Date: February 10, 2020

Episode # and Episode Name: 1 – “Beyond the Farthest Star”,  2 – “Yesteryear”, 3 – “One Of Our Planets Is Missing”, 4 – “The Lorelei Signal”, 5 – “More Tribbles, More Troubles”, and 6 – “The Survivor”

Setting the Stage: I watched episodes 1 – 3 on Feb 8 during dinner, starting around 8:00 pm. Episodes 4 – 6 were watched on Feb 9, also during dinner, also starting around 8:00 pm. This is curious as dinner is usually around 6:00 – 7:00 pm. I’ve moved onto watching this series via Amazon Prime through the CBS All Access 7-day trial. Accompanying me as always is the husband and Professor Zoom. On Sunday evening, tempura decided my lap was her spot, so that meant Jazz got to use husband’s lap. We definitely need more laps in the house for the number of fur babies we have! I’m on my lunch break, eating leftovers, and listening to some random classical music compilation off of YouTube. Oh and if anyone was wondering, it’s freezing in my office.

As we’ve got shorter episodes, I’ll likely be watching 6 episodes a night to keep at about 2 hours of Trek a day. This may mean I do a quick summary and a one line impression, or a shorter summary and a larger impression based on how memorable I felt the episode was to me. This will likely lead to longer posts, but I’m sure the two of you reading this won’t mind one bit 🙂

Quick Summary with my Impressions: “Beyond the Farthest Star” starts off with the intro, which I can’t skip. This is a departure from a cold open, then intro, and then the rest of the show. On the bridge I immediately ask “where is Chekov?” and am saddened to find out he won’t be back until the movies. The animation is strange but fun. The Enterprise is about to impact with a planet, when they magically attain orbital velocity due to Sulu-mgic. I think Uhura already has more lines in this one episode than she did in the whole 3 seasons prior, and I like. The ship they find also in orbit from the planet looks like a peacock, and has been in orbit for almost 300 million years?!?! Scotty is fascinated by the ship and the life support belts are a cool idea.

The ship is somehow still working and a message plays for the landing party. Turns out there was another life form on the ship, so the old crew decided to destroy their ship instead. As the landing party beams back, said life form follows them through the transporter. This is very Scooby Doo like. Apparently the life form takes over the Enterprise, its ability is to control computer centers and other mechanical devices. They prepare the slingshot move, but the life form thinks they’re going to crash into the dead star and it flees to there, which allows the Enterprise to escape.

I can already tell I am going to like the Animated Series a lot, because they have to get through the plot quickly. There isn’t a lot of time, so they don’t have this pressure of filling an hour with random stuff. Sometimes, in The Original Series you could tell when something was filler. I’ll be super stoked if Uhura is given more to do and if we’ll get to see some cool aliens because, animation! On the other hand, because of the short time frame, there’s a lot of stuff that gets missed. What exactly was the life form and did they ever warn anyone not to go near that part of space? Overall, it was a “meh” opening but still kept my attention. It was leaps and bounds greater than almost all of Season 3, so this episode earns itself 6 perfectly ripe Roma tomatoes.

“Yesteryear” has it where I can skip the intro, hooray! Is this the same place where they jumped back in time from the “City on the Edge of Forever”, husband thinks so. Kirk and Spock come back from wherever they were in time but no one knows who Spock is and now there is some other alien as the first officer of the Enterprise, whoa. In this timeline Spock was killed at age 7 and his mother died later, but it’s really some weird time travel craziness because older Spock has to head back in time to save his younger self. Spock heads back into the past and we see the other children bullying him for being half-human. Older Spock introduces himself as his cousin, and we get to see Spock’s childhood pet they discussed in The Original Series! Makes you want to say “d’awww puppy”. Adult Spock saves child Spock from a wild animal, but now a healer is needed for his pet. Unfortunately, the pet needs to be put down, but young Spock makes the decision with grace for his age.

Putting aside the time travel madness of “I already did this once and now have to do it again”, I genuinely liked this episode. Spock gets to interact with his family in an adorable way an impart wisdom the only way he knows how. We get to see him determined to do what is right for I-Chaya, who defended young Spock with his life. It is heartbreaking to lose a pet, especially as a child, but young Spock learns a lesson and older Spock restores the timeline, so it’s bittersweet. This episode was super awesome, aside from I-Chaya dying, so it gets 9 lbs. of the finest, freshest homemade mozzarella.

“One Of Our Planets Is Missing” starts off with a red cloud about to consume a planet, so the Enterprise is trying to save the inhabited planet. The Enterprise winds up in the middle of the cloud and Spock utters “the cloud is alive”, man he is so damn dramatic. The governor on the planet says he will evacuate the children because there just isn’t time to move anyone else. The Enterprise tries to bust out of the cloud and cause it to steer away from the inhabited planet, but it is made of antimatter. Scotty has a brilliant idea and of course we are down to the wire because we can’t have Trek without the drama. Spock determines that it has a brain, and I’m singing from the Wizard of Oz.

