"Trump's Deal" jumps the shark

 "Trump's Deal" famously began in 1984, when NBC approached veteran television producer Stephen J. Cannell about creating a "prime time soap" for them in the mold of ABC's "Dallas" and "Dynasty". Cannell agreed, and that fall NBC premiered the hour-long drama starring Ted Danson as New York City real-estate mogul Donald Trump and Czech supermodel Paulina Porizkova as his wife Ivana. NBC got the backdrop of wealth and high fashion it wanted, but it also inevitably got Cannell's quirky humor. "Trump's Deal" was as much a satire of the prime time soap genre as a member of it. Danson's Trump was a loud, vulgar buffoon who moved among New York's wealthy elite like a rhino among a herd of thoroughbred horses.

The series was not the blockbuster NBC had been hoping for, but it quickly won a dedicated fanbase, and its solid ratings made it a fixture on the network. However, network executives clashed with Cannell over the direction of the series in 1990, and he left the show. Series star Danson took over production of the show, and he made a series of changes to the show that alienated longtime fans, including writing out co-star Porizkova in favor of Shelly Long, with whom he had co-starred in the short-lived sitcom "Cheers".  The series' rating fell sharply, and NBC cancelled "Trump's Deal" in 1992.

The series was unexpectedly revived in 2004 due to a chance meeting between Danson and actor/comedian/producer Gary Shandling. Shandling was best known for "The Larry Sanders Show" (1992-1998), an HBO series in which he played a talk show host, with the series centered around the production of the talk show. Shandling was looking to produce a similar series about a reality show. Danson convinced Shandling to use the Donald Trump character as the host of the series, and the result was the second incarnation of "Trump's Deal". Now the Trump character was the host of a reality show called "The Apprentice" where he tyrannized a group of would-be business executives, firing one at the end of each episode.

"Trump's Deal" was facing cancellation again last year when Danson arranged for the series to move from HBO to AMC, this time with Aaron Sorkin as producer. Once again, the series underwent a radical change in format. Now, the Trump character was running for president in the Republican primary. Sorkin took advantage of cutting-edge CGI to show the Trump character interacting with actual Republican primary candidates, including Jeb Bush, Carly Fiorina, and Dr. Ben Carson.

Unfortunately, Sorkin's own liberal political ideology has turned "Trump's Deal" into a travesty. The loud, vulgar buffoon has been transformed into a loud, vulgar racist ideologue. And not content with having Trump run as a Republican, Sorkin has him leading the candidate field by a large margin. The result is a bizarre alternate version of the Republican primary, with frontrunner Bush reduced to a pathetic also-ran, Dr. Carson parodied as a somnolent know-nothing evangelical Christian, and Fiorina launching a series of defamatory attacks on Planned Parenthood.

Sorkin clearly intends to continue the series by having the Trump character win the Republican nomination, and rumors from the production suggest he intends to have Trump win the general election. Sorkin apparently seeks to turn "Trump's Deal" into a dark mirror-image of his celebrated NBC series "The West Wing" (1999-2006), showing a crazed Republican administration under Trump. We can only hope that AMC has better sense than to renew the series for a second year.

To Matt Groening and James L. Brooks: A modest proposal

It has become a truism that you can't do anything original on a sitcom because The Simpsons has already done everything. But there is one plot that The Simpsons hasn't done ... at least, not quite. Back in season 13, the show did an episode in which Homer was prescribed medicinal marijuana by Dr. Hibbert. It was a well-regarded episode, but that was 13 years ago. It's time for the show to revisit the theme, and this time, go big. The Simpsons needs to do an episode in which marijuana use becomes legal in Springfield.

After marijuana use is legalized in Springfield, Howard K. Duff, the owner of Duff Beer, decides to branch out into the production of marijuana cigarettes. He hires Otto Mann away from Springfield Elementary School to head Duff's marijuana subsidiary, Puff. Otto's detailed knowledge of marijuana cultivation, and his contacts among Springfield's drug community, make Puff an immediate success. Otto is soon a wealthy and respected business executive.

With Otto gone, Springfield Elementary needs a new bus driver. They hire Ned Flanders, whose Leftorium shop is going through a slow patch, and who needs the extra income to tide him over. Ned is soon leading his passengers in singalongs of "Michael Row the Boat Ashore" and "Amazing Grace", and Bart becomes desperate for Otto to return. Bart encourages Flanders to mount a campaign to repeal legalization. Flanders' campaign succeeds, Duff shuts down Puff, and Otto returns to being a bus driver.

Unlike the earlier medicinal marijuana episode, it probably won't be possible to avoid showing the characters actually smoking marijuana. However, since they are likely to be smoking manufactured Puff cigarettes rather than hand-rolled joints, the controversy will be minimized. And if marijuana use is ever legalized nationally in the United States, these issues can all be revisited in a future episode.

The bad guys

Jay Kristoff points out something that escaped the notice of Firefly fans: Mal Reynolds and his crew were the bad guys.

Now, when Firefly first went on the air, Joss Whedon was pretty explicit about the fact that Mal was a science fiction analogue to an ex-Confederate soldier going west because he couldn't abide the damnyankees imposing Reconstruction on a defeated South. Despite this, and despite the various crimes Mal and his crew committed, Whedon had the show's fans cheering the crew of Serenity on every step of the way.

And that is the dark joke at the heart of Firefly: Whedon had us all rooting for Cliven Bundy, and we never even noticed.

Rocky Jones, Space Ranger

The early 1950s was the heyday of the live-action television space opera. Starting in the summer of 1949 with the premier of Captain Video and His Video Rangers on the DuMont Television Network, a number of science fiction series aimed at children were broadcast on all four American television networks: Tom Corbett, Space Cadet; Space Patrol; Captain Z-Ro; and Rod Brown of the Rocket Rangers. Like Captain Video, all of the subsequent series were broadcast live, and as a result, all that remains of them are some kinescopes of a few episodes. With one exception.

In 1951, Roland Reed, the head of Roland Reed Productions in Hollywood, decided to produce his own science fiction television series. He commissioned a script for a pilot episode of a series called Rocky Jones, Space Ranger from one of his writers, Warren Wilson. Unlike the other series appearing on the air at the time, Reed intended for his Rocky Jones series to be shot on film and syndicated to individual stations across the United States. The pilot was produced between January and May 1952, and finally screened for Reed in September. Reed green-lighted production, and over the course of the next year scripts for 26 episodes were written. Because of cast changes for some of the characters, the original pilot episode was never aired, except for some sequences that were re-used in the episode "Bobby's Comet".

The series began to air on various stations in February 1954, while filming of the episodes continued. Sudden cast changes were required when one actor was jailed in February 1954, and another died in June. An additional 13 episodes were filmed between August and October 1954, and the last of these aired in November. After that, Roland Reed Productions ended production of the Rocky Jones series.

The series quickly fell into obscurity, though it lived on in the memories of baby boomers who watched it as children (including science fiction writer John Varley, who named the heroine of his Titan trilogy, Cirocco "Rocky" Jones, after the series' lead character).

Because the series existed physically as a set of film canisters located in the vaults of various television stations, it did not remain in obscurity. Most of the half-hour episodes formed the segments of three-chapter serials, and after the series' original run ended, these serials were formed into 90-minute television movies and were broadcast from time to time, just like the Hollywood B-grade monster movies they superficially resembled.

In September 1992, one of these fix-up Rocky Jones movies, Manhunt in Space, was featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000, followed by a second, Crash of the Moons, in November. This led to a revival of interest in the series, helped along by the fact that the copyright on the episodes had lapsed. With the series in the public domain, cheaply-produced DVDs of the episodes began to appear for sale.

However, while the original episodes of Rocky Jones, Space Ranger have been preserved for posterity, there is one sense in which Tom Corbett, Space Cadet still has the advantage. From 1952 to 1956, a series of eight novelizations of Tom Corbett episodes were published, and seven of them can be found at Project Gutenberg. Unlike Corbett, and unlike his fellow Space Ranger Lucky Starr, Rocky Jones has never been immortalized in prose.

Well, that's no good, is it? Something has to be done for poor Rocky, and if you want something done right (or at all), you have to do it yourself. So it is that the sprawling Johnny Pez blog empire has spread to a new blog, http://rockyjonesspaceranger.blogspot.com/. Here you will find my ongoing project to novelize the Rocky Jones television series. I'm still working my way through the first serial, "Beyond the Curtain of Space", with the sixth chapter having just gone up yesterday, covering the first seven minutes or so of the second episode. I can't promise that the work will go quickly, since I have a lot of other tasks taking up my time (this blog not being the least of them), but if the internet and I both last long enough, Rocky Jones will see himself ensconced within the field of literature (if not necessarily of print).

UPDATE: 6 July 2014: Four years after this was first posted, I finally completed my novelization of "Beyond the Curtain of Space." Now that it's finished, I've decided to publish it as an ebook on Amazon.com. And since I'm trying to make money from it, I've removed all but three sample chapters of the novelization from the Rocky Jones blog.

If your hunger for a space opera media tie-in written by yours truly is great enough, you can buy your own Amazon Kindle version of "Beyond the Curtain of Space" for a very reasonable $2.99 by following the link over on the sidebar, or this link here. If you're a reviewer, I can email you a free review copy as a text file.

Can I actually make money from my quixotic hobby? We shall see. If by some miracle I actually do start selling dozens or even hundreds of copies of "Beyond the Curtain of Space," I'll naturally novelize more episodes, and maybe even write some original Rocky Jones novels.

Also, too, if you're a Hollywood movie studio looking for an established science fiction franchise to market, I'd like to point out that while the original Rocky Jones series is now in the public domain, my novelization is under copyright, and the exclusive film rights can be optioned for very reasonable terms. Have your people talk to my people.

Green World: "Oregon"

This is a spoiler review of "Oregon", episode five of Awake, a TV series about a police detective, Michael Britten, who loses a family member in a car crash. Britten responds by creating a dream world in which a different family member died in the crash, a dream world so real that he can't tell it from the real world, and is in fact determined to act as though both worlds are real. As I've noted before, while in reality (the Green World) Detective Britten's wife Hannah died in the crash, Britten has created a dream world (the Red World) where Hannah survived and it was his son Rex who died in the crash.

