June 2010
2 posts
1 tag
6 tags
And the Children Shall Lead
And the Children Shall Lead (Video; Memory Alpha) is a neat idea that runs out of steam before the credits and then flails about being boring for forty more minutes.
The nugget of goodness is that an evil spirit has convinced the children on the new colony of Triacus to kill their parents and then take over the galaxy, using the Enterprise as their transport. The spirit gives the kids powers and...
March 2010
10 posts
1 tag
1 tag
8 tags
The Paradise Syndrome
The Paradise Syndrome (Memory Alpha; HD Video) starts on a beautiful pastoral scene that looks a lot like Earth but that, by all measures, shouldn’t. There’s honeysuckle, orange blossom, Amerindians, and a giant green monolith. Well, the giant green monolith is a bit odd, I’ll admit.
Oh, and there’s an asteroid hurtling toward the planet.
But then Kirk falls down a...
2 tags
6 tags
The Enterprise Incident
The Enterprise Incident (Memory Alpha; HD Video) finds Kirk taking our favorite starship deep into Romulan territory because he was bored. They are immediately surrounded by Romulans.
This episode is incredibly predictable, and continues the long line of episodes where a woman in a major role neglects her duties because she’s smitten. The woman in this case is the Romulan fleet commander,...
5 tags
Kirk's Empathy
Kirk will and does go to great lengths for those he cares about, and that empathy is what makes Kirk an interesting character.
He is at his best when he’s fighting against long odds to help those he feels responsible for, because it’s when he stops being an action hero and starts being a guy you root for. His empathy is what connects you into the story, because you want him to...
2 tags
6 tags
Spock's Brain
Spock’s Brain (Memory Alpha; HD Video) has a premise as ridiculous as it’s title: a near-naked woman beams aboard the Enterprise from an advanced ship and steals Spock’s brain from out of his head.
Far more important, though, is that this is the first episode of season three, and they switched to blue titles instead of yellow, which is really wigging me out. As if that...
2 tags
6 tags
Assignment: Earth
Assignment: Earth (HD Video; Memory Alpha) starts with the Enterprise in 1968 to conduct historical research. No extraordinary circumstances; they’re just there. Or then, I guess. Time travel being new and interesting is so last season.
But oh no! Someone is beaming onto the Enterprise from a thousand light years away! What the heck!?!
Oh, it’s a guy and a cat. They can’t be...
February 2010
6 posts
1 tag
8 tags
Bread and Circuses
Bread and Circuses (Memory Alpha; HD Video) is one of the rare original series episodes I’ve already seen, and knowing the twist ending didn’t ruin anything.
This episode is yet another Hodgkin’s Parallel, where the crew visits an Earth where the Roman empire survived into the twentieth century. This alternate Earth is also suspected of housing the survivors of a ruined ship,...
1 tag
13 tags
The Ultimate Computer
The Ultimate Computer (Memory Alpha; HD Video) is threatening to take Kirk’s job away.
The M5 is a new computer that can run a starship. The Enterprise, outfitted with this new gadget, is headed out to a wargame with their normal crew of 400 cut down to 20.
Kirk: 20? I can’t run a starship with 20 people!
Well it sure seems like you can; the rest of the crew just wander the halls...
2 tags
7 tags
The Omega Glory
The Omega Glory (Memory Alpha; Video) finds our favorite starship crew discovering the unmanned USS Exeter circling a far off planet. Aboard, the crew has turned to rock salt. Yum!
So The Omega Glory starts off strong. There’s a disease, there’s a mystery cure, there’s politics and a rogue starship captain playing with the Prime Directive, which is suddenly very, very...
January 2010
5 posts
2 tags
3 tags
5 tags
By Any Other Name
By Any Other Name (Memory Alpha; Video) finds the crew responding to a distress call on a strange planet with a purple sky. Why is it always a purple sky?
Suddenly, two pastel-clad people walk onto the soundstage.
Rojan: It was very kind of you to respond to our call so quickly, Captain. Now, you will surrender your ship to me. Kirk: You have a very strange sense of humor, Mr…? [Rojan hits a...
4 tags
8 tags
Patterns of Force
Programming Note
I’ve been away for a long, long time, and I apologize. But now it’s time to watch some campy old sci-fi and make up.
Patterns of Force (Video; Memory Alpha) is that one with the Nazis.
Kirk and crew are going to Ekos in search of John Gill, who like every other person of import in the entire galaxy was one of Kirk’s old teachers at Starfleet Academy (here...
August 2009
2 posts
2 tags
7 tags
Return to Tomorrow
Return to Tomorrow (Memory Alpha; SD Video) finds the crew of our favorite starship lured by a powerful distress beacon to a dead world, where a disembodied voice who identifies himself as Sargon tells them that, though he is long dead, the crew must help preserve what is left of him or all mankind will perish.
It’s all happiness and roses.
Begin Spoilers
Sargon and two others kept...