Kirk wants to kill the cloud and Spock is concerned about killing a potentially intelligent creature. I’m glad sassy Spock is back, but it looks like we’re blowing up the Enterprise, eek. Uhura and Spock try to communicate with the cloud so as to try and dissuade it from eating the inhabited planet. Spock melds with the cloud and gets it to understand that murder is bad, and the cloud goes back from wherever it came.

So we have an interesting “last minute everyone saves the day” plot. Scotty, Uhura, and Spock all have their moments, and clearly the cloud had some intelligence and a moral compass. I wonder where it came from, and why hadn’t anyone been affected by it until now? I also wonder what was happening on the planet and if that caused them to come up with any emergency plans for the future. It was so great to see the crew come together to solve a problem, even if we had to do it with plenty of dramatics. This episode earned itself a 7 of spades.

“The Lorelei Signal” starts with a “Bermuda Triangle” space mystery, every 27 and some-odd number of years a ship goes missing in an exact spot. All the exact time, Uhura is suddenly concerned about the men on the bridge, but they beam down anyway. There are women on the planet who are very happy to see the landing party. The men collapse, I’m pretty sure the red shirt in the landing party was forgotten, and when they wake up they are visibly older. Uhura realizes something is wrong and takes command of the ship, and I absolutely love this episode already. On the planet, the men escape (the red shirt is magically back), and determine the headbands are draining their energy. Uhura and Chapel assemble an all-female rescue team to beam down and save the day.

They find Spock, but where did the others go? I’m not sure why the females of the planet didn’t try to locate them using their machine earlier, but whatever, they are found and saved. Everyone is now back on the Enterprise, and they use the transporter to reprogram the men back to their younger selves. They agree to find a suitable planet for the women so they may age and live out their days.

The only thing I don’t like about this episode is that Spock had to tell them all what to do, but this episode is a step in the right direction in terms of utilizing the whole crew and also highlighting the awesomeness of the women crew members. Uhura has a breakout moment and shows she excels at all forms of communications and problem solving. Chapel goes along with the flow, but she’s generally good at following orders anyway. The all-female rescue team made my heart happy and had that same feeling as the all-female Avenger team in Endgame. This will make my third perfect 10 episode, because Spock is going to be a know-it-all no matter what and I’ve accepted that. 10 what, you may ask… I’ll leave the units up to you.

“More Tribbles, More Troubles” looks like we’re heading back to Sherman’s planet but the Klingons are in pursuit of the pilot of a smaller ship. The Kilngons do something to damage the weapons of the Enterprise via a new-to-us weapon. Oh, but the Tribble man is back! Apparently these Tribbles don’t reproduce, they just get fat. Scotty is being a bit dramatic about all of the things that are happening around the ship, but the ship is his love and he doesn’t like it when things don’t go just right. While the ship is being attacked, the grain gets knocked over and the Tribbles begin to eat. They get so large, that the Enterprise beams them onto the Klingon ship in order to disable it. The Klingons really just wanted the “predator” they were building to combat the Tribbles, so Kirk beams it back so they can be on their way. McCoy figures out that it’s not a really fat Tribble, but a colony, so he start breaking them down and Kirk once again winds up under a pile of Tribbles.

This was a ridiculously cute episode. It was essentially the same plot of the previous Tribble episode, without all of the espionage, and ended in the same adorable and funny way. I want to give this a 10, but it wasn’t really anything new, so I give it 9 planets (including Pluto) instead.

“The Survivor” has a man named Carter Winston found after 5 years, ummm who is he? Apparently he is a benevolent rich guy and his fiancee is aboard the Enterprise, convenient. Their reunion is strange and he doesn’t even seem to care about her. Turns out he’s really an alien who can shape-shift and then turns into Kirk. As Kirk, he has the ship head toward the Romulan neutral zone. Now the alien takes over McCoy, just as Kirk and Spock enter. Kirk figures out what is going on – why do Spock and McCoy not notice that there are now 3 tables in the room?! Apparently the Romulans were being sneaky and sent a spy in the form of this particular alien. However, the alien took on more of Winston’s personality when he had taken care of him, so the saves the Enterprise.

I thought it was fishy (no pun intended, I mean he does look like an octopus) that they happen to come across a missing man, alive, after 5 year and his fiancee just happened to be a crew member. It wasn’t until they started toward Romulan space that I realized it was likely espionage. The explanation for why the alien acted as he did seemed plausible, and when you’re trying to get a story done in less than 30 minutes, I can buy it. I also liked, no matter how cheesy, that the fiancee decided to give the alien a chance. It really showed a lot of social progress on behalf of the Trek writers, I mean mixing the species… whoa! I think this episode deserves 7 and three quarter really ripe cantaloupe melons, with a side prosciutto.

TA Out!

Episode # and Episode Name: 23 – “All Our Yesterdays” and 24 – “Turnabout Intruder”

Setting the Stage: I started around 1:00 pm watching the last two episodes on the season on Netflix, where their order and production order are in perfect harmony. Today was a lazy day because I needed a day to recuperate my energy, so I also finished Season 2 of Zumbo’s Just Desserts and started on The Animated Series, but I’ll start writing about that tomorrow. Tonight’s writing music is the Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace soundtrack performed by the London Symphony Orchestra, and I’ve apparently put my playlist in artist order, whoops.