We open in Britten's dream world, seeing Britten's love-hate relationship with Los Angeles, represented by smoggy skies, bumper-to-bumper traffic, and a homeless guy living under a bridge. While jogging, Britten encounters a woman walking a yappy little dog, who lunges at him. The dog's owner chews Britten out for "scaring" the little monster. A homeless man offers to sell Britten a box of junk for ten dollars; when Britten declines, the man asks for a dollar on general principles. Britten then intervenes in an increasingly violent argument by two drivers whose cars have collided, while muttering, "Stupid city." But in the dream, Britten is alone; Hannah is in Portland, Oregon, and when he's on the phone with her she can't say enough nice things about it.

Los Angeles is just as much trouble in the real world, where Britten finds himself stuck in a traffic jam with Rex. At the station, Freeman drops a set of files on Britten's desk and says the captain wants to know why they don't have any suspects for any of them. When Freeman suggests lunch, Britten opts to jog in Griffith Park instead, remembering his dream-world run. Just like in his dream, Britten encounters a dog. However, this dog is not a subconscious manifestation of Britten's ambivalence about his native city. This is a real dog, and instead of lunging at him, the dog leads Britten to a corpse. "Stupid city," Britten mutters in an echo of his dream.

Britten has stumbled upon the latest victim of the Gemini Killer, a serial killer who drains his victims of their blood, then carves a Roman numeral II in their chest, and always kills two paired victims. For the last twelve years, the Gemini killer has killed two victims every year in a different city. The dead man Britten found is his first in Los Angeles. The problem: the Gemini Killer is dead. So either the Gemini Killer has risen from the dead, or there's a copycat Gemini Killer out there. Either way, within 48 hours another victim will be killed in another park.

After Britten and Freeman explain this to Captain Harper, she tells them that an FBI agent who has been on the Gemini Killer case since its beginning will be flying in to join the investigation. We then meet the FBI agent, Elizabeth Santoro, on the phone with her ex-husband arguing about custody of their daughter. She tells Britten that she has been in Portland writing a book on the case, and that one detail of the murders they didn't make public was that the killer always left a two dollar bill in the victims hand. Since Britten's victim didn't have one, they definitely have a copycat killer. Remembering his dream, Britten asks her what Portland is like, and Santoro tells him it always rains, like London with hippies.

Britten returns to Griffith Park with Freeman, and they find the dog who found the victim. When the dog is examined, half of a two dollar bill is found in its stomach. Santoro denies that this means it's the real Gemini Killer; she says it just means the copycat had access to classified information, and is therefore probably a disgruntled cop or ex-cop. Freeman thinks Santoro is too quick to dismiss the possibility that this is the original Gemini Killer. Santoro says that she shot the GK herself. No, says Freeman, you shot a man named Arthur Mintern who fit your profile. If Santoro is wrong, they'll be going up a series of blind alleys while the real killer finds and kills another victim. Captain Harper decides to let Santoro have her files of disgruntled cops. Britten tries to convince Santoro that she might be wrong, but fails. We cut to the Gemini Killer as he carries out his well-worn ritual in preparation for his next murder: scalpel, hypo, two dollar bill.

That night, Britten dreams of calling Hannah for help finding his cell phone charger. She doesn't pick up, so he leaves a message. He finds the charger, and also finds an estimate from a moving company: Mountain Top Moving & Storage. Britten is disturbed -- he didn't realize Hannah was this serious about moving to Portland. Even more disturbing is the fact that Hannah didn't tell him about this.

In therapy, Dr. Lee asks why Britten didn't think Hannah was serious about moving. Britten says that moving to Oregon isn't a realistic option, but Dr. Lee says Britten has let confirmation bias cloud his judgment: Hannah has been telling him how serious she is, but Britten hasn't been listening. This, Dr. Lee reminds Britten, is how most marriages end: not with screaming fights, but with two people who gradually drift apart from each other. Britten has always drawn strength from his dream-life with his deceased wife. Now, though, Santoro's real-life divorce is bleeding over into Britten's dream. The wife that his subconscious has re-created for him may be slipping away, just as the real one did.

At the station, Vega tells Britten he has a lead on a case. However, when they go to meet Vega's lead, the supposed pawn shop is a vacant storefront. When Vega admits the lead offered to help him for $100, Britten tells him he's been scammed. "If you have to buy it, it may be information. If they try and sell it to you, it's always BS." Britten adds, "Think of it as a rookie tax." But Britten notices an odd bit of graffiti on the vacant storefront: a red exclamation mark over an asterisk.

Back home, Britten gazes at the movers' estimate and calls Hannah again. Again, she doesn't pick up. This time, he doesn't bother leaving a message.

Back in the reality of the Gemini Killer, Britten agrees with Freeman that Santoro shot the wrong man, and they're dealing with the original. They start asking around at cheap motels, near Griffith Park, in hopes of finding him. As he emerges from one, Britten sees an abandoned building with the sign MOUNTAIN TOP MOVING & STORAGE. Remembering the dream of Hannah's estimate, he enters the building, and . . . almost catches the Gemini Killer.

Santoro is very suspicious, though, because Britten can't explain why he picked this particular building to investigate. When the Gemini Killer sneaks back into the abandoned building, he overhears her discussing Britten with Captain Harper.

Driving back from the warehouse to the police station, Britten stops at the vacant storefront he visited with Vega in his dream. It looks much the same -- except that the red exclamation point graffiti is missing. When he reaches the station, he learns that Santoro received a phone call from a man claiming to be the Gemini Killer -- a call that came from Britten's home phone. Britten can't explain that he was checking out a building he had dreamed of the night before, and Santoro decides that Britten is the copycat. Captain Harper asks him to hand in his weapon.

An hour later, Freeman confronts Britten. He doesn't believe Britten is a copycat, but he does point out how wierd Britten has been acting since returning to work. He hands Britten a set of crime scene photos, and says that if Britten is going to pull another rabbit out of his hat, now is the time. Britten does: a napkin at the abandoned warehouse has a green exclamation point logo just like the one from Britten's dream. This was what Britten's subconscious had been warning him about.

It turns out that the green logo is from the Bay Street Coffee Shop chain, which has six locations in Los Angeles, each in proximity to a park. How to pick which one? Britten looks back at the crime scene photos from the Griffith Park murder. Santoro is in the background of one, holding a coffee cup with the Bay Street Coffee logo. She had the cup when Britten met her in Brentwood. The coffee shop in Brentwood is in the lobby of the Meridian Hotel -- where Santoro is staying, and where the killer has been stalking her. Britten realizes that the Gemini Killer has targeted Santoro for his next victim.

When Santoro doesn't answer her cell phone, Britten is convinced that the killer has abducted her, and he's right. Freeman has the park nearest the Meridian, Aliso Canyon Park, sealed off, but the killer, using Santoro's FBI ID, is able to get past the police. Freeman and Britten head for Aliso Canyon Park. The killer is draining Santoro's blood and preparing to carve the Roman numeral into her abdomen, when he is interrupted by Britten. After a gunfight, the killer flees, and Britten saves Santoro. The killer gets away from Freeman.

In the hospital, Britten watches as Santoro's ex-husband and daughter come to visit her.

In Britten's dream that night, Hannah is back from Portland, and he talks to her about the estimate -- and about his fear that she wants to leave him. She says she didn't tell him about it because she was ashamed that she couldn't cope with Rex's death the way he was able to. She doesn't want to forget Rex, though, and being with Britten helps her to remember him.

Britten tells his therapists, both the real Dr. Evans and the imaginary Dr. Lee, that he is willing to move with Hannah to Portland. However, in real life, he'll be remaining in Los Angeles with Rex. Both therapists think that moving to Portland will weaken Britten's ability to maintain the reality of his dream, and that Britten will finally recognize it for the dream it is -- which means acknowledging that one member of his family really is dead. Dr. Evans predicts that Britten will fight against the loss of his dream Hannah, but will eventually give in. Britten assures her that he will not. "This thing works because I make it work."

While sitting in traffic the next day, Britten receives a call from the Gemini Killer. The killer broke into Dr. Evans' office, and now he knows about Britten's double lives. Unlike Dr. Evans, the killer accepts the reality of both worlds -- he sees Britten and himself as two of a kind, experiencing realities that other people can't understand. "Sweet dreams, Detective Britten. And speaking just for myself, I'd be very disappointed if you woke up."

Britten is able to maintain an entire internally consistent imaginary alternate world because there are so many common elements between it and his real life. The fact that it's his imaginary therapist, Dr. Lee, who points this out to him, shows that at least subconsciously, he is well aware of it. However much he might deny it consciously, his subconscious knows that the Red World is just a dream. If he wants to maintain his sanity, Britten will eventually have to give it up. His marital troubles with the dream Hannah, and the upcoming departure of his dream world from the familiar environs of Los Angeles, are a way for his subconscious to prepare Britten for the day when he has to acknowledge that his wife really is dead.

At the same time, there is more at stake for Britten than just the loss of his wife. Dr. Evans has always believed that the Red World was more than just a coping mechanism for Britten's grief. It was also a direct link to Britten's subconscious, allowing him to communicate with a part of his mind that is inaccessible to most other people. The two obvious examples in "Oregon" are the moving company and the red graffiti mark, both of which are methods that Britten's subconscious uses to help guide his hunt for the Gemini Killer. Losing the Red World will mean losing that direct connection to his subconscious.

Finally, there is the chilling call from the Gemini Killer. The killer regards himself as a unique individual with a unique perspective, placing him on a higher level than the rest of the human race, whom he regards as playthings. However, now that he knows of Britten's double life, he no longer sees Britten as a plaything. He thinks of Britten as someone who, like himself, sees the world sideways.

Britten has not seen the last of the Gemini Killer.

On the other hand . . .

Red World: "Oregon"

This is a spoiler review of "Oregon", episode five of Awake, a TV series about a police detective, Michael Britten, who loses a family member in a car crash. Britten responds by creating a dream world in which a different family member died in the crash, a dream world so real that he can't tell it from the real world, and is in fact determined to act as though both worlds are real. As I've noted before, while in reality (the Red World) Detective Britten's son Rex died in the crash, Britten has created a dream world (the Green World) where Rex survived and it was his wife Hannah who died in the crash.

