left over from the first season, they would surely have mentioned the events of "This Side of Paradise" before filming that scene. In the previous episode, the existence of a Romulan cloaking device is treated like some kind of new development despite "Balance of Terror" demonstrating its destructive consequences quite convincingly. If there had been a line of dialogue revealing this to be the new and improved version, all would have been well, but as it is, it comes off as ignorant of the show's history. If only Bob Justman had been promoted to producer for the third season, it's safe to say most of the criticism for it would never have happened. C'est la vie.

Lee

To be fair, there is a tremendous difference between junior officers being romantically involved and the captain romancing a subordinate. The power imbalance alone would make such a pairing inappropriate. However, if the hypothetical partner was of sufficient rank, that would be considered acceptable. TNG presents a perfect example among its superior officers.

Carlos Stevens

hmmmm, books eh? Ever read the Thomas Covenant series? Requiem For Methusela... One of the best episodes in Season 3 (IMHO). (and don't think I didn't see you almost cry near the end of the episode)

Carlos Stevens

LOL, Bunny, your intuition is very good. You figured out this episode well before everything was revealed. How did you know she was "created"?

Carlos Stevens

ahhhh... the enigma and complexity of Vulcans. IMHO, there are only two actors who captured the complexity of Vulcans. Leonard Nimoy (of course), and Tim Russ... He played Tovok in Voyager. Ok, maybe, maybe, maybe, I'll give you Jolene Blalock who played T'Pol in Enterprise. Every other actor who tried to play a Vulcan just didn't understand it.

Ron

Thank you, Bunny! Great reaction! This is one of my favorites. It's not for everybody, and I get some of the nitpicks some people have. But, I tend to look past the plot holes because I like the story and the message it was trying to get across. And, shout-out to Louise Sorel who was fantastic as Rayna!

Matthew Graves (Graviton)

So glad you liked I, Robot! It’s cool thatyou picked up on the point about the robots not “turning evil” but just following the rules in unexpected way. It the major theme. Before Asimov, pretty much every robot story ever written revolved around the robot turning on its creators and running amock. He called it the “Frankenstein Complex” and he thought it was really stupid. To paraphrase he said something like: you wouldn’t design a knife without a handle or any other tool that would inevitably harm the user. At some point I highly recommend following up with the Elijah Baley novels by Asimov. It takes place in the same “universe“ as I robot, but they are full length novels. Sort of sci-fi police dtective stories.I’ve often said that the first novel in that series: “The Caves of Steel” is probably the work by Asimov that is best suited for adaptation to a movie and it amazes me one has noone has done that yet. The I, Robot movie took bits and pieces but is far from an actual adaptation Regarding Harlan Ellison. He’s a very very talented writer, but he was a notorious misanthrope both in his writing and in his personal life. I approve of taking him in small chunks unless you wanna get really depressed. Very much the opposite of Asimov, who was definitely on the optimist and humanist end of things. Regarding “Requiem for Methuselah“: this is another one that I think falls just shy of being an all-time classic. Really it’s only held back by the awkward conceit of the time limit. It’s another one where it’s hard to buy into the love story because it’s so rushed similar to McCoy’s story“for the world is Hollow and I have touched the sky”. I think the rushed nature of the romance contributes to the feeling of “ inappropriateness“ that you were picking up on. But they needed to have the time limit with the disease in order to have any sense of tension to the story because it’s another one where there isn’t a lot of action. It’s almost more like an ancient Greek play, straddling the line between drama and melodrama. And you just kinda have to buy into the shortcuts for concepts, like falling in love in order to make the drama work. I do love how the story continues the ongoing character tension in Kirk of having to make a choice between duty and a satisfying personal life. Since you’ve already reacted to wrath of Khan it’s not a spoiler too point out that theme continues on into the movies.

MntrTodd

Another Star Trek writer who wrote great short stories is Theodore Sturgeon. His stories are consistently excellent, powerful, humanistic, witty, and at times gruesome horrifying. The problem is that Sturgeon short story collections are extremely hard to find these days and expensive if you do find them.

MntrTodd

I have a theory about Kirk's behavior in this episode. I think Flint spiked Kirk with a powerful aphrodisiac that he invented to make Kirk fall in love with her and that is why the Captain is so enamored of Rayna to the point of not concentrating on the mission.

