TOS: Season 3, Episodes 10 and 11 (Jan 30, 2020)

Series and Season: Star Trek: The Original Series, Season 3

Episode #,and Episode Name: 10 – “Plato’s Stepchildren” and 11 “Wink of an Eye”

Setting the Stage: Youse guys (because I can’t, for the life of me, bring myself to ever say “y’all”). I got my desktop all set up THREE TIMES, but it froze and had to be restarted and I had a bit of a stressful day so this may not be my best post. However, I have some great tunes to get me through the evening, specifically The Gorillaz and a whole bunch of the Tron: Legacy soundtrack (a mess ton of Daft Punk, basically).

I started at 7:00 pm, still watching via Netflix and using their viewing order. Husband, Tempura, and Professor Zoom were ever present while we ate some homemade Chinese food. One of my closest colleagues retired today, and then I cried while cutting onions for husband’s work chili cook-off tomorrow, so it’s been that kind of Thursday. Anyway, onto my comments!

Quick Summary with my Impressions: “Plato’s Stepchildren” begins with a distress call for a medical emergency and are greeted by a man named Alexander, who is short in stature. Alexander – I totally relate. Apparently the inhabitants can mask their existence and have great telekinetic powers, well everyone except for Alexander who is essentially their court jester and slave. I already know I am going to hate this episode. Once the medical emergency is over, they want to keep McCoy, and take over the landing party and keep the Enterprise from leaving orbit. All of the actors do such a great job acting like they’ve actually been taken over by the Platonians with their jerky movements. Spock laughing, and then crying, is so un-Spock like it’s quite unnerving. Having Alexander ride Kirk around like a pony, or having Spock river dance over Kirk’s body, or almost everything else in this episode is just gross and awful. Once Chapel and Uhura are beamed down, it just gets worse – even if there’s an interracial kiss in the same five minutes as an inter-species kiss. The Shatner pause is alive and well in this episode and Spock gets to sing. Somehow during all of this madness, McCoy figures out how to give Kirk and Spock the telekinetic powers (something to do with the food or some such) and the crew escapes, with Alexander in tow. I absolutely hated when Kirk said he had a “little” surprise for Scotty, though it absolutely was not said maliciously but it was a bit patronizing and a bad bit of writing. I am, however, glad Alexander got to move on to greener pastures.

The are a few good things to come out of this episode, and why I rank it slightly higher than “The Gamesters of Triskelion” and “The Omega Glory”. There’s of course the kiss between Kirk and Uhura, which is not as grand as I thought it would be. I also have to hand it to Chapel, as she tells Spock she didn’t want it to happen like this, she totally could have taken advantage of the situation but she rose to the occasion. There’s Kirk slapping himself, which is hysterical. There’s Alexander being the bigger man (absolutely no pun intended) and there is this quote near the top of the episode:

Alexander, where I come from, size, shape, or color makes no difference, and nobody has the power.

Captain James T. Kirk, “Plato’s Stepchildren”, Season 3 of Star Trek: The Original Series

That is the only reason this episode gets 2 almost overripe pears.

“Wink of an Eye” starts with another distress call about another medical emergency… didn’t we already do this? This time there is no one to be found, but strange things start happening once they beam back aboard and Kirk realizes they have been infiltrated. Something has hooked into the life support system of the ship, but it cannot be destroyed. Suddenly, a blonde appears! Kirk has been altered into a higher state of motion and has therefore disappeared in the eyes of the crew. Apparently “the enemy” that has infiltrated them lived on a planet that had a volcanic eruption and same gamma radiation that left them unable to reproduce with themselves. We have a Handmaid’s Tale here where the Scalosians pick other species to mate with, even though they have partners of their own kind.

Kirk does some fast thinking and plants some breadcrumbs to help lead Spock and McCoy to save the day, just in the nick of time I suppose, because drama. Deela, the woman who chose Kirk to be her mate, at least tries to be decent but she’s still capturing Kirk and making unwanted advances (although he seems to go along with the kissing, because he’s Kirk after all). Deela’s partner, however, is a jealous schmuck and tries to knife Kirk – like we haven’t seen that before :rolls eyes:. Anyway, Spock drinks the water to transform himself, he and Kirk meet up to destroy the machine that’s plugged into life support, and they save the day. With everything, and everyone, back to normal, we warp away.

I didn’t love this episode, but I also didn’t hate it. There was some science stuff, there was a group of folks trying to save their race (even if they were going about it the wrong way), and there were minimal casualties. This is like a solid Mambo Number 5 for me, because I can only listen to it so many times.

TA out!