We open by seeing Britten's love-hate relationship with Los Angeles, which we see represented by smoggy skies, bumper-to-bumper traffic, and a homeless guy living under a bridge. While jogging, Britten encounters a woman walking a yappy little dog, who lunges at him. The dog's owner chews Britten out for "scaring" the little monster. A homeless man offers to sell Britten a box of junk for ten dollars; when Britten declines, the man asks for a dollar on general principles. Britten then intervenes in an increasingly violent argument by two drivers whose cars have collided, while muttering, "Stupid city." We then see Britten on the phone with Hannah, who is walking through a college campus in Portland, Oregon, and can't say enough nice things about it.

Britten's troubles follow him to his dream world, where he finds himself stuck in a traffic jam with Rex. At the station, Freeman drops a set of files on Britten's desk and says the captain wants to know why they don't have any suspects for any of them. When Freeman suggests lunch, Britten opts to jog in Griffith Park instead, no doubt influenced by his real-world run. His real-world experiences intrude themselves into his dream even more obviously when he encounters a dog. Instead of lunging at him, though, this dog leads Britten to a corpse. "Stupid city," Britten mutters.

Britten has stumbled upon the latest victim of the Gemini Killer, a serial killer who drains his victims of their blood, then carves a Roman numeral II in their chest, and always kills two paired victims. For the last twelve years, the Gemini killer has killed two victims every year in a different city. The dead man Britten found is his first in Los Angeles. The problem: the Gemini Killer is dead. So either the Gemini Killer has risen from the dead, or there's a copycat Gemini Killer out there. Either way, within 48 hours another victim will be killed in another park.

After Britten and Freeman explain this to Captain Harper, she tells them that an FBI agent who has been on the Gemini Killer case since its beginning will be flying in to join the investigation. We then meet the FBI agent, Elizabeth Santoro, on the phone with her ex-husband arguing about custody of their daughter. She tells Britten that she has been in Portland writing a book on the case, and that one detail of the murders they didn't make public was that the killer always left a two dollar bill in the victims hand. Since Britten's victim didn't have one, they definitely have a copycat killer. Britten asks her what Portland is like, and Santoro tells him it always rains, like London with hippies.

Britten returns to Griffith Park with Freeman, and they find the dog who found the victim. When the dog is examined, half of a two dollar bill is found in its stomach. Santoro denies that this means it's the real Gemini Killer; she says it just means the copycat had access to classified information, and is therefore probably a disgruntled cop or ex-cop. Freeman thinks Santoro is too quick to dismiss the possibility that this is the original Gemini Killer. Santoro says that she shot the GK herself. No, says Freeman, you shot a man named Arthur Mintern who fit your profile. If Santoro is wrong, they'll be going up a series of blind alleys while the real killer finds and kills another victim. Captain Harper decides to let Santoro have her files of disgruntled cops. Britten tries to convince Santoro that she might be wrong, but fails. We cut to the Gemini Killer as he carries out his well-worn ritual in preparation for his next murder: scalpel, hypo, two dollar bill.

Back in the real world, Britten calls Hannah for help finding his cell phone charger. She doesn't pick up, so he leaves a message. He finds the charger, and also finds an estimate from a moving company: Mountain Top Moving & Storage. Britten is disturbed -- he didn't realize Hannah was this serious about moving to Portland. Even more disturbing is the fact that Hannah didn't tell him about this.

In therapy, Dr. Lee asks why Britten didn't think Hannah was serious about moving. Britten says that moving to Oregon isn't a realistic option, but Dr. Lee thinks Britten has let confirmation bias cloud his judgment: Hannah has been telling him how serious she is, but Britten hasn't been listening. This, Dr. Lee reminds Britten, is how most marriages end: not with screaming fights, but with two people who gradually drift apart from each other.

At the station, Vega tells Britten he has a lead on a case. However, when they go to meet Vega's lead, the supposed pawn shop is a vacant storefront. When Vega admits the lead offered to help him for $100, Britten tells him he's been scammed. "If you have to buy it, it may be information. If they try and sell it to you, it's always BS." Britten adds, "Think of it as a rookie tax."

Back home, Britten gazes at the movers' estimate and calls Hannah again. Again, she doesn't pick up. This time, he doesn't bother leaving a message.

In his dream of the Gemini Killer, Britten agrees with Freeman that Santoro shot the wrong man, and they're dealing with the original. They start asking around at cheap motels, near Griffith Park, in hopes of finding him. As he emerges from one, Britten sees an abandoned building with the sign MOUNTAIN TOP MOVING & STORAGE. With a vision of Hannah's estimate in his mind, he enters the building, and . . . almost catches the Gemini Killer.

Santoro is very suspicious, though, because Britten can't explain why he picked this particular building to investigate. Later, her suspicions deepen when she receives a phone call from a man claiming to be the Gemini Killer -- a call that came from Britten's home phone. Santoro decides that Britten is the copycat, and Captain Harper asks him to hand in his weapon.

An hour later, Freeman confronts Britten. He doesn't believe Britten is a copycat, but he does point out how wierd Britten has been acting since returning to work. He hands Britten a set of crime scene photos, and says that if Britten is going to pull another rabbit out of his hat, now is the time. Britten does: a napkin at the warehouse has a green exclamation point logo that Britten remembers seeing spraypainted, in red, on the vacant storefront he checked out with Vega in the real world. While the killer was making his phone call to Santoro, Britten had been to the vacant storefront in his dream. It was the same, except there was no spraypainted red mark.

It turns out that the green logo is from the Bay Street Coffee Shop chain, which has six locations in Los Angeles, all in proximity to a park. How to pick which one? Britten looks back at the crime scene photos from the Griffith Park murder. Santoro is in the background of one, holding a coffee cup with the Bay Street Coffee logo. She had the cup when Britten met her in Brentwood. The coffee shop in Brentwood is in the lobby of the Meridian Hotel -- where Santoro is staying, and where the killer has been stalking her. The Gemini Killer has targeted Santoro for his next victim.

When Santoro doesn't answer her cell phone, Britten is convinced that the killer has abducted her, and he's right. Freeman has the park nearest the Meridian, Aliso Canyon Park, sealed off, but the killer, using Santoro's FBI ID, is able to get past the police. Freeman and Britten head for Aliso Canyon Park. The killer is draining Santoro's blood and preparing to carve the Roman numeral into her abdomen, when he is interrupted by Britten. After a gunfight, the killer flees, and Britten saves Santoro. The killer gets away from Freeman.

In the hospital, Britten watches as Santoro's ex-husband and daughter come to visit her.

In the real world, Hannah is back from Portland, and Britten talks to her about the estimate -- and about his fear that she wants to leave him. She says she didn't tell him about it because she was ashamed that she couldn't cope with Rex's death the way he was able to. She doesn't want to forget Rex, though, and being with Britten helps her to remember him.

Britten tells his therapists, both the real Dr. Lee and the imaginary Dr. Evans, that he is willing to move with Hannah to Portland. However, in his dream, he'll be remaining in Los Angeles with Rex. Dr. Lee thinks that moving to Portland will weaken Britten's ability to maintain the reality of his dream, and that Britten will finally recognize it for the dream it is -- which means acknowledging that Rex really is dead. Dr. Evans predicts that Britten will fight against the loss of his "dream" of Hannah, but will eventually give in. Britten assures her that he will not. "This thing works because I make it work."

In his dream, Britten receives a call from the Gemini Killer. The killer broke into Dr. Evans' office, and now he knows about Britten's double lives. Unlike Dr. Evans, the killer accepts the reality of both worlds -- he sees Britten and himself as two of a kind, experiencing realities that other people can't understand. "Sweet dreams, Detective Britten. And speaking just for myself, I'd be very disappointed if you woke up."

As Dr. Lee points out, Britten's ability to maintain an entire internally consistent alternate dream world is based on his ability to constantly reinforce it by importing details from the real world. The two most obvious examples from "Oregon" are the Mountain Top moving company and the exclamation mark icon, both of which he imports into his dream to help him deal with the Gemini Killer case. However, this naturally raises the question of just how much reality there is to the Gemini Killer. Did Britten create him out of whole cloth?

I tend to think that there is a real Gemini Killer, and that Britten has been subliminally aware of him for the past twelve years. In his dream, Britten's subconscious brought the Gemini Killer to Los Angeles, and also brought Elizabeth Santoro, the FBI agent who, in the real world, tracked him down and shot him the year before. The Green World has always been a wish-fulfillment fantasy of Britten's and "Oregon" makes that particularly clear. While in the real world Britten is helplessly watching his marriage to Hannah slowly dissolve, in his dream Britten not only tracks the Gemini Killer to his lair, and almost captures him, he saves the life of the FBI agent who mistakenly thought she had killed him. And also, incidentally, Britten uses his dream Santoro to counteract Hannah's adoring descriptions of Portland; Santoro dismisses the city as a dreary place full of rain and hippies.

It is significant that Britten's conversations with his dream therapist, Dr. Evans, do not involve the Gemini Killer case, or indeed anything in the Green World. Instead, they talk about events in the real world: Hannah's desire to move to Portland, and Britten's willingness to accommodate her. Britten's subconscious knows that the events in the Green World aren't real, and don't ultimately matter (except to the extent that they allow Britten to deny the reality of his son's death). What matters is his marriage to Hannah in the real world.

Britten refuses to accept that one of his worlds isn't real, but his subconscious knows better. What's more, he subconsciously knows that his dream world is driving him slowly but surely insane. That's why Britten dreams of a phone call from his imaginary serial killer. "You're just like me," the psychopath tells him, and there can be no more chilling reminder of the danger Britten faces by refusing to accept reality. In the end, if he doesn't wake up and face the truth, he will become just like the Gemini Killer.

On the other hand . . .

Red World: "Kate Is Enough"

This is a spoiler review of "Kate Is Enough", episode four of Awake, a TV series about a police detective, Michael Britten, who loses a family member in a car crash. Britten responds by creating a dream world in which a different family member died in the crash, a dream world so real that he can't tell it from the real world, and is in fact determined to act as though both worlds are real. As I've noted before, while in reality (the Red World) Detective Britten's son Rex died in the crash, Britten has created a dream world (the Green World) where Rex survived and it was his wife Hannah who died in the crash.