MntrTodd

Both the writers of "This Side of Paradise" have writing credits for the third season, but both abandoned their scripts early after being dissatisfied with rewrites.

MntrTodd

Louise Sorel's first screen role was playing William Shatner's wife.

Mark Chrisco

Spock's act of compassion toward Kirk at the end is widely considered the most sensitive moment in Star Trek...so far.

3dbadboy1

Louise Sorel was a very popular during the late 60s and early 70s. Sometimes her voice and demeanor was rather crass and outspoken and at other times very reserved like she was in this episode. One of my favorite roles she played was in the Night Gallery episode Pickman's Model based on a short story by BJ Lovecraft. She played a young woman in Victorian Boston learning how to paint.

Trilogian

Again, no brag, but I spoke to Harlan Ellison a couple of times on the phone back in the day. Basically keeping him entertained while we waited for the guy he REALLY wanted to talk to! He was pretty damn friendly. This might be my second least favorite episode (damn you Alternative Factor), but watching Bunnytails reaction gave me a new appreciation for it! My big problems are Kirk completely out of character and Spock invading Jim’s mind to make him “forget”. Also the goofy fist fight between Kirk and Flint. Kirk would have mopped the floor with that guy! Bunny gave me a much better opinion of this one than I had held for many years! And even this late, there are some gems left in Season 3!

dave zink

Hey Trilogian , this was an average episode , don't want to spoil it for Bunny, but ep. "The Cloud Minders" coming up is a top 10 episode in season 3 - don't say anything about it yet !!! Thanks 📺

Mark Gosine

Have you seen 765874: Unification yet?

Mark Chrisco

That's why I added the...so far.

bunnytails

Ooh. Highlander has been on my watch list for a while now!

bunnytails

I won't get angry with a character falling for a girl super fast due to time constraints, but I won't always believe it. In this particular episode, I'm not buying it.

bunnytails

Glad to hear you also like this one!

bunnytails

I have been interested in checking out the original "City" script. It's on my to do list!

bunnytails

Well, when getting down to the planet Spock picked up readings on one lifeform if I remember correctly. So one of them has to be an android or something similar.

bunnytails

I think I feel the same as you! There are some obvious issues with it but also something really special in there!

bunnytails

Thanks for recommending more Asimov. I knew I would be reading more of him eventually but didn't have an idea of where to go next.

bunnytails

Oh, I am really excited about this recommendation! Thanks! It looks like he wrote Shore Leave and Amok Time.

bunnytails

Glad I could give you a bit of a new perspective!

Mark Gosine

I loaned the ' Thomas Covenant series' to a friend of mine. She didn't like it so much. She thought it was too emotional. It is how she described it. At the time I loved it. Especially the giants of Sea Reach. I still like it. I did read it recently, and with a new perspective because of her comments. I did notice a bit a prolonged angst on the part of Thomas, but hey, he was going through a confusingly bad time. Both series (all 6 are great)

Mark Gosine

I just like this episode. It has that 'Highlander' feel, as someone else in the thread mentioned. It was Highlander before Highlander was. The awe and mystery of an immortal. In fact, a clever writer could write a sequel to the episode and tie Flint into the Highlander story line. The 'One' that got away.

Mark Gosine

I have to agree with Matthew on this one. Asimov has some fantastic novels. The 'Foundation' trilogy is my absolute favorite. I got it from the 'book of the month' club. Didn't want it, didn't change it before it was mailed. I tried reading it a few times, and each time got bored or distracted and didn't finish it. It has a sorta lengthy start, like an overly extended prologue. Ultimately, since I owned this considerable tome (the complete original trilogy), I knuckled down and said, "By golly, I'm reading this!" Turns out to be my all-time favorite.

Mark Gosine

Sounds like a brag to me %). And I cannot take you seriously when you equate this with 'Alternative Factor'! How dare you dare my how dare you, sir! 'And the Children Shall Lead' must take that crown.

Trilogian

Now, Mark, we both know neither episode is TOS’s finest hour, but I’ll watch “And the Children Shall Lead” five times for every one watch of “Alternative Factor”! I think both eps would have made better Twilight Zone stories!