TAS: Season 2, Episodes 1 – 3

Date: February 14, 2020

Episode # and Episode Name: 1 – “Pirates Of Orion”, 2 – “Bem”, and 3 – “The Practical Joker”

Setting the Stage: I watched the entire season, all six episodes, via Amazon Prime through the CBS All Access 7-day trial and we had one day to spare! I’ve only got it in me to write about half the season tonight, however. I watched one episode before heading into a lunch meeting and the others I started around 3:00 pm. Surprisingly, no one was around when I was watching the episodes because I was working in my home office (dual screen monitors are clutch). As I write this, however, Professor Zoom is at my feet and Jazz is grooming himself and staring at me, sigh. I hijacked Valentine’s Day, so husband and I are going to see the New Jersey Devils (my team) play the Carolina Hurricanes here in Raleigh. Spoiler alert, the Devils are terrible this season. Today’s musical accompaniment is the Tron: Legacy soundtrack. Oh, and in case someone hasn’t told you today… love you!

Quick Summary with my Impressions: “Pirates Of Orion” is the beginning of another new season and another time I can’t pass the intro just yet. The Enterprise had some sickness floating around, but it’s all good… until Spock passes out on the bridge! McCoy explains to Kirk that Spock is dying and there’s only one thing that can help him. The medicine is 4 days away at warp speed and McCoy can only give Spock 3 days with a synthetic alternative. McCoy suggests that someone else can help them get it, but it will take some cooperation. The ship that has the medicine is approached by an unknown alien ship and no one knows who is on it. On the Enterprise, McCoy is trying his best to not be too snarky, but the synthesized drug is just not cutting it anymore. The Enterprise tries to help the crew of the Huron. They are now after the ship that stole the medicine, the dilithium crystal shipment, and attacked the Huron. Arax recognizes it as an Orion ship. The Orions claim they are not thieves, but they really are and decide to make a beneficial exchange so Kirk can have the medicine. The Orions, however, are planning to destroy everything. Kirk is always 5 steps ahead, but suddenly the other captain is all like “fine we surrender” and we end the episode.

Kirk just looks shocked the whole episode and seems overwhelmed by the thought of losing Spock. He doesn’t do much except for making the surprised Pikachu face for the entire first half of the episode. He finally gets his Captain on near the end, but the ending was super abrupt. It was cool to see some Orion men, as we’ve heard their race mentioned and seen some of the women. It was also great to see the cooperation between the star ship captains in order to get Spock the medicine. There were some weird changes, like the pronunciation of “Orion” and the skin color of the Orion men. But there was a bit of intrigue, mystery, drama, and all of the things a Trek episode usually has – just suuuuuper condensed. I rate this episode a 7.89mm high pressure automotive fuel line quick connector.

“Bem” allows me to skip the intro, yay! There’s a visitor on the Enterprise, he will be observing as he is part of a recently contact species. All of a sudden he wants to observe, even though he hadn’t in the several previous missions, and Kirk is peeved because it could be dangerous. They beam down, but Kirk and Spock fall into the water and Bem volunteers to rescue them (even though they don’t need it). He can, however, separate parts of his body – which no one knows about – and in doing so steals their communicators and replaces them, weird. Okay, apparently all of his body parts are able to be removed and he can then reassemble himself.

There are strange dinosaur aliens that have surrounded and captured Bem. Kirk and Spock are separated from the landing party, and Uhura is clear with Scotty and Sulu that they will follow procedure, so the latter two men are beamed up. Spock and Kirk realize something has happened, perhaps sabotage, but they also need to rescue Bem. Unfortunately, they get captured themselves. They attempt to escape, but are stopped by the ruling intelligence on the planet. Apparently, Bem is not pleased with the way Kirk and Spock are doing things and he up and leaves because of their incompetence. Kirk and Spock communicate with the ruling alien entity  (which sounds an awful lot like Uhura) and are able to communicate with the Enterprise. They find Bem and decide to leave, while quarantining the planet so that no one else gets stuck there.

Looks like this planet is getting the same treatment as the planet from “The Cage” so that others do not run into any issues. I love that animation allows us to see different kinds of aliens that we couldn’t have seen in a live action version. The whole episode, I’m wondering why Kirk just goes along with everything instead of asserting his rank over someone who is there to just observe. It was almost as if he were flustered and forgot that the engineering is supposed to run the transporter and that there are rules to be followed. At any time had Kirk just asserted his authority, as he has many times before, they wouldn’t have been in that mess. Also, what was the point of having Scotty and Sulu beam down only to have Uhura pull them back and then send them down once again? This episode just seemed like a comedy of errors, but twas funny in places and ridiculous in others, and it gets a solid 6.5 inch deep crust pizza.

“The Practical Joker” starts with Kirk talking about how the Enterprise is 72 hours ahead of schedule, so of course the very next thing that happens is they get shot at by Romulans. They escape through a strange energy field. After the escape, the bridge crew is eating and they all spill their beverage. After there’s a Matrix fork incident, McCoy thinks there is a joker in their midst.

Classic practical jokes ensue: Spock gets circles around his eyes, Scotty has food thrown at him, and someone puts “Kirk is a Jerk” on the back of one of his uniforms. Apparently the computer of the Enterprise is the practical joker. It traps Sulu, Uhura, and McCoy in the recreation room, at one point making the weather close to freezing, and it is being highly sophomoric when responding to Kirk and Spock. The computer floods “laughing gas” but they are able to rescue those from the recreation room. The ship is pointed back to the neutral zone when an Enterprise-balloon surfaces, because apparently the computer is a petty bitch and wants to trick the Romulans. Kirk now acts petrified in order to get it to go back through the energy field because he hopes that will reset the computer. Kirk is correct AND now the Romulan computer is acting up, bwahahaha.

If you look at the comedic value of this episode and add in that this was geared for children, this is a great episode. Something happens that causes the computer to glitch, and everyone thinks it’s funny until it becomes tiresome and also harmful. It proves a great lesson that sometimes jokes can go to far, and it really is all fun and games until someone gets hurt. If you’re looking for a science-fiction-filled Trekk episode, you’ve come to the wrong place. I can’t help but laugh at “Kirk is a Jerk”. For that, and the pie in Scotty’s face, this episode earns 6 White Castle sliders, extra pickles, but no cheese.

TA Out!