As I am now finished with The Original Series, I’ll be updating all of the other pages… so check them out!

Quick Summary with my Impressions: “All Our Yesterdays” has our three leading men beam down to a planet to be sure everyone is gone (due to the impending explosion), but they encounter what I believe to be a librarian. Kirk hears a scream, runs toward it, and he is transported somewhere else in time and space. McCoy and Spock follow, but not to the same place. Kirk lands in a place with a Scottish lass, while Spock and McCoy are in a frozen tundra; but they can hear each other, curious. Kirk gets knocked out and the others go to find shelter. A woman helps McCoy and Spock to find shelter, and there’s soft music in the background because our red-headed female friend has taken a liking to Spock. Zarabeth takes off her coat to reveal a skimpy outfit and Spock is having a crisis over logic and the time crunch of the nova.

It is revealed they may not be able to go back without the risk of dying, which Kirk finds out too from his time but it’s worse since they were not prepared and might die in the past, gasp! Kirk finds his way back, just 17 minutes before the deadline, but he gets shot in the stomach by the librarian. I don’t understand why Spock accepts things so easily and why McCoy is being such a dick to Spock. Spock is apparently a vegetarian, and is so confused by seeing a beautiful woman and the other emotions he is feeling, so much so he initiates a kiss, LEGIT smiles, and then picks her up (which reminds me of a great scene in Moonstruck). WHAT IS GOING ON?!?! Did Spock just get laid? Turns out Spock had adjusted to being 5000 years in the past before the Vulcans embraced logic, fascinating. McCoy is at his most sassy when someone is trying to kill him, and I like this McCoy the best. Spock doesn’t want to leave, but they have to travel through together and all three get back to the ship in not-so-record time.

So this was a twist on time travel that avoided the “don’t change the timeline” device, but brought up a whole host of new questions. If the people from the future went to the past, how did they explain themselves? Did it affect the future in some way? If Spock and Kirk could hear each other, why couldn’t the others? Why was the librarian there until the bitter end, and where did he go to? Despite all of those questions, I thought it was an interesting episode. It was good to see Spock in a different setting, and it was believable that he could give into his human emotions, or maybe even his primal Vulcan ones, because his cells were adapting to the time line he was in. The other “let’s have them fall in love in 50 minutes” plots were usually unsuccessful, unless there was a huge passage of time. Nimoy was the breakout actor of this episode, and McCoy was the voice of reason while Spock was reverting to his ancestral roots. This was as good of an episode as Season 3 could muster, and I think that allows for 7.5 Twizzlers (a little past the recommended serving size).

“Turnabout Intruder” is the season and series finale, but since we’re at the end of the 1960’s, it doesn’t feel like those of today do. We begin with another lady love from Kirk’s past, Dr. Lester, and what – women aren’t allowed to be star ship captains? What the actual fuck is this bullshit? Well this one is apparently loaded with a stun gun and we’ve got a Freaky Friday situation on our hands as they swap bodies.

Dr. Coleman looks like he knows something is up (he’s totally in on it), and they all beam back to the Enterprise. Dr. Lester (in Kirk’s body) tries to be Kirk beyond suspicion, but she is apparently crazy (because that’s the only thing women can be – right kids? /s) and manages to antagonize both McCoy and Spock. On the bridge I notice something is different, WHERE IS UHURA? It’s never a good episode when she is not there. Kirk, in Lester’s body, wakes up and is absolutely pissed. He escapes but is attacked by Kirk (well Lester in Kirk’s body still) and put in isolation, but Spock knows something is going on. McCoy does some medical tests on “Kirk”, and finds him to be physically and mentally fit, but it’s obvious something is off and McCoy wants the medicine to back up his suspicions. Spock finally believes that Kirk is in Lester’s body and tries to help. Looks like Spock has been charged with mutiny, again, but this time Scotty and McCoy are also brought up on charges. Once “Kirk” orders execution, everyone realizes what’s happening and then somehow they are flipped back and we end the episode.

Shatner does some fabulous acting here but that’s really the only highlight of the episode, well that and the body swapping. The rest of the episode is just an awful misogynistic mess. Women can’t captain a ship because they’re inferior and don’t have the temperament, so let’s back up that claim with a clearly psychotic woman who has had her heart broken by James T. Kirk. It was nice to see all of the crew coming to the realization that Kirk might not be Kirk, especially since that’s happened before (I’m looking at you Mirror, Mirror), but that’s all overshadowed by showing that Dr. Lester would simply go crazy and be hysterical, rather than become a captain some other way or challenge Starfleet in some way. I was disappointed this was the last episode and wish we would have ended on the previous episode instead. This one earns 2 milk chocolate stars that have been left in the back of a black car, in the middle of the summer, from dawn until dusk, in Georgia.

Overall, this was my least favorite season of the 3 Original Series seasons. But don’t take my word for it, go check out the Rankings page! Tomorrow, I begin to discuss The Animated Series. TAS is the only one my husband has never seen, well that and all the new Trek stuff, so I’m making him watch all of the episodes with me. Good thing they are 30 minutes or less!

TA Out!