July 2009
17 posts
2 tags
7 tags
A Private Little War
The primitive peoples of Neural have never known violence against each other, but flintlocks have started A Private Little War (Memory Alpha; SD Video). The Enterprise is here on a scientific mission, and Kirk is saddened to see the world he surveyed thirteen year ago falling from the pacifist heights it had attained. Saddened and suspicious: did the village people invent the flintlocks, or did...
2 tags
6 tags
A Piece of the Action
A Piece of the Action (Memory Alpha; SD Video) is incredibly silly. No, no, more than that. Incredibly silly.
The Enterprise arrives at a planet that was visited by a Federation ship a hundred years ago, “before the non-interferance directive went into effect.” In that time, the inhabitants have completely transformed their culture into an exact replica of 1920s mob controlled...
2 tags
5 tags
The Gamesters of Triskelion
The Gamesters of Triskelion (Memory Alpha; SD Video) is another episode where the crew gets kidnapped and must escape their cage.
It all starts with the familiar BOING of alien transporters in action.
Then Kirk, Chekov, and Uhura are surrounded by four warriors.
Naturally, Kirk and Chekov take one guy each, leaving Uhura to take the two pike-weilding women.
Once subdued, the crew learns...
8 tags
The Trouble with Tribbles
The Trouble with Tribbles (Memory Alpha; SD Video) is a great concept with a whole lot of teh funnies, but a very poorly constructed episode.
We start with a very clunky exposition scene with Kirk, Spock, and Chekov talking in the conference room. Where are we going? Space Station K7! Why are we going there? To prove we’re better than the Klingons!
Wait! A Priority One Alert Call! Says...
3 tags
2 tags
1 tag
7 tags
Wolf in the Fold
Wolf in the Fold (Memory Alpha; SD Video) is where Scotty kills a hooker.
Investigator: The outlook for your friend is quite grim. Kirk: What is the law in these cases? Prefect: The law of Argelius… is love.
This episode is incredibly lame.
Kirk and McCoy don’t think that Scotty actually killed the girl, so they try to get a device from the ship that’ll read Scotty’s...
2 tags
8 tags
Obsession
Obsession (Memory Alpha; SD Video) is really, really good.
The Enterprise is looking for tritanium when they stumble upon a monster made of mist. It kills by sucking all the red blood corpuscules out of the victim, and it’s crazy quick. And Kirk has seen it before.
The first half of this episode deals with Kirk’s Ahab-like quest to kill the thing. He can’t explain why, but he...
2 tags
5 tags
The Deadly Years
The Deadly Years (Memory Alpha; SD Video) is the obligatory aging-too-quickly episode. What’s that? They already did one? No, this one’s different. In that one, they were trying to avoid aging. In this one, they actually do age.
And snark aside, this episode, which should be terrible, is actually pretty good.
Basically, it’s a pean to Kirk. By aging the captain, they get to...
1 tag
6 tags
Friday's Child
Friday’s Child (Memory Alpha; SD Video) never mentions Friday, but there is indeed a child.
Also: Klingons!
We open with a long scene telling us all about how dangerous Capella IV is. The crew beams down to the native encampment, and then:
[Klingon comes into view; he is unarmed and standing amongst the natives] Grant the Redshirt: A Klingon! [Draws phaser, points at Klingon] [Natives...
June 2009
40 posts
2 tags
6 tags
Journey to Babel
Journey to Babel (Memory Alpha; SD Video) starts with the Enterprise picking up the Vulcan Ambassador to the Federation, Sarek. He comes on, is a little cold and a little rude to Spock, and then we learn that he’s Spock’s dad.
The Enterprise, you see, is picking up delegates to convene and decide if a new planet will be allowed to join the Federation. Everyone is traveling toward...
3 tags
5 tags
Metamorphosis
Metamorphosis (Memory Alpha; SD Video) really doesn’t have anything to do with a metamorphosis, but it’s a good enough episode that we can forgive it a misleading title.
Kirk, Spock, and McCoy have picked up a Starfleet Commissioner, who was acting as a diplomat to stop a war when she caught Sakuro’s Disease. Now, she needs to get back to the Enterprise to be treated, or...
4 tags
Computers in Star Trek
I, Mudd is yet another episode where the bad guy is a big, scary computer.
Computers in this series are, without fail, staid machines that have a mission they don’t understand, that attempt to fulfill that mission based on a false premise, and end up undermining their premise.
We see this in The Return of the Archons and in The Apple, where a computer tasked with protecting the populace...
3 tags
8 tags
I, Mudd
I, Mudd (Memory Alpha; SD Video) features the return of Harcourt Fenton Mudd. But first, we see that whoever designed the Enterprise was an idiot.
I mean, who puts auxiliary control so far away, leaves it manned by a single guy facing away from the only entrance, and gives it complete override of the bridge? Because that guys should be fired.
Aside from the poor design of the Enterprise,...
4 tags