We open in Britten's dream world, where Rex gets into a fight with his best friend Cole while they're playing tennis. While Tara is breaking the fight up, Rex accidentally smacks her in the face. She asks him what's going on, and Rex explains that Cole was using his racquet without his permission and broke it, so Rex started beating the crap out of him. Cole points out that Rex uses his racquets all the time, and that he offered to pay for it. Rex walks away. Tara asks where he's going, and he says he's going to the principal's office.

Later, Britten asks Rex what the hell happened, and Rex stonewalls him, then tells Tara not to bother suspending him, because he's quitting the tennis program. When Britten discusses the matter with Dr. Evans, she points out that anger is a typical reaction to the sort of loss Rex has suffered. Britten's attempts to help Rex have come to nothing, and he feels helpless. Dr. Evans suggests that the reason Britten can't get through to Rex is because Britten doesn't really believe Rex's mother is dead.

In the real world, Britten and his partner Vega investigate the death of a woman, Annie Ng, during a party on a yacht. The yacht is owned by two men who own a tech firm, and Ng was the personal assistant of one of the men, Cameron Fuller. Ng fell, or was pushed, overboard, but nobody saw it happen, so nobody can say which it was. Britten interviews Fuller and his partner, Darren Knox. Fuller admits that he had been having an affair with Ng, despite being engaged to a famous lingerie model, and that he had broken off the affair that morning. He was with a group of people when Ng went over the side.

After the inteview, Britten runs into Kate Porter, Rex's old babysitter. Porter is now with an investment bank in New York, and the tech firm is one of her clients. There's a stain on her dress, and she explains that Knox ran into her shortly after Ng's fall and spilled a drink on her.

In the dream world, Britten and his partner Freeman are investigating the execution-style murder of Charlie Simmons, a local wastrel living off an inheritance from his recently-deceased father. Simmons had a hidden safe under the bathroom sink, which has been opened and emptied. Back in the station, Freeman says that Simmons' house was alarmed, but his killer used a guest code to deactivate it. They start interviewing people who knew the guest code, starting with the cleaning lady.

The cleaning lady was playing bingo with her niece when Simmons was murdered, but she tells Britten and Freeman that two other people who knew the guest code were Simmons' step-brother Mark Hudson and his girlfriend Amber Blue. Britten and Freeman find Amber, and it turns out that Amber is actually Kate Porter. Simmons had dumped Porter a month earlier, and when Freeman asks her where she was the night of the murder, she says she was in the emergency room sleeping off a drug high. She gives Britten her discharge paper after fumbling around looking for it. Britten offers to help Porter enter a rehab program, but she brushes him off.

In the real world, Dr. Lee says that Britten has created different versions of everything to avoid admitting that his other world is a dream. He points out if his world is a dream, then that means that Britten dreamed of Porter, whom he hadn't seen in ten years, before meeting her for real. It would be far more reasonable, Dr. Lee suggests, to think that Britten met Porter in the real world, then added her to his dream world.

In the dream world, Dr. Evans suggests that Britten subconsciously saw a picture of Porter in Simmons', and that prompted him to add her to his dream world before meeting her in reality. After hearing this, Britten suddenly does remember seeing Porter's picture in Simmons' house.

In the real world, Dr. Lee says that Britten added the picture of Porter after the fact, so he could keep believing that the dream world might, in fact, be real.

In the dream world, Dr. Evans says the more important question is not which Porter is real, but why Britten imagines the dream version of her as so different from the real one (whichever the real one is). She thinks the duplicate Porters are not important to the cases, but to Britten's relationship with Rex.

In the real world, Britten tells Hannah about meeting Porter, and Hannah tells him that she saved one of Porter's paper airplanes in a scrapbook. Hannah also tells Britten that Porter went through a rough patch after her sister died, and she's glad to hear that she pulled herself together and has a successful career. When Britten checks the scrapbook in the dream world, it is, of course, there.

In the dream world, Britten tries to use the paper airplane to get through to Rex, but Rex insists he barely remembers Porter. When Britten reminds Rex that he hasn't apologized to Cole, Rex becomes huffy and leaves.

Britten and Freeman see Hudson, who tells them that Charlie Simmons' father Ben Simmons had been bankrolling his boxing training. However, when Simmons pere died, Charlie cut Hudson off. Hudson tried to sue Charlie for a share of Ben Simmons' inheritance, but couldn't keep it up. Hudson has no alibi for the night of Charlie's murder -- he was training alone. Back at the station, they look up the terms of Ben Simmons' will, and it turns out that with Charlie dead, Hudson stands to inherit the Simmons fortune. They now have motive and opportunity. If Hudson did kill Simmons, though, then the robbery of the safe must be a red herring, as the money in it would be Hudson's anyway with Simmons dead.

Britten and Freeman go out to interview Simmons' neighbors to see if any of them can identify Hudson's pickup truck. It turns out that one neighbor has a surveillence camera pointed more-or-less in the direction of Simmons' house. They now have a video record of who was at Simmons' house when he was murdered.

In the real world, Vega calls Britten to tell him they've recovered Ng's cell phone. However, Britten is made uneasy when he can find no evidence on it that Ng and Fuller were having an affair. Why would Fuller make up an affair? Vega asks. Because, Britten says, an affair would make everyone think that Ng jumped rather than was pushed.

Britten and Vega investigate Ng's house. They can still find no evidence of Ng's affair with Fuller. Britten's subconscious prompts him with a memory of the safe in Simmons' bathroom in the dream world, and Britten searches Ng's bathroom. He finds a can of the same shaving cream he saw in his dream, picks it up, and hears it rattle. He unscrews a false bottom, and inside is the key to a safety deposit box.

Looking in the box, Britten and Vega find a research report. It turns out that the report showed that the company's research into silicon chip manufacturing had gone down a blind alley. Fuller and Knox were keeping the information from the company's investors, and Ng was threatening to go public. Fuller had an alibi for the time fo Ng's death, but Knox did not. Britten has the stain on Kate Porter's dress tested, and it held the same mix of wine and Ng's prescription drug that was found in Ng's body after her death. It was Knox who drugged Ng and pushed her overboard, while Fuller made up the story that they were having an affair to create a motive for Ng's supposed suicide.

In the dream world, Britten and Freeman play back the video for the night of Simmons' murder. They do not find Hudson's truck on the scene; instead, they find Porter's car. Britten and Freeman interrogate Porter, and she admits that she was broke and jonesing for a hit, and gave her dealer, Leon, the code for Simmons' house. She says that Leon told her he would just scare Simmons into opening the safe for him. Leon, of course, killed Simmons, making Porter an accessory to murder.

Back in reality, Dr. Lee points out that Britten has created two lives for Porter after her sister's death, one where she successfully dealt with the loss, and one where she didn't. Britten says the two lives are different, but equally plausible.

In the dream world, Dr. Evans asks Britten what he thinks caused Porter's life to go in one direction or the other. Talking to Porter in reality, Britten learns that she blames herself for her sister's death, and was determined to punish herself. Her mother refused to give up on her, and eventually was able to help her out of her depression. Talking to dream Porter in prison, Britten is told that Porter's mother did finally give up on her, and her downward spiral continued.

In the dream world, Britten finds Rex staring at the broken tennis racquet. He refuses to accept Rex's silence, and eventually Rex admits that he got angry because it was Hannah's racquet that Cole broke. He never used it, he just kept it in his bag as a way of keeping his mother's memory alive. Whenever he thinks about Cole breaking the racquet, he gets angry again. Britten tells it's all right, he still gets angry himself. The next day, Rex apologizes to Cole, and they make up.

Kyle Killen, the creator of Awake, has stated that one of the worlds is in fact a dream, and one is real. Britten, though, insists on thinking of both worlds as real, and since the audience identifies with Britten, they also tend to think of both worlds as real. In "Kate Is Enough", though, we see proof that one of the worlds is actually a dream. If both worlds were real, diverging from each other after Britten's accident, then the only changes between them would be those resulting from the different outcomes of the accident four months earlier. The alternate Kate Porters, though, have been growing apart for years, enough time for the real Porter to become an investment banker and move to New York, while the dream Porter becomes a drug addict. After tonight's episode, Detective Britten can no longer maintain the pretense that both worlds might be real. One of his therapists is right -- one of the worlds is an elaborate construct he has created to avoid dealing with the death of a family member. Whether he comes to see that Dr. Lee is right, and the world where Hannah survived is the real one, remains to be seen.

On the other hand . . .

Green World: "Kate Is Enough"

This is a spoiler review of "Kate Is Enough", episode four of Awake, a TV series about a police detective, Michael Britten, who loses a family member in a car crash. Britten responds by creating a dream world in which a different family member died in the crash, a dream world so real that he can't tell it from the real world, and is in fact determined to act as though both worlds are real. As I've noted before, while in reality (the Green World) Detective Britten's wife Hannah died in the crash, Britten has created a dream world (the Red World) where Hannah survived and it was his son Rex who died in the crash.

In the real world, Rex gets into a fight with his best friend Cole while they're playing tennis. While Tara is breaking the fight up, Rex accidentally smacks her in the face. She asks him what's going on, and Rex explains that Cole was using his racquet without his permission and broke it, so Rex started beating the crap out of him. Cole points out that Rex uses his racquets all the time, and that he offered to pay for it. Rex walks away. Tara asks where he's going, and he says he's going to the principal's office.

Later, Britten asks Rex what the hell happened, and Rex stonewalls him, then tells Tara not to bother suspending him, because he's quitting the tennis program. When Britten discusses the matter with Dr. Evans, she points out that anger is a typical reaction to the sort of loss Rex has suffered. Britten's attempts to help Rex have come to nothing, and he feels helpless. Dr. Evans suggests that the reason Britten can't get through to Rex is because Britten doesn't really believe Rex's mother is dead.

In the dream world, Britten and his partner Vega investigate the death of a woman, Annie Ng, during a party on a yacht. The yacht is owned by two men who own a tech firm, and Ng was the personal assistant of one of the men, Cameron Fuller. Ng fell, or was pushed, overboard, but nobody saw it happen, so nobody can say which it was. Britten interviews Fuller and his partner, Darren Knox. Fuller admits that he had been having an affair with Ng, despite being engaged to a famous lingerie model, and that he had broken off the affair that morning. He was with a group of people when Ng went over the side.

After the inteview, Britten runs into Kate Porter, Rex's old babysitter. Porter is now with an investment bank in New York, and the tech firm is one of her clients. There's a stain on her dress, and she explains that Knox ran into her shortly after Ng's fall, and spilled a drink on her.

