Review

Journey to Babel is a skillfully written story which benefits mightily from the utilization of multiple plot threads, an unfortunately rare quality on Star Trek so far. The result is a fascinating array of tidbits, factoids, and drama relating to Federation politics and Spock's family. The reveal of Spock's parents to both Kirk and to the audience simultaneously was a terrific opener and sets a marvelous tone for the cultural differences between Vulcans and humans, as neither Sarek nor Spock wanted to reveal that fact until they were socially forced to, on the grounds of its lack of relevance from a strictly logical perspective.

Indeed, Sarek's devotion to logic is unwavering and his skill at it easily rivals Spock's. Since Spock is half human, his characterization has always varied somewhat between the emotional and the unemotional, but we see a new side to Spock as when in the company of his father he actively tries to ratchet up his unemotional, logical persona. When Amanda asked Spock if there was any part of her inside of him, she should have realized that Spock's emotional attachment to Sarek, something he and Amanda have in common, is what makes Spock want to act outwardly so much like his father in the first place.

Spock's desire to be more like his father is further illustrated with a brilliantly symbolic metaphor during the conception of the medical procedure to save Sarek from his heart problems when Spock proposes synthesizing pure Vulcan blood from his diluted hybrid blood by filtering out the human factors. This is of course a metaphor for what Spock has been doing all his life: trying to make himself less human. On top of that, McCoy's reference to the Vulcan heart being constructed in such a way to make surgery difficult is a nice metaphor for Vulcans in general struggling with their feelings.

What didn't work quite as well in the family drama was Sarek's disapproval of Spock's career path. Although Sarek's objections seem to stem from disapproval of Starfleet's organizational purpose, which he regards as primarily military in nature, the reasons for why that's such a problem to begin with are not explored in as much depth as I'd have liked. Sarek claims Spock's scientific interests would have been better suited by a life at the Vulcan Science Academy, but that assertion is left to be taken at face value rather than being fleshed out in any detail.

On the Federation politics side, we learn that Tellarites routinely engage in illegal mining operations, despite being members of the Federation. We also learn that the "carefully neutral" Orions raid non-Federation worlds, which motivated their duplicity in this episode. The fast, maneuverable Orion ship and the Orion murderer disguised as an Andorian were exciting details and Kirk leading his crew through the space battle despite suffering from a stab wound was excellent drama. I think I would have preferred to actually see Babel though, including the political chamber, the vote itself, and the admission of a new world to the Federation.

Given all the potential for depth and nuance that this episode simply didn't have the time to get to, I think Journey to Bebel could have benefited greatly from being a two part episode. Part 1 could have focused on the murder mystery as-is in the episode, with increased time spent developing the career conflict between Spock and Sarek. Part 2 could have resolved the murder mystery as-is while giving us time to actually see the political aftermath at Babel and the admission of a new world to the Federation. Even without that additional detail though, Journey to Babel stands out as one of the best episodes so far.