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

Episode #,and Episode Name: 12 – “The Empath” and 13 “Elaan of Troyius”

Setting the Stage: I started around 5:30 pm, on a rainy day, still watching Netflix and using their viewing order. Professor Zoom got groomed today, so naturally he slept because it was such a rough day, how could you mom?! There was food to be had somewhere in there, and plenty of cats around. While writing this up, I’m listening to my “study” playlist on shuffle, even though I’ve been out of school for at least four years now I don’t think I’ll ever rename it. I think the most impressive news is that it’s finally the end of January! That means this is the 31st blog post, and I’ve been watching Star Trek for 31 days! In that time I’ve watched 69 episodes of The Original Series spanning an approximate time of 57 hours, duuuuuude.

Quick Summary with my Impressions: Let me start off the review of “The Empath” by saying THIS EPISODE MOVED SO FREAKING SLOW! There’s a solar flare so Scotty has to move the ship out of orbit, but that leaves Kirk, Spock, and McCoy on the planet. They begin to hear a sound and then they all disappear, great Scott! Below the surface, they find a woman who is asleep, and Kirk says “we’re not going to hurt you” as he points a phaser at her… seriously? The men speculate while she looks on, until two very alien looking men pop in and freeze them in place. They realize she is an empath and a mute. While walking around the place, they find their missing men as well as tubes with their names on them… curiouser and curiouser.

They see the search party, but realize it was a ruse. The aliens say they only need one specimen, and they want Kirk, but instead of letting McCoy and Spock go, they disappear. We now pan to a shirtless Kirk, who is being tortured, but is then healed by the empath. McCoy knocks out both Kirk and Spock, so he can sacrifice himself to the aliens for experimentation. Turns out the aliens are trying to see if the empath will sacrifice herself for McCoy, which she eventually tries to. This is all in an effort to see if she will sacrifice herself for someone else, like the others demonstrated. Kirk delivers a speech, the aliens see reason, and everyone goes back to their normal lives, after going back to poking fun at Spock and his Vulcan heritage at the end of the episode.

I did a lot of eye-rolling at this episode. The men standing around a woman and talking about her like she wasn’t there (McCoy does mention this, but then they go right back to it), the whole point of what the aliens were trying to prove, and the whole hour being devoted to mostly six people… it was just a bit boring. No one died, except for the two men who were on the station but they died off screen. No one fell in love, thank goodness, though at least we’re back to brunettes. There was an attempt at science, but the reasoning didn’t make sense and I walked away feeling like I had just lost an hour of my time. This episode get 1 whole banana, but it surprises you by telling you the exact moment it is most ripe.

“Elaan of Troyius” begins with Kirk not knowing what the hell is going on, and he does not like that one bit. Finally a woman beams aboard and she apparently is “the Dohlman of Elas”, whatever that means, and she thinks she is in control. She is the planned mate of the ruler of Troyius so that their two worlds can have a chance at peace. She is not happy and quite the drama queen, as is the other ambassador, but Kirk won’t take shit from her. There’s also something following the Enterprise, and it’s a Klingon warship… just as the ambassador has been found with a knife in his back! Kirk has no patience for the Dohlman, he gets slapped, and slaps her right back. Kirk touches her tears, which is not good, because now he is under her control, and they kiss and do other naughty things. Meanwhile, one of her goons is sabotaging the ship. She finally dons the wedding dress and necklace that were “gifts” from her future husband, but the necklace is made of dilithium crystals and we now know why the Klingons want the star system. Scotty does his engineering magic and Elaan is off to be married. Turns out Kirk’s first love, the Enterprise, was the cure all along to the tears of Elaan, it’s a Christmas miracle.