In the real world, Britten and his partner Freeman are investigating the execution-style murder of Charlie Simmons, a local wastrel living off the inheritance of his recently-deceased father. Simmons had a hidden safe under the bathroom sink, which has been opened and emptied. Back in the station, Freeman says that Simmons' house was alarmed, but his killer used a guest code to deactivate it. They start interviewing people who knew the guest code, starting with the cleaning lady.

The cleaning lady was playing bingo with her niece when Simmons was murdered, but she tells Britten and Freeman that two other people who knew the guest code were Simmons' step-brother Mark Hudson and his girlfriend Amber Blue. Britten and Freeman find Amber, and it turns out that Amber is actually Kate Porter. Simmons had dumped Porter a month earlier, and when Freeman asks her where she was the night of the murder, she says she was in the emergency room sleeping off a drug high. She gives Britten her discharge paper after fumbling around looking for it. Britten offers to help Porter enter a rehab program, but she brushes him off.

In the dream world, Dr. Lee says that Britten has created different versions of everything to avoid admitting that Dr. Lee's "reality" is real. He points out if his world is a dream, then that means that Britten dreamed of Porter, whom he hadn't seen in ten years, before meeting her for real. It would be far more reasonable, Dr. Lee suggests, to think that Britten met Porter in the real world, then added her to his dream world.

In the real world, Dr. Evans suggests that Britten subconsciously saw a picture of Porter in Simmons', and that prompted him to add her to his dream world before meeting her in reality.

In the dream world, Dr. Lee says that Britten added the picture of Porter after the fact, so he could keep believing that the real world was, in fact, real.

In the real world, Dr. Evans says the more important question is not which Porter is real, but why Britten imagines the dream version of her as so different from the real one (whichever the real one is). She thinks the duplicate Porters are not important to the cases, but to Britten's relationship with Rex.

In the dream world, Britten tells Hannah about meeting Porter, and Hannah tells him that she saved one of Porter's paper airplanes in a scrapbook. Hannah also tells Britten that Porter went through a rough patch after her sister died, and she's glad to hear that she pulled herself together and has a successful career. This is actually Britten's subconscious reminding him of the paper airplane, and of the death of Porter's sister (which Hannah told him about at the time, though consciously Britten had forgotten). When he checks the scrapbook in reality, there it is.

Britten tries to use the paper airplane to get through to Rex, but Rex insists he barely remembers Porter. When Britten reminds Rex that he hasn't apologized to Cole, Rex becomes huffy and leaves.

Britten and Freeman see Hudson, who tells them that Charlie Simmons' father Ben Simmons had been bankrolling his boxing training. However, when Simmons pere died, Charlie cut Hudson off. Hudson tried to sue Charlie for a share of Ben Simmons' inheritance, but couldn't keep it up. Hudson has no alibi for the night of Charlie's murder -- he was training alone. Back at the station, they look up the terms of Ben Simmons' will, and it turns out that with Charlie dead, Hudson stands to inherit the Simmons fortune. They now have motive and opportunity. If Hudson did kill Simmons, though, then the robbery of the safe must be a red herring.

Britten and Freeman go out to interview Simmons' neighbors to see if any of them can identify Hudson's pickup truck. It turns out that one neighbor has a surveillence camera pointed more-or-less in the direction of Simmons' house. They now have a video record of who was at Simmons' house when he was murdered.

In the dream world, Vega calls Britten to tell him they've recovered Ng's cell phone. However, Britten is made uneasy when he can find no evidence on it that Ng and Fuller were having an affair. Why would Fuller make up an affair? Vega asks. Because, Britten says, an affair would make everyone think that Ng jumped rather than was pushed.

Britten and Vega investigate Ng's house. Remembering the safe in Simmons' bathroom in the real world, Britten searches Ng's bathroom. He finds a can of the same shaving cream he saw in Simmons' bathroom, picks it up, and hears it rattle. He unscrews a false bottom, and inside is the key to a safety deposit box.

Looking in the box, Britten and Vega find a research report. It turns out that the report showed that the company's research into silicon chip manufacturing had gone down a blind alley. Fuller and Knox were keeping the information from the company's investors, and Ng was threatening to go public. Fuller had an alibi for the time fo Ng's death, but Knox did not. Britten has the stain on Kate Porter's dress analyzed, and it held the same mix of wine and Ng's prescription drug that was found in Ng's body. It was Knox who drugged Ng and pushed her overboard, while Fuller made up the story that they were having an affair to create a motive for Ng's supposed suicide.

In the real world, Britten and Freeman play back the video for the night of Simmons' murder. They do not find Hudson's truck on the scene; instead, they find Porter's car. Britten and Freeman interrogate Porter, and she admits that she was broke and jonesing for a hit, and gave her dealer, Leon, the code for Simmons' house. She says that Leon told her he would just scare Simmons into opening the safe for him.

In the dream world, Dr. Lee points out that Britten has created two lives for Porter after her sister's death, one where she successfully dealt with the loss, and one where she didn't. Britten says the two lives are different, but equally plausible.

In the real world, Dr. Evans asks Britten what he thinks caused Porter's life to go in one direction or the other. Talking to Porter, Britten learns that she blames herself for her sister's death, and was determined to punish herself. Her mother tried to talk her out of it, but finally gave up. In the dream world, Porter says that her mother didn't give up, and eventually was able to help her out of her depression.

In the real world, Britten finds Rex staring at the broken tennis racquet. He refuses to accept Rex's silence, and eventually Rex admits that he got angry because it was Hannah's racquet that Cole broke. He never used it, he just kept it in his bag as a way of keeping his mother's memory alive. Whenever he thinks about Cole breaking the racquet, he gets angry again. Britten tells it's all right, he still gets angry himself. The next day, Rex apologizes to Cole, and they make up.

In Awake, the Red World has always served as a cautionary tale for Detective Britten. In the most obvious sense, the Red World shows Britten how much worse his life could be: he could have an unsympathetic therapist, an untrustworthy partner, cases that he can't solve. With the alternate Kate Porter, as Dr. Evans pointed out, the Red World was showing Britten how high the stakes were with his son's depression. The dream Kate Porter was Britten's subconscious telling him that he couldn't afford to give up on Rex, with, ironically, the real Kate Porter as the worst-case scenario for what might happen if he did. Britten heeds the warning from his subconscious, and is able to help Rex out of his downward spiral.

On the other hand . . .

Why the green world is the real one

WARNING: SPOILERS A-PLENTY

The most fascinating new show on NBC is "Awake," a show about a police detective named Michael Britten who wakes up from a traffic accident to find that his son Rex has been killed in the crash, then wakes up again to find that Rex is alive and it's his wife Hannah who was killed in the crash. Every time Britten goes to sleep in one world, he finds himself waking up in the other. To help himself keep things straight, Britten wears a red band on his wrist in the world where Hannah survived the crash, and a green one in the world where Rex did.

In each world, Britten's superiors make him go to a psychiatrist to deal with the trauma, and he tells both about his double life. Both psychiatrists insist that their own world is the real one, and the other one is a delusion that Britten has constructed. But there are actually four possible scenarios:

1. Both worlds are delusions. Britten is in a coma and is dreaming the whole thing.
2. Both worlds are real. The accident somehow allows Britten to experience two different possible outcomes.
3. Dr. Lee, the psychiatrist in the red world, is right. Rex really died in the crash, and the world where he survived is a delusion.
4. Dr. Evans, the psychiatrist in the green world, is right. Hannah really died in the crash, and the world where she survived is a delusion.

But four possible scenarios were too many for series creator Kyle Killen. In a recent interview, he stated that one of the worlds really is a dream, and one really is real. So, scenarios 1 and 2 are out, and viewers have a choice of 3 or 4.

So, which is the dream and which is reality? If you consider the psychology of the whole thing, it's obvious that Dr. Evans is right: Hannah died in the crash, and Britten is imagining the world where she survived.

The red world is clearly a cautionary tale, a way for Britten's subconscious to remind him how much worse his life could be. In the real world, Britten still has the support of his partner, "Bird" Freeman, whom he likes and trusts. In the dream world, Britten has been given a new partner, Efram Vega, who's job is to spy on him for his superiors. In the real world, Britten's therapist is kind and understanding. In the dream world, Britten's therapist is confrontational and unpleasant. In the real world, Rex deals with the trauma of his mother's death by taking up tennis under the tutelage of Hannah's pretty friend Tara. In the dream world, Hannah deals with the trauma of her son's death by turning Britten's world upside down, redecorating the house, and urging Britten to move to Oregon.

The second episode, "The Little Guy," makes the cautionary nature of the red world even more obvious. In real life, Britten investigates the murder of a well-known fertility doctor named Bernard Mackenzie. With subconscious hints provided by the dream world, Britten is able to solve Mackenzie's murder. In his dream world, Britten goes on a pointless quest to find the killer of a homeless drug addict, because the addict's name happens to be the same as Mackenzie's. He fails, and his co-workers fear that Britten's faltering grip on reality is impairing his work.

Still, even knowing which world is real and which is a dream, it's fascinating to watch the interplay between the two. In the most recent episode, "Guilty," a man named John Cooper breaks out of prison and kidnaps Rex. Britten had arrested Cooper ten years earlier for killing a drug dealer after Cooper's son died of a drug overdose, but Cooper has always insisted he was framed. Cooper contacts Britten and tells him that he has Rex imprisoned in the desert, and that Rex will die unless Britten finds proof that Cooper was innocent. Unfortunately, Britten's ex-partner Jim Mayhew kills Cooper before he can tell Britten who the real murderer was, thereby dooming Rex.

In his dream world, Britten visits Cooper in prison, and Cooper tells him that it was Mayhew who framed him. When Britten asks Cooper about the place in the desert where Rex is imprisoned, Cooper says he can tell Britten where it is, but refuses unless Britten finds proof that he's innocent. In desperation, Britten confronts Mayhew, and is able to get him to admit that he did in fact frame Cooper for the murder. In the real world, amazingly enough, the dream-Cooper's information leads Britten to an isolated shack in the desert where Rex is imprisoned, allowing him to save Rex.

