Dan1863Sickles

This movie looks like a classic, and feels like a classic, and it's supposed to be a love story. Yet when it's all over you can't remember any of the love scenes. What sticks in your mind is the historical background stuff, like the cavalry charge across the frozen lake. And the way the soldiers pull the mean old general off his horse and club him to death. And the way the old man is ready to accept Lenin's rule but can't quite grasp the concept of "no more czars."

It's a story where feelings matter but nobody really seems to be in control of their own emotions from one moment to the next. Lara's first husband, Pasha, switches personalities three or four times for reasons that are never quite explained. First he's a schoolboy in love. Then he's a power mad fanatic. Then (off stage) we're told he's gone back to being a schoolboy in love again. "He died to save us from plot holes," gloats the villainous bearded guy who keeps turning up every hour or so.

Speaking of the bearded guy. Rod Steiger gives an amazing performance, leering and sneering and ogling Julie Christie with such oily delight that you can really feel the ramrod stiffness of his desire. But does anyone really believe that this guy could ingratiate himself with the Bolsheviks? He's such an aristocratic convention, the heartless seducer with the wit of Shakespeare's Falstaff and heartless cruelty of Richardson's Lovelace! Towards the end he compares himself to Caliban, which I think is really unfair to Caliban (a true working class hero if ever there was one.) In real life this leering cad would have been clubbed to death just like the mean old general.

But it doesn't matter. Julie Christie and Omar Shariff just have such a dreamy connection, even if you can't really remember anything they say or do. They just dream their way through the picture together!

The premise of Greek gods seeking a return to faded glory is interesting enough. And the way that love develops between Apollo and the stunning young anthropologist seemed compelling enough for me.

But what really ruins this episode is that it consistently casts Kirk in the role of heavy. Think about it. In most classic TOS episodes, Kirk is the one who motivates and inspires people. "You can do more, you can be more! You don't need to worship Landru. You don't need to worship Val. You don't need to worship the Fuhrer!"

But no. This time around, Kirk is the one who rains on everyone's parade. "Let her go, Scotty. You're too old. You're too ugly. You can't get it up anymore!" And then he's like, "You're not a god! Your time is over! We don't need you! Die, Apollo. Die, die, die!"

And at the end McCoy is like, "did we really have to do that?"

High point of the episode: Nucky letting his German butler give the bum's rush to a gold-digger type who has just given away how greedy and selfish she really is. You are supposed to leave, says the gruff Teuton, and the patriarchy is saved for another day.

But the episode has a darker side too. Chalky White's right hand man is entrapped into sex with a white woman, only to be ambushed by her husband with a gun! Normally I feel like the show tap dances away from racial issues, giving the Black characters a lot more agency and freedom than they would really have in this time period. But in this episode we see the reality, as sex is used as a brutal weapon to emasculate and dehumanize the black lover of the white woman. Only our man has a few tricks up his sleeve!

A great episode, but make sure to fast forward past all the Andy Hardy sentimentality about useless Eli and his Number One Son. The family scenes are stomach turning, and they only get worse as the season drags on.