Star Trek: Start to Finish

The Menagerie, Part II

The Menagerie, Part II (Memory Alpha; HD Video; Review of Part I) starts with a ‘previously on’ for the first time.

Begin Spoilers

Pike is trying to escape from the Talosians, and the Talosians are using their mind powers to show him pleasant lies in hopes that he’ll stay and be in their zoo to teach them how to live, since they’ve forgotten. The crew try to rescue him, but only get stuck themselves. In the end, the Talosians decide that humans are more trouble than they’re worth, and it’ll be easier if the entire Talosian race just slowly fades away.

End Spoilers

The most interesting parts are the what-might-have-beens from the flashbacks to the original pilot.

Pike: My name is Christopher Pike. Commander of the space vessel Enterprise from a star group at the other end of this galaxy.

But of course, in canon Star Trek they’re only in the Alpha Quadrant, and Voyager gets in real trouble when they end up on the other end of the galaxy.

Random Enterprise Crewman: Now that entryway might have stood up against hand lasers, but we can transmit the ships’ power against it. Enough energy to blast half a continent!

Aside from being a neat excuse to trot out a laser canon, this kind of goes against everything I remember about the military capabilities of the Enterprise. Star Destroyers slag planets with turbolasers and Centauri Battlecruisers fling asteroids down on helpless people, but the Enterprise is a science vessel made for science missions, and it doesn’t have the capability to destroy planets.

Spock: All Decks prepare for hyperdrive!

Mr. Spock, don’t you mean “Warp Factor 7,” like you said in Part I? I mean, at least be consistent in the episode. 7 is already way higher than the Enterprise goes in any other episode.

Grade

B+; I liked it in spite of myself, and I did actually forget one of the plot twists, which was a nice surprise.

The Menagerie, Part I

There’s mischief afoot, and you know exactly how it ends because this is one of the most famous episodes of TOS ever: The Menagerie, Part I (Memory Alpha; HD Video). And let me tell you, knowing the reason everything is happening is kind of detrimental to the suspense.

Kirk and Spock arrive at Starbase 11, summoned by a call from command. But there was no call, insists the starbase. All there was was people talking about poor old Fleet Captain Pike, who was once the captain on the Enterprise, but has now been delta-radiated in a tragic accident and cannot move or talk. It really sucks to be him.

Begin Spoilers

And that’s why Spock fakes that call, and fakes new orders to freight Pike half-way across the galaxy to Talos IV, where the two of them spent some quality time all those years ago when Pike and Spock were the Enterprise’s command staff. Back then, there was some crazy stuff going on. What stuff? Oh, that’s part two.

End Spoilers

Among other things, this episode contains the first mention of “Starfleet.” Previously, it’s been “Earth Command” or “United Earth” or other gibberish. But now we see a document that says “For eyes of Starfleet command only” and has the little swooshy arrow Star Trek logo, so that’s pretty much set in stone. (we see that document when Kirk is shown it, objects, and the Starbase Commodore says “Oh, I’m certifying I cleared you to read it,” as if that was good enough).

But whoever this newfangled “Starfleet” is, they sure have dumb rules. They have only one crime that deserves the death penalty, and that’s going to Talos IV.

Wait, More Spoilers

They also let the Commodore of the starbase and the Captain of a hijacked ship chase that ship together, alone, in a shuttlecraft. No, really.

End Spoilers

But despite it’s valiant effort to re-use the original pilot (with a smart in-universe rationale), this is only an okay episode. It’s got a nice mystery, but the mystery is simple enough that repeated viewing aren’t interesting. The mish-mash of old effects/costumes/sets with new ones is interesting in a meta sense but not in any other way. And Pike isn’t given a chance to be interesting in the flashbacks or in the present, which cuts down on how much we the audience cares.

But they certainly do a good job of tying the characters into the action such that it’s clear that they care a great deal. This seems like it’s a tough thing to do, but I’m looking at it as weaving the characters I know into the plots, whereas the writers on TOS were thinking more about creating the characters in the first place. So it was probably easier than I imagine, but it’s still good writing.

Best Unintentional Bit of Ironic Dialog

Pike: [after not assigning Number One to the landing party] Sorry, Number One, with little information on this planet we’ll have to leave the ship’s most experienced officer here covering us.

Grade

B+