Dr. Evans points out that Britten's subconscious is trying to relieve his guilt over Cooper's fate by letting him imagine a reality where he was able to free Cooper. But it was Mayhew, she reminds him, who framed Cooper, and who bears the guilt for Cooper's wrongful imprisonment and death.

On the other hand . . .

Why the red world is the real one

WARNING: SPOILERS A-PLENTY

The most fascinating new show on NBC is "Awake," a show about a police detective named Michael Britten who wakes up from a traffic accident to find that his son Rex has been killed in the crash, then wakes up again to find that Rex is alive and it's his wife Hannah who was killed in the crash. Every time Britten goes to sleep in one world, he finds himself waking up in the other. To help himself keep things straight, Britten wears a red band on his wrist in the world where Hannah survived the crash, and a green one in the world where Rex did.

In each world, Britten's superiors make him go to a psychiatrist to deal with the trauma, and he tells both about his double life. Both psychiatrists insist that their own world is the real one, and the other one is a delusion that Britten has constructed. But there are actually four possible scenarios:

1. Both worlds are delusions. Britten is in a coma and is dreaming the whole thing.
2. Both worlds are real. The accident somehow allows Britten to experience two different possible outcomes.
3. Dr. Lee, the psychiatrist in the red world, is right. Rex really died in the crash, and the world where he survived is a delusion.
4. Dr. Evans, the psychiatrist in the green world, is right. Hannah really died in the crash, and the world where she survived is a delusion.

But four possible scenarios were too many for series creator Kyle Killen. In a recent interview, he stated that one of the worlds really is a dream, and one really is real. So, scenarios 1 and 2 are out, and viewers have a choice of 3 or 4.

So, which is the dream and which is reality? If you consider the psychology of the whole thing, it's obvious that Dr. Lee is right: Rex died in the crash, and Britten is imagining the world where he survived.

The green world is clearly a wish-fulfillment fantasy. In the real world, Britten has been given a new partner, Efram Vega, who's job is to spy on him for his superiors. In the dream world, Britten is still working with his old partner, "Bird" Freeman, whom he likes and trusts. In the real world, Britten's therapist is confrontational and unpleasant. In the dream world, Britten's therapist is kind and understanding. In the real world, Hannah deals with the trauma of her son's death by turning Britten's world upside down, redecorating the house, and urging Britten to move to Oregon. In the dream world, Rex deals with the trauma of his mother's death by taking up tennis under the tutelage of Hannah's pretty friend Tara.

The second episode, "The Little Guy," makes the wish-fulfillment nature of the green world even more obvious. In real life, Britten finds himself trying to find out who killed a homeless drug addict named Bernard Mackenzie. A loopy possible witness says he saw "a little guy" near Mackenzie after his death, and Britten spends the next couple of days in an ultimately futile effort to locate the little guy. In his dream world, Bernard Mackenzie is the name of a well-known fertility doctor, whose murder Britten is able to solve thanks to his obsession with how tall the various potential suspects are.

Still, even knowing which world is real and which is a dream, it's fascinating to watch the interplay between the two. In the most recent episode, "Guilty," Britten's anxiety about an upcoming memorial being held for Rex starts his subconscious reconsidering a murder case he solved ten years before. A man named John Cooper was convicted of the murder of a drug dealer after his son died of a drug overdose, but Cooper has always insisted he was framed. In the dream world, Cooper breaks out of prison and kidnaps Rex. Cooper contacts Britten and tells him that he has Rex imprisoned in the desert, and that Rex will die unless Britten finds proof that Cooper was innocent. Unfortunately, Britten's ex-partner Jim Mayhew kills Cooper before he can tell Britten who the real murderer was, thereby dooming Rex.

Since Britten himself refuses to believe that his dream world isn't real, he is convinced that Rex is really in danger of dying, and he sets out on a quixotic quest to "save" him. He visits the real Cooper in prison, who tells him that it was Mayhew who framed him. When Britten asks Cooper about the place in the desert where the dream-Rex is imprisoned, Cooper says he can tell Britten where it is, but refuses unless Britten finds proof that he's innocent. In desperation, Britten confronts Mayhew, and is able to get him to admit that he did in fact frame Cooper for the murder. In the dream world, Britten is able to find Rex in time to save him.

Dr. Lee reminds Britten that Cooper's failure to make parole coincided with Rex's death, and that Britten's subconscious used the threat to the dream-Rex's life to force Britten to act in reality to right the wrong he had done to Cooper.

On the other hand . . .

Recap: Where No Man Has Gone Before (4 of 4)

This is the fourth and final part of a recap of the second Star Trek pilot (and third aired episode), "Where No Man Has Gone Before", that I posted to the rec.arts.startrek.misc newsgroup back in November 2005 under the screen name Empok Nor. The first three parts are here, here and here.

The starship Enterprise under Captain James R. Kirk has discovered a ship's recorder from the S. S. Valiant, lost 200 years earlier. The Valiant encountered a strange energy field beyond the edge of the galaxy, and was disabled. Then, after looking up information on extra-sensory perception, the captain of the Valiant destroyed his ship. When the Enterprise encounters the same energy barrier, Second Officer Gary Mitchell and Dr. Elizabeth Dehner suffer some form of electrical shock. The shock has seemingly had no effect on Dehner, but has turned Mitchell's eyes silver.

While he's recovering in sickbay, Mitchell begins exhibiting paranormal powers: he can read a page of text in moments and recall it perfectly; he can stop his heart and start it up again; he can telekinetically operate controls on the ship's bridge. Dehner, who has always had a soft spot in her heart for supermen, fall in love with Mitchell. First Officer Spock, though, is worried. He thinks they either have to maroon Mitchell on a deserted planet, or kill him. Kirk orders him to set course for the deserted planet Delta Vega.

On Delta Vega, Mitchell is imprisoned behind a force field while the crew succeeds in repairing the warp engines. A worried Kirk has a self-destruct switch set up, in case he gets loose.

ACT FOUR
The lithium cracking station on Delta Vega. "Captain's log, stardate 1313.3," Kirk voiceovers. "Note commendations on Lt. Kelso and the engineering staff."

The mining station, as Kirk watches Kelso and the engineering staff at work: "In orbit above us, the engines of the Enterprise are almost fully regenerated." As the engineering staff all make for the door: "Balance of the landing party is being transported back up." Kelso seats himself on the console.

Mitchell is standing in his room. The hair on his temples has gone gray: "Mitchell, whatever he's become, keeps changing, growing stronger by the minute."

Dehner, Spock and Kirk stand outside the room. Spock still has the phaser rifle, and looks like he wants to use it, now. Dehner has an odd half-smile on her face. "He's been like that for hours now," she says.

"Have Dr. Piper meet us in the control room with Kelso," Kirk tells Spock. "We'll all transport up together."

"If he should try to stop us?" asks Spock.

"Kelso will be on the destruct button until the last minute," says Kirk. "I think he knows that."

"I'm staying behind with him," Dehner announces suddenly.

As we look at Mitchell, Kelso in the control room dissolves into view. Kelso is talking into a communicator: "Uh, fission chamber three checks out. The station seems to be running fine."

"You're a talented thief, Kelso," Scott's voice replies. On the floor behind the console, one of the cables rises up. Mitchell dissolves out of view. "Everything you sent up seems to be fittin' in place." Cut to a grinning Kelso as the cable rises into view behind him.

"I'm kinda proud of the job we've done," says Kelso. "Are we going to be ready to transport u--" The cable slips over Kelso's head and wraps itself around his neck. As his struggles grow weaker, we dissolve back to Mitchell.

"You're leaving with the ship, doctor," Kirk informs Dehner.

"He is not evil!" insists Dehner, oddly echoing Default Vina's "They don't mean to be evil" from the first pilot.

"I gave you an order, doctor," Kirk states.

Their dispute ends when Mitchell announces, "You should have killed me while you could, James." In the reverby voice, he adds, "Command and compassion is a fool's mixture." As Kirk steps closer, Mitchell does a little twiddle thing with his fingers and Kirk gets hit with another electrical shock. Spock levels the phaser rifle and gets hit as well. Both men are out of action.

Dehner slowly turns to face Mitchell, who waves his hand and makes the force field go away. He walks up to Dehner, brushes his hand against her face, then guides her into the room. He shows her to a mirror, and we can see that her eyes have become just like his.

We dissolve to a shot of Kirk and Spock lying on the floor outside Mitchell's room. Piper rushes up and checks the two of them for lifesigns. As Kirk starts to sit up, Piper gives him a pill. "It hit me too, whatever it was," he tells Kirk. "Kelso is dead -- strangled. At least Spock's alive."

"Dr. Dehner?" asks Kirk.

"She went with Mitchell."

Kirk stops Piper as he's about to revive Spock. "Don't give him a pill until after I'm gone. My fault Mitchell got as far as he did." A sigh, then, "Did you see their direction?"

"Why, yes. There was some morning light. They were headed across the valley to the left of the pointed peaks. There's flat land beyond."

Struggling to his feet, Kirk tells him, "When Mr. Spock recovers you'll both transport up immediately to the Enterprise." Ignoring Piper's attempt to interrupt him, and picking up the phaser rifle, Kirk continues, "Where, if you have not received a signal from me within twelve hours, you'll procede at maximum warp to the nearest Earth base with my recommendation," and here he pauses to give a dramatic snap to the phaser rifle's rotating barrel, "that this entire planet be subjected to a lethal concentration of deutron radiation." When Piper again attempts to speak, Kirk says, "No protest on this, Mark. That's an order." Hefting the phaser rifle, Kirk heads out.

***********************

Delta Vega, to the left of the pointed peaks. Mitchell and Dehner are walking casually through a windstorm. With its jagged, rocky surface and green-tinged cloudy sky, Delta Vega looks remarkably similar to Talos IV.

"It would take almost a miracle to survive here," Dehner observes.

"Then I shall make one," says Mitchell in his Burning Bush reverb voice. You know, it's never a good thing when a mutant superbeing starts using the word "shall" in casual conversation. Or "behold".

"Behold," he says, and with a wave of his hand, a stretch of barren ground acquires a pool of water, a bubbling fountain, and various plants. The wind dies away.

Dehner looks astonished. She and Mitchell walk forward into his little oasis. Mitchell flings his arms out wide and laughs. Another bad sign. Dehner picks a flower, while Mitchell kneels down, cups some water in his hand, and lets it trickle through. It occurs to me at this point that Mitchell should have just let Kirk maroon him here. Kelso would still be alive, and Kirk would have probably left Dehner behind anyway as soon as her eyes turned all shiny.

