Palladin = Mr Spock

I, for one, definitely see what you mean. Spock was the first character I fell in love with after Paladin. Another fan on these boards agrees, too, but I'll let her speak for herself if she gets here. Something about those tall, thin, dark ones with extreme intelligence AND an edge. Yummy.


"I'm only in Show Biz by injection"

Considering that Gene Roddenberry had some hand in the characterisation of Paladin, it's easy to see the connection between the two. What I see is that the three STAR TREK characters, Captain Kirk, Doctor McCoy and Mr Spock, all have elements of Paladin within *them.*

Allow me to elucidate:

Captain Kirk: He never quits, he may be afraid but he never admits it and he never says die, he always has a plan and he always succeeds by doing the one thing that works. He's the only cadet who ever beat the KOBYASHI MARU scenario and he did it by hacking the program. Paladin cheats to win, too, as long as it's not at cards. I refer to the episode SHOW OF FORCE to support this hypotheses. In addition, Kirk has Paladin's healthy sexual appetite.

Dr McCoy: He has the biggest heart and he always wants to do the right thing, no matter which side it falls upon, he is the one who feels the most in the group and he never refrains from saying so no matter what. Paladin always says what he thinks, he doesn't care whom he hurts or who is right or wrong, even when it's himself who has erred.

Now we come to the meat of the matter, Spock. Spock is Paladin on steroids. He outthinks everyone and everything. He always comes up with the best plan and it always works. When it comes down to the end, he will sacrifice himself for the good of the others and he has done so, i.e. ST: THE WRATH OF KHAN. Paladin put himself in harm's way many times. That he survived so many gunfights speaks to his skills and speed. Would Paladin have entered the radiation chamber and sacrificed himself for his shipmates and saved the ENTERPRISE? Why are we speculating about this? Of course he would have gone in there, without a radiation suit and he'd have wrestled that core into submission bare handed! Paladin would have growled at it and it would have subsided out of fear! (Got carried away a bit there, sorry!)

These three characters together are Paladin. Separately they make up 3 of the most beloved characters in television history: Kirk, Spock and McCoy. The beat goes on, doesn't it?

As a fan of the original series and the rest of the many incarnations, I have to say that the reboot wasn't completely perfect in my eyes. Nevertheless, if I must choose between no more STAR TREK ever again and starting over with a younger version of each character with different actors, I'll take what I can get. My few quibbles aren't worth mentioning here in this post.

I think they did pretty well and the new characters have great chemistry. I'm looking very forward to the next outing. At least they've broken the curse of odd-numbered ST films. This one did NOT suck. Fingers crossed there are 2 successes in a row for once...

Breaking the traits of a single character into 3 characters gives more scope for drama and story. Roddenberry may have been an alcoholic who claimed to be head writer on a series which had no official head writer (HGWT), but he was a genius with ST and all its incarnations. Before you get offended on Roddenberry's behalf, I, too, worship at the altar of Roddenberry. He was who he was. We all have our feet of clay.

From research I've done on the subject, I suspect his hand was on more than one HGWT script for which he did not receive credit. From the subject and the style, the pacing, even, it's very much a Roddenberry episode. Each time I see it, I cannot believe that Gene Roddenberry didn't come up with the idea and write it from scratch...but he did not do so. Another HGWT writer said in an interview that when the scripts weren't working, they'd pass them around and doctor them. I detect the hand of Roddenberry upon A SHOW OF FORCE and several others which I won't name here. The pitch for STAR TREK as WAGON TRAIN TO THE STARS is more reminiscent of HAVE GUN WILL TRAVEL than not.

I've given this a lot of thought. What are *your* thoughts on this, SkyGuy?

Another Spock/Paladin connection - in "The Princess and the Gunfighter" Paladin's love interest was played by actress Arlene Martel using the name Arline Sax. She also played Spock's Vulcan bride, "T'Pring", in the episode, Star Trek: Amok Time (1967).

I see it a little bit. But Paladin is still prone to emotional outbursts and illogical things like extravagant meals and operas. I liken Paladin more to a hyper-intellectual, but more gruff looking, James Bond.