All I got out of this episode was the Star Trek take of The Taming of the Shrew. There’s an arranged marriage, a “savage” woman, and some political intrigue. Some of the comments throughout the episode are just as eye-rolling worthy as the previous episode, so I’m going to have to give my eyeballs a long rest this evening. I also don’t understand how Elaan goes from being calculated enough to fake cry and make Kirk feel bad enough to touch her tears and be under her control, to be utterly in love with him back and listening to him when he kicks her off the bridge? What gives for her to change that much in so little time, unless of course her tears are a double edged sword? I have more questions than answers, and was overall unimpressed with this episode as well. This episode earns 1 bag of non-clumping cat litter, which is actually super useful if your car gets stuck in the snow, but not for when you have four cats in one house.

Season 2 was so good in some ways, at least an improvement over Season 1, but Season 3 is just not doing it for me. We’re halfway there, so let’s see what happens in February.

TA out!

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!

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

Episode #,and Episode Name: 7 – “Day of the Dove”, 8 – “For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky”, and 9 – “The Tholian Web”

Setting the Stage: I watched episodes 7 and 8 beginning at 7:30 pm on January 28, 2020, still watching Netflix and using their viewing order. I watched Episode 9 at 7:00 pm on January 29, 2020, also on Netflix. I had two long days at work, with lots of meetings, and coming home to eat dinner and watch one episode was enough for me tonight. Husband, Tempura, and Zoom were ever present, and everyone else was asleep. I might try to get way ahead this Saturday, though, if I’m going to watch the sportsball happening on Sunday, there won’t be time for Trek. Oh, and I’m listening to more Star Wars soundtracks this evening.

Quick Summary with my Impressions: “Day of the Dove” has Kirk and company beam down, apparently a settlement has been eliminated. There’s a shiny ball of energy following them, as well as the Klingons, and one just up and bitch slaps Kirk, whoa. They have the Klingons in horrible makeup that makes it look like blackface, and why do the bad guys have to be brown? Sigh. Also, how was the landing party taken over so easily? Chekov gets angry at the Klingons because they killed his brother, so he gets tortured first, but his screams are pretty terrible. Kirk “surrenders” but keeps the Klingons stranded in transit until security can get there. The ball of energy seemed to follow them while the Enterprise is going to assist those who were stranded on the Klingon ship and we meet female Klingons for the first time. Uhura is flummoxed by the lack of communications and the Enterprise is racing toward heading out of the galaxy, again. Didn’t we just do this? Um, why is everything turning into swords?!?! Chekov swears a vendetta and leaves his post, but apparently he’s an only child, curiouser and curiouser.

Everyone starts to get a little hot headed, McCoy and Scotty get a lot racist, and Spock stops gives into his human anger for just a few minutes. Kirk thinks something is staging a war for them. Chekov jumps Kang and his wife, and then WHAT THE HELL Chekov?! Kirk rightfully punches him out, and then carries him to sickbay showing off his manly man strength. They figure out the alien feeds off of their argumentative energy, and Kirk knows they need to be at peace in order to destroy it. Oh, another sword fight while a woman tries to talk sense into her husband… and now lets everyone get involved! Kang finally gets it and they all tell the alien to get out while laughing at it.

I have thoughts. Lots of thoughts, and a lot of questions too. This was an interesting story, but there were just too many things wrong. Why was Chekov the only one who had a made up backstory implanted? Why did they just send the alien away to torture some other group of innocents? How did it call them there to begin with? Of the three Klingon commanders we have seen so far, Kang is my favorite. He is what I expected the Klingons to be when I started watching the series. He just has this air of badassery surrounding him. Husband tells me I will see those three again in Deep Space Nine and keeps trying to convince me to watch that next, as it is his favorite. I’m also appalled by Chekov’s behavior towards women, even if he’s being mindfucked that’s no way to treat another person, ever. I did, however, enjoy the sword fights and eventually everyone decided to work together and diplomacy won the day. This episode gets 7 coconuts, some as big as your head, but none with a lime in them. Oh and when I heard “Kang”, this image popped into my head:

“For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky” is, quite possibly, the longest title ever! McCoy and Chapel get into an argument, she storms away, and McCoy tells Kirk that he has one year to live with a terminal illness, whaaat?! There’s an asteroid that has a missile on it… that’s no moon, it’s a spaceship and it’s heading toward Darren V.