"You'll soon share this feeling, Elizabeth," says Burning Bush Mitchell. "To be like God, to have the power to make the world anything you want it to be."

Back to Kirk, toting his phaser rifle through the howling desolate emptiness of Delta Vega.

Back to Mitchell and Dehner as Burning Bush Boy looks up suddenly. Standing up, Dehner asks, "What's wrong?"

"A visitor," says Mitchell. "A very foolish man." I've got to agree with him on that one. The Enterprise should already be maximum warping its way the hell out of there. Who knows what Mitchell will be capable of twelve hours from now?

Back to Kirk, struggling his way through the pointed peaks. A nearby rock suddenly decides to roll past him.

Back to Mitchell and Dehner. "You'll enjoy being a god, Elizabeth." When she turns and looks at him, Mitchell sneers, "Blasphemy? No. Let there be food." Gesturing with his hand, he says, "Kaferian apples," and a Kaferian apple tree (or maybe bush would be a better word, it's pretty small) appears.

Back to Kirk, still making his way through the pointed peaks. He's spooked, now, looking around for any more rolling rocks. Vengeance is mine, saith Burning Bush Boy.

Back to Mitchell and Dehner, the former holding two halves of a Kaferian apple. "Whenever we visited that planet, I always favored these." He hands her half. Just like the last time, see, only this time, it's the man giving the woman the apple.

Back to Kirk, as he peers over a rock.

Back to Mitchell and Dehner, munching on their Kaferian apples. "Can you hear me, James?" reverbs Mitchell.

Kirk, toting his phaser rifle, can. "You cannot see me. I'm not there. You follow the right path, James, you'll come to me soon."

Back to Mitchell and Dehner. A smiling Dehner says, "I can see him in my mind too."

Taking the half-eaten apple from her (and what are the theological implications of that, huh?), Mitchell says, "Go to him, Elizabeth. Talk to him. Now that you're changing, I want you to see just how unimportant they are."

Kirk moves forward, then comes across Elizabeth standing there. Well, she looked at me, and I, I could see, that the way she looked was way beyond compare. Now, how could I dance with another when I saw her standing there? With her shiny silver eyes? "Yes, it just took a little longer for it to happen to me," she tells him. She approaches him, and he takes a step back.

After looking around for Mitchell, Kirk says, "You must help me, before it goes too far."

"What he's doing is right, for him and me," Dehner informs him.

"And for humanity?" asks Kirk. "You're still human." Dehner starts to contradict him, but Kirk insists, "At least partly, you are, or you wouldn't be here talking to me." He's got a point there. The urge to chatter on and on is definitely our most human trait.

"Earth is really unimportant," Dehner casually tells him as he prowls around. "Before long, we'll be where it would have taken mankind millions of years of learning to reach."

Kirk dramatically rushes up to Dehner's side. "And what will Mitchell learn in getting there? Will he know what to do with his power? Will he acquire the wisdom?"

"Please go back while you still can," Dehner warns him. Perhaps she's worried that he's starting to make sense.

"Did you hear him joke about compassion?" Kirk calls out to Mitchell, "Above all else, a god needs compassion! Mitchell!" When Mitchell doesn't answer, Kirk turns back to Dehner. "Elizabeth --"

"What do you know about gods?" Dehner demands.

"Then let's talk about humans," Kirk responds, "about our frailties. As powerful as he gets, he'll still have all that inside him."

Kirk is starting to make too much sense again, so Dehner tells him, "Go back." She turns to leave, but he grabs her arm. The fact that she doesn't just zap him then and there tells us that he's starting to get through to her.

"You were a psychiatrist once," he reminds her. "You know the ugly, savage things we all keep buried, that none of us dare expose. But he'll dare! Who's to stop him? He doesn't need to care." Kirk is practically pleading now. "Be a psychiatrist for one minute longer. What do you see happening to him? What's your prognosis, doctor?"

"He's coming," Dehner tells him, giving no sign that she's heard a word he's said. Kirk quickly lets go of Dehner's arm and brings up the barrel of the phaser rifle.

"Then watch him," Kirk tells her. "Hang on to being a human for one minute longer."

"I'm disappointed in you, Elizabeth," says Reverb Boy. Kirk goes into a diving roll and comes up pointing the phaser rifle at Mitchell. He fires. The effect (in both senses of the word) is just like the laser cannon Number One fired at the rocky knoll in the first pilot: splashes of animated backblast, and none. Mitchell just stands there smiling at Kirk until Kirk stops firing. Then, with a wave of his hand, Mitchell tears the phaser rifle out of Kirk's hands and sends it flying, leaving Kirk kneeling on the ground.

Still with that little smile, he says, "I've been contemplating the death of an old friend." He turns to look at a rock face to his left, focusing his attention on a big ol' slab of basalt. "He deserves a decent burial, at least." A wave of his hand, and there's an open grave in the ground. Another gesture, and a tombstone appears with the words JAMES R KIRK c1277.1 to 1313.7. (Since Mitchell was born on stardate 1087.7 and Dehner was born on 1089.5, that must make Kirk about five years old.)

Mitchell looks back up at the slab of basalt in the wall, gestures, and the slab detaches itself from the rock face and leans over the grave. Dehner, who apparently has indeed been watching Mitchell toying with Kirk with a critical eye, says "Stop it, Gary."

Now, if Mitchell was really smart, he'd say, "You know, Elizabeth, you've got a point. James, just to show there are no hard feelings about your attempt to kill me just now, I'll let you call the ship and beam up. I'll even throw in a bushel of Kaferian apples, just to show I'm willing to let bygones be bygones. You go on your merry way, and I'll stay marooned here on Delta Vega for the rest of my unnatural existence just like you wanted. Deal?" Instead, he just responds with an imperious "Morals are for men, not gods." Under the circumstances, not the wisest thing he could have said. Which also kind of proves Kirk's point.

Kirk stands up and says, "A god, but still driven by human frailty." He looks over at Dehner and says, "Do you like what you see?"

Proving he still doesn't get it, Mitchell says, "Time to pray, Captain. Pray to me." A gesture, and Kirk is forced forward.

"To you?" Kirk sneers. "Not to both of you?"

"Pray that you die easily," Mitchell tells him, and with another gesture sends Kirk down on his knees. A second gesture brings Kirk's head up.

"There'll only be one of you in the end," Kirk says. Another gesture from Mitchell brings Kirk's hands together palm to palm, a final one twists his face into an expression of adoration. "One jealous god," Kirk gasps out, "if all this makes a god. Or is it making you something else?"

"Your last chance, Kirk," says Mitchell.

Mitchell keeps Kirk's eyes fixed on him, but Kirk is speaking to Dehner. "Do you like what you see? Absolute power corrupting absolutely."

Convinced, Dehner slowly raises her hand and send a lightning bolt at Mitchell, then a second. Mitchell responds with several of his own, and the two trade lightning strikes back and forth. By the time they're done, both are on the ground, and Mitchell's eyes are back to normal. "Hurry," Dehner says, "you haven't much time."

Kirk belts Mitchell in the chops, and follows up with a left to the breadbasket and a double-handed club to the back of the head. Mitchell stumbles forward, turns, gets another left to the gut, one to the torso, and a karate chop to the neck. Kirk follows up the chop by throwing Mitchell over his shoulder. A roundhouse to the jaw sends Mitchell flying over a boulder, and Kirk dives over the boulder to bring Mitchell to the ground, tearing his tunic in the process to expose his left shoulder and some manly torso. Mitchell recovers enough to give Kirk a left to the jaw, then a right as Kirk starts to rise. Kirk recovers and charges Mitchell, buring his face in Mitchell's chest. Kirk's stunt double (Paul Baxley) slams Mitchell's stunt double (Hal Needham) with a powerhouse right to the kisser, leaps onto the prone Mitchell's stunt double, then grabs a nice big rock and lifts it over his head.

A shot of Kirk, scrapes on his right temple and right cheek, holding the rock above his head. "Gary, forgive me."

A shot of Mitchell, as his eyes go silver again. His hands shoot up and he arrests the fall of the rock. "For a moment, James," he says in his reverb voice, "but your moment is fading." He pushes.

A shot of Kirk's stunt double being thrown off of Mitchell's stunt double.

Kirk and Mitchell face each other across a prone Dehner. Kirk moves back and to the right until he comes up against the rock face. He aims a punch at Mitchell, which is intercepted. Mitchell sends Kirk spinning through the air to a hard landing. Mitchell picks up a much bigger rock, pauses (or poses) with the rock held over his head, then throws it. Kirk ducks under the rock, grabs Mitchell, and pulls him into the grave. Then he jumps out again, runs and grabs the phaser rifle, points it up at the basalt slab which is still hanging suspended over the grave, and shoots it. The ground shakes, pitching Mitchell back into the grave. The tombstone falls over onto him, followed by the basalt slab.

As the dust settles, Kirk crouches down by Dehner, the phaser rifle still cradled in his right arm. He sets the rifle down when he sees that she can't move anything below her neck. "I'm sorry," she says. "You . . . can't know what it's like to . . . be almost a . . . god." Sure he can, he's a starship captain, isn't he? At any rate, these are Dehner's last words before she closes her eyes and dies, thereby saving Kirk the trouble of killing her himself (as he was obviously prepared to do).

Kirk brushes a hand against her sleeve, then picks up the phaser rifle and stands up. He pulls out his communicator (which looks just like the ones Captain Pike's crew used), flips it open, and says, "Enterprise, from Captain Kirk. Come in."

***********************

THE TAG
Dissolve to a shot of Enterprise leaving Delta Vega.

Cut to a shot of the bridge, angle on the captain's chair. Yeoman Smith is standing nearby, while Scott mans the navigation console. Kirk, his right hand bandaged, adjusts the monitor on the gooseneck mount to face him. "Captain's log, stardate 1313.8. Add to official losses Dr. Elizabeth Dehner. Be it noted she gave her life in performance of her duty." As Spock joins Kirk, he adds, "Lieutenant Commander Gary Mitchell, same notation." He switches off the monitor. Kirk looks at Spock and says, "I want his service record to end that way. He didn't ask for what happened to him."

