June 2009
40 posts
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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,...
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Catspaw
Catspaw (Memory Alpha; SD Video) is kind of a neat idea that’s badly done. A landing party that doesn’t include Kirk, McCoy, or Spock is missing. Kirk, McCoy, and Spock promptly beam down to rescue them.
Begin Spoilers
What they find are aliens pretending to be wizards who can control everything. They do nothing interesting. They’re here trying to understand sensation. But...
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The Doomsday Machine
The Enterprise finds entire star systems destroyed, and in the middle of one is the battered hulk of the Constellation, sister ship to the Enterprise. The Constellation had a run in with The Doomsday Machine (Memory Alpha; SD Video).
This episode is pretty good, but it’s the same old structure.
There are two things that stand out here. One is really good and one is really bad.
We get...
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The Apple
The Apple (Memory Alpha; SD Video), disappointly, contains not a single Apple product. This might be explained by the episode being originally aired some fifteen years before Apple was founded, but I thought Star Trek took place in the future.
Now, even if I forgive the suspicious lack of futuristic iProducts, this episode is kind of terrible.
The Enterprise is circling Gamma Trianguli VI, and...
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Mirror, Mirror
Mirror, Mirror (Memory Alpha; SD Video) is that episode where they go to the alternate universe where everyone has a goatee.
Except only Spock has a goatee.
Now, everyone remembers the savage-alternate-universe thing, but it’s played rather nicely as a foil against the planet this episode takes place in orbit of. The inhabitants are a peaceful people who are refusing to give their...
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The Changeling
The Changeling (Memory Alpha; SD Video) is a thoroughly mediocre robot-of-doom episode.
It’s remarkable only because it happens right after I talked about Uhura lacking substantive roles, and here she gets something approaching an actual part. She still plays the damsel-in-distress, and she’s still a second-tier character, but it’s more than her usual fare. She gets a little...
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Uhura
I realize that my tirade against the portrayal of women in the original series overlooks Uhura, a very obvious woman character who has yet to be the love interest for anyone.
But here’s the totality of her character so far: she’s a black woman who operates the radio. Occasionally she remarks that she’s frightened. She also sings.
Now, I don’t want to go overboard on...
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Who Mourns for Adonais?
Who Mourns for Adonais? (Memory Alpha; SD Video) is a rather smart little episode where the Enterprise stumbles upon the hiding place of the Greek God Apollo.
To fulfill the corny quota, he stops them with his giant green space-hand. Then he requests the officers to join him on his planet. Kirk and friends oblige. Chekov, who as far as I know isn’t an officer, gets to come along for his...
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Amok Time
Amok Time (Memory Alpha; SD Video) is that one episode where Spock goes into heat and goes crazier than a Aldebran Shellmouth.
Spock needs to get back to Vulcan. And by “needs” I mean “orders the ship to redirect there behind Kirk’s back.” By “needs” I mean “can’t recall subverting the chain of command because he’s all crazy on the...
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End Season One
After completing all of season one, I’ve gotta say that I can totally see both why people got obsessed with this show, and why other people think it’s the lamest thing ever.
It can be genuinely great. When it’s good, Star Trek shows you something about the human condition, and does so in a really smart way: McCoy makes you laugh, Kirk makes you feel, and Spock makes you realize...
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Operation -- Annihilate!
With a name like Operation — Annihilate! (Memory Alpha; SD Video), how could this episode possibly be good? Still, it’s the season one closer for the original series, so… maybe it has some interesting ending?
Well, this hails from the time before seasons meant anything. Cliffhangers? Never heard of ‘em.
ANYWAY.
The Enterprise is headed for Deneva, chasing a line of...
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The City on the Edge of Forever
The City on the Edge of Forever (Memory Alpha; SD Video) has been one of the episodes that I’ve been looking forward to: it won a Hugo, and it’s got a little hype in the air.
It lives up to it.
The Enterprise is mapping out some temporal disturbances when McCoy accidentally overdoses on cordrazine and goes super-crazy paranoid. McCoy beams down to the planet that is the source of...
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The Alternative Factor
The Alternative Factor (Memory Alpha; SD Video) is really bad. Above an uninhabited world, the Enterprise suddenly sees the entire universe vanish for a split second, and then reappear. Perhaps the just-materialized man on the planet below knows what’s going on?
Begin Spoilers
Lazarus knows, but he’s not telling. He is, in fact, lying about it. And everyone knows it. But they...
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Errand of Mercy
Errand of Mercy (Memory Alpha; SD Video) is a fun little episode. War breaks out between the Federation and the until-now-unseen Klingon Empire. The flashpoint is a little planet in the disputed zone called Organia, and both sides send ships to try to hold it. But nothing goes right, and the Organians are none too happy to be in the middle of this violence.
This episode does a pretty good job of...
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The Devil in the Dark
The Devil in the Dark (Memory Alpha; SD Video) is your standard monster of the week episode: Janus VI is a sparsely-populated mining colony and the miners are dying, eaten alive by chemical spew. The Enterprise is called in, and searches for the monster. They find it, they hurt it. There’s a little twist that they foreshadow heavily, and the episode ends with gumdrops and rainbows. There is...
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This Side of Paradise
This Side of Paradise (Memory Alpha; SD Video) takes our favorite crew on a mission to find whatever happened to the Sandoval Expedition, which landed on Omicron Ceti III back before the Federation discovered that the Berthold Rays in this part of the galaxy would kill all life on the planet after a week of exposure.
Now it’s a little silly that the Enterprise is going to make sure that...
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A Taste of Armageddon
A Taste of Armageddon (Memory Alpha; SD Video) is a thought experiment about what would happen if we didn’t listen to General William Tecumsah Sherman:
War is cruelty. There’s no use trying to reform it; the crueler it is the sooner it will be over.
The people of NGC 321 have reformed their war so that it is clean and efficient; simulated bombs tick off casualty counts, and the...
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Space Seed
KHAAAN!
The Enterprise stumbles across an old DY-100, which Spock claims comes from the 1990s. And on board is everyone’s favorite Star Trek baddie. Thus begins Space Seed (Memory Alpha; SD Video)
This episode is awesome.
We’ve got a little bit of future history, close enough that it would seem imminent and dangeous to the audience of the 1960s (even if it seems a bit ridiculous...