Our three heroes beam over to the ship that is registering no life forms, but totally has life forms, surprise! They are attacked by a strange voice and some electricity, and wake up in a room where Kirk divulges McCoy’s secret. Kirk treats McCoy like people treat pregnant women sometimes, and I’m already over that bullshit. At least Spock gives the kindest gesture he can, and it’s quite touching. The priestess has the hots for McCoy, so he stays behind while Spock and Kirk go exploring. McCoy has fun flirting until the “m” word is used (mate, not marriage – get your head out of the gutter!), so he lets her know he has one year to live and then they share a smooch. She would rather spend one year with him than spend a lifetime without him, it’s very Lord of the Rings.

Kirk and Spock break into the room that was supposedly off limits and are found out, while McCoy decides to stay with the priestess as long as she lets them live.  Kirk and Spock go back to the Enterprise alone, but then head back to the “asteroid” to try and read “the book” while the Oracle tries to kill them by heating the room. Of course the day is saved, and the ship just so happens to have had the medical advances necessary to cure McCoy, how convenient.

I absolutely thought this was a great episode, except for all of the damn plot holes or other things that just don’t make sense. Why does it matter that they are on a ship? Also the romance between the priestess and McCoy doesn’t make a lot of sense, there are no lead up and she’s all like “mate with me” and he agrees! I understand people make emotional decisions when they are terminal, but come on McCoy you just met this woman! I did like that the Fabrini tried to save their civilization (hello Kryptonians, don’t just send two children), but the way they went about it was too secretive and also a little stupid. I mean, if you knew they were going to be wandering space for thousands of years, wouldn’t you want SOMEONE to check on the engines? Also, for someone so in love McCoy leaves his new lady pretty quickly once he was healed, typical. This episode gets 6 slices of pepperoni.

“The Tholian Web” has Spock telling Kirk the sensors are working, but clearly they are not and why is the Defiant green? Ooooh, the landing party dons spacesuits, that’s new. Oh no, the crew is dead and they apparently killed each other. Chekov starts to get dizzy, and McCoy finds a body that is now starting to disappear… along with the rest of the ship. Of course the transporter isn’t working, so Kirk decides to stay behind while the other three beam back. The Defiant vanishes with Kirk on it. While on the bridge, Chekov freaks out… he really does have an awful scream, get it together Koenig! While waiting, the Enterprise runs into the Tholians, who claim the space. When they fail to retrieve Kirk the first time, the Tholians fire, the Enterprise fires back, and then the Tholians come back and build a web, I wonder where the idea came from, hmmmmm. Spock calls a briefing and declares Kirk dead, so he and McCoy listen to Kirk’s voice recording, his final orders. Uhura and Scotty see visions of Kirk floating through space, and the mystery murderous rage is spreading through the ship. McCoy figures out the antidote, the web is closed, and Kirk reappears. Once Kirk is back on the ship, Spock and McCoy lie about hearing the “final orders”, and away they go.

This episode had a strange medical mystery, interaction with reasonable alien lifeforms, drama, and no romance! There are some things I have to point out, like the “no mutiny in Starfleet history” thing? Didn’t Spock totally take over in “The Menagerie”, even if it was for a very good reason? Aren’t Vulcans unable to lie? Did Spock tap into his human side because he experienced, dare I say, embarrassment? Also, is Kirk just that good and knows that if he died that McCoy and Spock would be acting the way they were, or was that just a way to talk some sense into the two? Also, why do the Tholians look like luchadors – or is it just me? This episode gets 6 Stone Cold Stunners and a People’s Eyebrow for good measure.

TA Out!