"I felt for him too," Spock states.

Still looking at Spock, Kirk says, "I believe there's some hope for you after all, Mr. Spock."

The two exchange a look, then resume watching the main viewscreen.

Cut to the main viewscreen, showing stars moving past.

Cut to a shot of the Enterprise moving off into the starry distance. The words DIRECTED BY JAMES GOLDSTONE appear, followed by WRITTEN BY SAMUEL A. PEEPLES, then CREATED AND PRODUCED BY GENE RODDENBERRY.

************************

CLOSING CREDITS
Shot of the Enterprise caught in the Galactic Barrier.
STAR TREK

ASSOCIATE PRODUCER ROBERT H. JUSTMAN

Shot of Damsel Vina approaching Captain Pike on Rigel VII.
MUSIC COMPOSED AND CONDUCTED BY ALEXANDER COURAGE

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY ERNEST HALLER, A.C.S. PRODUCTION DESIGNER WALTER M. JEFFERIES

Shot of Mitchell and Dehner looking out from the mirror.
GUEST STAR GARY LOCKWOOD

GUEST STAR SALLY KELLERMAN

Shot of the laser cannon shooting at the rocky knoll on Talos IV.
FEATURING GEORGE TAKEI AS SULU JAMES DOOHAN AS SCOTT LLOYD HAYNES AS ALDEN ANDREA DROMM AS YEOMAN SMITH

AND PAUL CARR AS LT. LEE KELSO PAUL FIX AS DOCTOR PIPER

Shot of the frozen engineer on PSI 2000.
ART DIRECTOR ROLLAND M. BROOKS FILM EDITOR JOHN FOLEY, A.C.E. ASSISTANT DIRECTOR ROBERT H. JUSTMAN SET DECORATOR ROSS DOWD COSTUMES CREATED BY WILLIAM THEISS SOUND MIXER CAM McCULLOUGH

POST PRODUCTION EXECUTIVE BILL HEATH MUSIC EDITOR JACK HUNSAKER SOUND EDITOR JOSEPH G. SOROKIN PRODUCTION SUPERVISOR JAMES PAISLEY WARDROBE PAUL McCARDLE SPECIAL EFFECTS BOB OVERBECK

MUSIC CONSULTANT WILBUR HATCH MUSIC COORDINATOR JULIAN DAVIDSON MAKEUP ROBERT DAWN HAIR STYLES HAZEL KEATS PHOTOGRAPHIC EFFECTS HOWARD ANDERSON CO.

Shot of Glistening Green Vina dancing.
A DESILU PRODUCTION IN ASSOCIATION WITH NORWAY CORPORATION

EXECUTIVE IN CHARGE OF PRODUCTION HERBERT F. SOLOW

**********************

EPILOGUE
It took a long time, days, before Mitchell was strong enough to escape from beneath the basalt slab. By then, the Enterprise was light-years away, well beyond his reach. As he stood in the clearing, pondering his options, there was a flash of light, and a man was standing in front of him. The man had short, dark hair and wore a Starfleet Captain's uniform. "Jim was right, you know, Gary," the man told him. "You were corrupted by your power. Absolutely."

"Who are you?" Mitchell wondered.

"I'm a member of an extremely advanced noncorporeal race that inhabits a realm we call the Q continuum. You can call me Q."

"Are you here to rescue me?"

"No, Gary. I'm here to imprison you for eternity."

With a gesture, Mitchell directed a bolt of energy at Q's body. Q vanished in another flash of light, then reappeared again. "That wasn't very friendly, Gary," Q observed. Q gestured in his own turn, and Mitchell found himself encased in a glass box. He smashed his fist into it, but it didn't break. He sent a bolt of energy into it, and it still didn't break. He threw his body against it, and it still didn't break.

Q sighed, then gestured. There was a momentary flash of light all around him, then Mitchell found that he was no longer on the surface of Delta Vega. Instead, he was somewhere in outer space. He was still inside the glass box, though, and the force of gravity was the same as it had been on Delta Vega. Spread out before him was a spiral galaxy, which he recognized immediately as the Milky Way Galaxy. There was an image of it on one of the walls of the transporter room, back on the Enterprise.

Q was still with him, a few feet away from the glass box, standing nonchalantly on empty space. Mitchell asked him, "Is this where you're going to imprison me? Inside this box, hanging here in intergalactic space?"

"Oh, no," Q assured him. "I'm afraid intergalactic space isn't nearly secure enough. I'm sure the Kelvans or somebody will come blundering along in a few centuries and set you free, and we certainly don't want that. No, I've just brought us here to get our bearings, so to speak. We were there," he pointed down towards the fringe of the galaxy, "on Delta Vega. Our destination is there," he pointed across to the center of the galaxy, "in the center of the galaxy."

"There's supposed to be a black hole at the center of the galaxy," Mitchell pointed out. "Are you just going to throw me into it, then? Won't that kill me?"

"Oh, that's not a black hole," Q assured him. "It might look that way to limited beings such as humanity, but it's not. It's actually a barrier. I like to call it the Great Barrier." Q gestured again, and the two of them were once again standing on the surface of a planet. Mitchell was still in the glass box. The surface of the planet was barren, rather like that of Delta Vega. The sky was clear, and held shifting blue curtains of light like an aurora borealis.

"Well, this is it," said Q. "Take your time, look around, get to know it. You're going to be staying here for the rest of your life. However long that is." With a final gesture, Q disappeared in another flash of light, and the glass box was gone.

Mitchell was free. And he was alone, on a desolate planet that was walled off from the rest of the universe. Come on, he told himself, think. You're God, aren't you? You can come up with a way out of this place.

Mitchell stood and pondered, for a long time.

**************************

Elizabeth Dehner opened her eyes, and saw a man standing over her prone form. He had dark hair, and wore the uniform of a Starfleet Captain. "Hello, Liz," he said.

"I prefer Elizabeth," she said automatically. "And why aren't I dead?"

"You aren't dead because you've been exposed to the energy of the Galactic Barrier," the man told him. "You cannot die."

"Are you from Earth? Where is Captain Kirk?"

"Earth? Hardly," the man said with distaste. "And Captain Kirk beamed back up to his vessel. He's convinced that you and Gary are both dead. As for me, I'm a member of an extremely advanced noncorporeal race that inhabits a realm we call the Q continuum. You can call me Q. I was observing your little drama with Gary and Jim, and I must tell you I was quite impressed with your actions. I'm here to invite you to join me in the Q continuum. You'll like it there. A much healthier place for you than among these mortals you've been living with." He reached down with a hand, and helped her to her feet.

"What about Gary? Will he be coming to this . . . Q continuum with us?"

"I'm afraid I wasn't nearly as impressed with Gary's behavior," Q confided. "Gary will be spending his days in . . . another place."

Dehner sighed. "I'm afraid he always was kind of an asshole. Very well, Q. Show me the way."

And he did.

**********************

Per the Okudas, filming on "Where No Man Has Gone Before" wrapped on Wednesday, July 28, 1965, with the fight scene between Kirk and Mitchell. Whitfield notes that this was one day more than had been originally planned. On Friday the 23rd, a heretofore unknown nest of wasps made its presence known on the soundstage, stinging Sally Kellerman in the back (according to Whitfield; Robert H. Justman implies that she was actually stung on her ass) and William Shatner on the eyelid. Fortunately, when filming resumed on Monday the 26th the swelling had gone down enough for Shatner to resume shooting.

GR was initially unable to devote much attention to postproduction work on "Where No Man Has Gone Before". He spent much of August 1965 producing a second pilot for Desilu called "Police Story" (no relation to the anthology series of the same name that eventually ran on NBC from 1973 to 1977), and much of September producing a third called "The Long Hunt of April Savage".

It was not until October that GR could devote his full attention to the second pilot. In addition, the Star Trek production team had an enormous amount of difficulty finishing the pilot's optical effects. What with one thing and another, it wasn't until the end of January 1966 that he managed to ship the second pilot off to the suits at NBC, after having taken ten months and $330,000 (Solow says $354,974) to produce it. In the middle of February, Herb Solow returned to Desilu with news that NBC had decided to buy the series.

Quite a bit of lore has grown up around "Where No Man Has Gone Before". The second half of Margaret Wander Bonanno's 1987 novel Strangers from the Sky is a prequel to the second pilot in which Kirk, Spock, Mitchell, Dehner and Kelso travel back to the 21st century. The first novel in the "Vanguard" series, David Mack's Harbinger (2005), which takes place shortly after the second pilot, has the Enterprise arriving at a newly-built Federation starbase after leaving Delta Vega.

Michael Jan Friedman's "My Brother's Keeper" trilogy (1999) follows the Enterprise's return to Earth after the events of the second pilot, though most of the trilogy consists of flashbacks showing Kirk's fifteen year friendship with Mitchell. (The third novel in the trilogy, Enterprise, begins its flashback with the Enterprise preparing to leave Dimorus and Mitchell still flat on his back in sickbay from the aftereffects of the poisoned dart.) As noted above, Friedman also related the story of the S.S. Valiant in his 2000 TNG novel of that name.

GR and Peeples were clearly trying to give their fictional universe a sense of historical depth, such as having the Enterprise come across a 200-year-old warning beacon, Tarbolde's 1996-vintage love sonnet, Kirk and Mitchell's history at "the academy" and Dimorus and Deneb IV. Nevertheless, to someone steeped in Star Trek lore, the stage on which the second pilot is played is a bare one. No United Federation of Planets, no Starfleet, no starbases, not even any food synthesizers or red and yellow alerts. We still don't know anything about Mr. Spock's background except for the fact that one of his ancestors married a "human female". The name "Vulcan" has yet to be mentioned. All we really have are the ship and its crew, and a handful of names: the Aldebaran colony, Delta Vega, Deneb IV, Canopus, Dimorus.

In 1965, Samuel A. Peeples was a 48-year-old writer with nine years' experience writing for television, mostly episodes of Western television series. He would go on to write an episode of the animated Star Trek series called "Beyond the Farthest Star", and contribute to the story for Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. He died on August 27, 1997.

Internal chronology: Per Memory Alpha, it is now generally accepted that "Where No Man Has Gone Before" takes place in the year 2265, placing it one year before the first regular season episode, "The Corbomite Maneuver", and eleven years after the first pilot, "The Cage".