Star Trek: Start to Finish

Whom Gods Destroy

Whom Gods Destroy (Memory Alpha; Video) is a great little episode filled with crazy people. It’s fun and smart and damn hilarious.

Kirk and Spock beam down to Elba 2, where the last fifteen criminally insane people in the galaxy are housed in an asylum. They bear medicine to cure their insanity.

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But as you would expect, the asylum has been taken over by the madmen. They’re all extras with the exception of an Orion Slave Girl and Garth of Izar, a former starship captain who has picked up the ability to transform himself to look like anyone he’s seen. Handy, that.

Garth is played wonderfully by Steve Ihnat; his manic swings from rage to joy to logic and back again are well written and ably performed. He’s one of the best villains in the entire series, and he manages to attain that rank without ever being a real threat to anybody but Kirk, since he’s trapped on this little world and delusional about what would happen if he escaped.

The Orion Slave Girl is Marta, again played well by Yvonne Craig, who played Batgirl in the old Adam West Batman. Here she’s a crazy vixen who meets her end onscreen quite a bit more horribly than I expected.

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This episode also has what may well be the first which-doppelgänger-should-I-shoot scene ever, and manages to do so without being terribly obvious about the resolution. I was quite amazed.

Best Bit of Dialog

Marta: [quotes Shakespeare’s Sonnet XVIII]
Garth: You wrote that?
Marta: Yesterday, as a matter of fact.
Garth: It was written by an Earth man named Shakespeare a long time ago!
Marta: Which does not change the fact that I wrote it yesterday!

Grade

A-; would be a solid A if not for the echoes between this episode and Dagger of the Mind

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.

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Sargon and two others kept their minds alive in an elaborate underground bunker when their race destroyed themselves. Now, half a million years later, they want to borrow three human bodies and construct themselves new, robot bodies to live in.

Why didn’t they build robot bodies instead of the elaborate underground bunker? That’s an excellent question.

But the one who borrows Spock’s body does not want to be a robot; he wants a living body. So he plots to kill Sargon and escape.

Why doesn’t he just jump into the robot for now, escape later, and do his shenanigans out of sight of Sargon? That’s an excellent question, too.

Now it’s up to the crew to… watch, pretty much, as the three duke it out and the major characters play no role in the rest of the episode.

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For all that, the idea of this episode is interesting, and provides the characters with a great excuse to show their science side. As Kirk says,

Kirk: Risk. Risk is our business. That’s what this starship is all about. That’s why we’re aboard her.

It also gives Nimoy a chance to shine playing a baddie, which he does far too well to do it so rarely. He has this perfect smirk that drips uncaring malice, while still making you like the guy because it’s so obvious that he’s just doing exactly what he most wants to do in the world. And as a contrast to the normally staid Spock, the condescending Henoch is a perfect foil.

Best bit of ironic dialog

Spock: Captain, I do wish to inspect whatever this is that lived that long ago.
Kirk: I would like to have my science officer with me on something as unusual as this, but it is full of unknowns and we can’t risk both of us being off the ship.

Best bit of totally silly dialog

[With no context] All readings are off the charts, Captain.

Grade

B+

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 dilithium crystals to the Federation, because they as a people are pacifists. The episode begins with Kirk’s assurance that the Federation can be trusted with the crystals, since they are good guys. And immediately we’re thrown into the goatee universe, where no one is a good guy.

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Except the one guy with a goatee. Chekov attempts to assassinate Kirk, and fails. Sulu does, too. So all the foreigners are sinister in the mirror universe, but the jewish guy is alright. There’s some subtext here, and it’s not buried very deep.

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There’s also a nice talk by Kirk about society, and how harmonious living is beneficial for all and sustainable, whereas the kill-or-be-killed mirror universe is destined for destruction down it’s path of constant sorrow. I read this as Kirk’s preëmptive rhetorical strike against the neoconservatives. Especially this bit, which seems rather prophetic:

Kirk: Conquest is easy; control is not. We may have bitten off more than we can chew.

Also, Uhura is actually important this episode. She gets not one but two good scenes, and a fight sequence. She almost but doesn’t say that she’s frightened. She actually makes a difference.

And Marlena is another female character who’s interesting and strong and smart, who takes a stand. She’s a love interest, but not really; her interest is the other Kirk, and the internal conflict she plays with “our” Kirk is well done.

All told, this is a strong episode. The mirror universe is cheesy, but not really more so than the “actual” universe. And the mechanics for interdimensional travel are all sorts of vague while also being a snap for the computer to calculate. But if you overlook that, it’s well-constructed and does a fine job.

Grade

A

What Are Little Girls Made Of?

Nurse Chapel had a fiancé, Roger Korby, and the Enterprise is on a mission to find him in What Are Little Girls Made Of? (Wikipedia; HD Video).

Roger hasn’t been heard of in five years, but Nurse Chapel believes that he’s still alive. And sure enough, he hails the ship right when they arrive! (It would be a pretty boring episode otherwise; just a quick “no answer; next!”)

But Roger doesn’t meet Captain Kirk and Nurse Chapel when they arrive; Dr. Brown does, instead, and despite being an old friend of Nurse Chapel’s he’s cold like a person who has been replaced by an identical duplicate who happens to be a robot.

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The “Old Ones” who lived on Exo III long ago built androids to do their work, and Roger has found the technology to build them himself. These androids are life-like with flesh tones and pulses, but lack real emotions (though they can fake them).

Roger makes a duplicate of Kirk (it’s been two whole episodes since that’s happened!) and explains that the duplicate is only half-complete; Roger can also transfer Kirk’s consciousness into the robot, if he wanted. Kirk fails his savings throw and does not ask the appropriate question at this time.

Roger plans to use RoboKirk™ and the Enterprise to get him to a colony, where he can sell his services turning people into immortal robot copies of themselves. But RealKirk™ will have none of that, and foils the plan (revealing the awful truth the audience guessed in scene 3).

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Despite being formulaic and predictable, this is actually a pretty good episode. There’s not enough inter-cast banter and there’s no funny, but the story itself is strong and smart, and is one of the first to really touch on that long-running “what makes you human” theme that Trek likes so much.

Grade

B

The Enemy Within

The Enemy Within (Wikipedia; HD Video) is the first of many Doppelgänger episodes. In this one, the evil copy is distinguished by use of eye makeup. No, I’m serious.

A transporter accident splits Kirk into two; one side is his higher functions and the other his baser instincts. All the Captain’s horses and all the Captain’s men have to find a way to put Kirk back together again, which is only made harder when bad Kirk shoots up the transporter.

Meanwhile, Sulu and some redshirts are on Alpha 177 freezing to death, but unable to beam back up because they would suffer the same fate.

This episode sounds a little cheesy when summarized, but it’s the first “transporter accident” episode and its numerous strengths are the reason there have been so many repetitions on this theme. Spock waxes poetic about his own dual nature, and there’s a long bit talking about how the two halfs of Kirk work together to make him a good captain. Kirk gets to act pensive and malevolent, and does a decent job at both when he’s actually got lines and not just stage direction to work with.

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There’s also an honest to God attempted rape when bad Kirk finds Yeoman Rand’s quarters. She fights him off and escapes, but I was honestly shocked to see the scene at all, let alone the rather awkward accusations afterward.

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Best Line (Tie)

Kirk: “Saurian Brandy!”

Spock: “If I seem insensitive to what you’re going through, Jim, understand: it’s the way I am.” (Insensitive?)

Grade

A-