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

Episode #,and Episode Name: 6 – “Spectre of the Gun”

Setting the Stage: I started at 7:00 pm, still watching Netflix and using their viewing order. I had a long day of meetings and teaching, and we had a delicious taco dinner, and I can’t believe it’s only Monday because it already feels like I’ve had a hell of a week. Again, I planned at least two episodes and only was able to watch one. While I am writing this up, it’s a Daft Punk and Linkin Park kind of night.

I also recently figured out that Firefox has more menu options than Chrome, so I have figured out how to categorize things and am hoping to update some of the pages. I hope you like the new menu (available at the top and bottom of each page). Let me know if anything is amiss!

Lastly, I figured out who the Slytherin on the bridge is – it’s Chekov! First, in “Mirror, Mirror” we have him wanting to move up via the assassination of Kirk. Next, in “And the Children Shall Lead“, it’s Chekov that is tapped by the children to try and arrest Kirk on “federation orders”. I think he has the motivation, work ethic, and ambition to be more than he is. That makes the set of Gryffindor (Kirk), Slytherin (Chekov), Ravenclaw (Spock), and Hufflepuff (McCoy).

Quick Summary with my Impressions: “Spectre of the Gun” begins with the Enterprise being followed by a shiny, multicolored beacon and then an entity speaks to each of the crew in their native tongue telling them to leave. So what do they do? Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Chekov, and Scotty all beam down to the planet of course! They find themselves in a dense fog when a voice tells them they shouldn’t have come and transfers them to a place that appears to be the Wild West. Apparently we are going to watch the Star Trek rendition of Tombstone, which I have seen, but the crew is set as the ill-fated Clantons.

As they walk into the bar, everyone recognizes them as the Clantons, and Chekov gets some smooching time with the barmaid, who is head over heels in love with him. The crew can’t leave the area, so they all gather up supplies to try and endeavor to “MacGyver” some weapons and other self-defense items. Chekov is adorable with Slyvia, the barmaid, but understands he can’t go so far as to marry her – which is what she wants. The actors who play the Earps are almost mechanical and quite stiff, not sure if that’s because this is supposed to be a replay of the O.K. Corral shooting or because they were just all bad actors. Earp and Chekov get into an argument over Sylvia, Earp shoots, and Chekov dies. Spock points out that Billy (who was Chekov’s counterpart in this story) didn’t die in the original O.K. Corral, so he theorizes that Chekov only died because he thought the bullets were real. This leads to Spock using the Vulcan mind melding stuff with the others in order to make them have faith that nothing is actually real. Somehow they wind up back on the ship, even Chekov! The Melkotians are most impressed that Kirk has outgrown his ancestral appetite for violence, and invites the crew to talk of joining the Federation.

I was positive Chekov wasn’t dead, but I didn’t think it was an illusion until everyone was magically back on the Enterprise. If you don’t understand the reference above, I’m not sure if we can still be friends. The Earps were super mechanical, like they were reading off a script, which I am sure was intentional but just added to the idea that the setting wasn’t as real as the Melkotians may have intended. Each Earp said they were going to kill the crew “at 5:01 pm” so many times! Thinking about the crew, though, they really kept to their mission this time. They spoke from a place of peace and didn’t ever throw the first punch or go out of their way to make trouble, they really wanted to talk… honest!

One thing that bothers me is when Scotty and McCoy gang up on Spock for not having the “appropriate” reaction to Chekov being dead. First, regardless of if you are Vulcan or Human, there is no correct way to grieve. I hope that’s loud enough for all of you in the back. Yes there are the usual steps, but everyone goes through them in their own way. The best way to help someone who is grieving is to be there for them and make sure they are taking care of themselves. Now that I’m off my counseling soapbox, I did like how everyone tried to make the tranquilizers and other non-lethal weapons in order to really stick to the “I don’t want to kill you I just want to talk about peace” mission. I give this episode a 4.7 liter v8 engine, mostly to annoy my husband.

TA out!