Star Trek: Start to Finish

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (Memory Alpha) is the funny one. Where they go back in time. With the whales. Where Scotty says “hello, computer” into the mouse.

And it’s great. It is legitimately fantastically good. It manages to take a plot about extinction and make it light and interesting and a little bit alarming without bludgeoning you with the message. It manages to be an adventure movie without violence. It takes characters that by all accounts should be worn through and makes us interested because there’ in such a radically different environment.

But let’s stop a moment and realize that it manages to do all this because it is running the same plays, cleverly disguised so you don’t notice. Oh, you went back in time to the ‘present’ and found a nearly-extinct species because a mysterious probe (or is it a big mysterious probe) is threatening to destroy all you hold dear? Oh no!

The trick is that none of that matters, because they pull off mixing and matching so many ideas with the connective tissue of being damn hilarious. At some point it was decided that this movie would allow the occasional bits of humor found in most Trek to range freely, and the freewheeling antics of all the characters allowed to speak their minds and interact in this new way is so magical that you can forgive the movie its shortcomings.

Even if these sins are forgiven, though, let’s list them for completeness sake. The size of the Bird of Prey shifts from being rather claustrophobic to easily fitting two humpbacks and no one notices. Saavik is even more wooden in this movie than the last, which is a neat trick since she’s barely on screen. Scotty actually says (I swear!) “Captain, there be whales here!” in a giddy little burst. Some of the whale reaction shots linger far too long. Last, everyone wears 80s clothes, which I suppose is understandable, but I’m only barely able to forgive it.

The actors are given some new character opportunities to play with, too. Kirk interacts with a woman but doesn’t try to seduce her. Spock is remembering how to be himself, even as that self is shifting in new environs. McCoy gets to fully commit to his role as ship conscience, wandering about making sure people do what they need to do. Scotty is free of the lower decks, finding the materials he needs to make everything everyone else does possible. And Chekov shines as the suspected spy without a clue about what he did wrong.

On the larger scale, the look of this movie is a little harder to pin down. It lacks the visual flair that Search had, where it was obvious that Nimoy was relishing the look of the scene, the framing of the shot; Voyage is much more utilitarian. The computer-generated images in the dream sequence also seem out of place; they have nothing about them that’s interesting other than their existence, which in 1986 was probably enough. Lastly, the swoopy letters are back, albeit in a less swoop-tastic form.

This movie also continues the trend of better defining the universe; we finally see that the Federation has a President and a whole hall-ful of well-costumed ambassadors, filling in the until-now-murky political aspects. We see our first black, female captain aboard the Saratoga (which, unfortunately, is fried by the probe). And we see the Federation’s nonviolence played out in a real but unspoken way throughout the movie.

The nonviolence plays on multiple levels. Easiest to see is that there is simply no fighting; Chekov failing to use a phaser on stun is as close as we come. There is some slapstick chasing, and the threat of force, but we see how solutions can be reached without resorting to the “easy” way. This contrasts nicely with Kirk’s warning at the beginning as the Bird of Prey flies toward Earth: “This is an extremely primitive and paranoid culture.”

That line is the summation of the movie. In the best Trek tradition, the movie is making its point by holding up the mirror and letting the audience see for themselves what is wrong. This movie is so confident that this trick will work– and it does, and it has, and it will in many more movies– that they can step up and call their audience out on what’s wrong, and know that the audience will spend one minute laughing, then the whole evening understanding that they were the butt of the joke, then a good long time wondering if they want to be.

That’s what Trek has always done so well, and pairing it with a healthy dose of humor makes it incredibly fun to watch.

Grade

A; a departure from the typical, but incredibly well done

The Way to Eden

The Way to Eden (Video; YouTube; Memory Alpha) is full of hippies. Clad in even-more-graish-than-usual and slightly-more-revealing-than-usual attire, sporting lots of hair and odd medallions, the Space Hippies are following Dr. Sevrin and looking for Eden. They’ve hijacked a space cruiser and the Enterprise is hot on their tail; quick work is made of the chase and they’re brought on board after a tractor beam tug-of-war causes the cruiser to explode.

Yes, the Enterprise was told to go get a hijacked ship and blew it up. No one bats an eye at this.

Then they have to put up with the Space Hippies once they’re onboard complaining about their freedoms being impinged and calling everyone Herbert. The episode does a good job of portraying them as fools under the control of Sevrin, who Spock quickly determines is insane. What evidence does he have? Oh, he talked to him.

But there’s some sedition going on, lots of talking about who people are and what they want. The Space Hippies bring people out and get ‘em going. And then they take over the ship to go to Eden.

It all goes awry, of course, but not because the crew stops them; Eden isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, and Sevrin actually is all sorts of crazy.

But this episode is actually pretty good, if you can get past the ridiculously over-the-top nature of the Space Hippies and the more-than-occasional folksy musical interlude (with songs that aren’t half bad, truth be told). The story is simple but interesting, the characters get a lot of screen time to talk, and the situation is relevant. If anything I’d play up the Space Hippies legitimate beefs with the “modern” era (regimented society, technological omnipresence, constant war) and stretch out the end, but neither is possible without cutting something else, so I’m giving them a pass there.

Grade

B+

Wink of an Eye

Wink of an Eye (Video; Memory Alpha) finds Scotty in charge of the ship with Kirk in an abandoned city that the sensors say doesn’t exist. When suddenly, a redshirt disappears!

The crew goes back to the Enterprise, but a lot of crazy stuff is going on. Systems are turning off and righting themselves, things are being moved around by no one, and everywhere there’s a weird buzzing sound. Weirdest of all, a machine is in the environmental control surrounded by a force field.

The crew, apparently out of ideas, asks the computer for help.

Spock: Are we currently capable of resisting?
Computer: Negative.
Spock: Your recommendations?
Computer: If incapable of resisting, negotiate for terms.
[Kirk and Scotty look at each other]
Kirk: We will not negotiate. Do you concur?
Scotty: Aye.

Begin Spoilers

Shortly thereafter, Kirk drinks some coffee, and is sped up so he can see the aliens who’ve taken over the ship. They live at hyperspeed, and as such can’t be seen by the crew. They came by this fate accidentally when their world was hit with a volcanic cataclysm, and since they are unable to return to normal speed their race now survives only by luring passersby in and stealing the crews to repopulate their civilization. It’s kind of sad, really.

End Spoilers

This episode has one of the best female leads in the series. Deela, the leader of the aliens, manages to be menacing and charming at the same time. She shares most Star Trek villains’ misunderstanding of the crew’s motives (“why don’t you want to live as my slave?”), and she shares the familiar letting-her-man-get-to-her story arc, but she pulls it off a lot better than usual. Her situation is sympathetic, and that makes all the difference: this woman is trapped in her appointed role and this is the only way she can proceed.

Begin Spoilers

The weirdest thing about this episode is how the crew just takes off at the end. There’s no attempt made to help the aliens out of their temporal prison with the wonder-drug Spock and McCoy have made, or even to find out if they want it. Deela even goes so far as saying out loud that the solution Kirk is proposing is to let her and her people die, and then Kirk goes ahead and lets that be the solution. Giving them the serum would be an easy fix– a voiceover would do– and it’s strange that it’s not done.

End Spoilers

Best Star Trek Scene Ever

But this episode is worth watching because it contains my favorite scene in the entire series to date. Kirk, having been sped up and trapped at the aliens’ timepace, unable to communicate with the crew, is running to break the McGuffin. He comes around a corner, and there’s Spock, having distilled his own serum to speed himself up. The two of them look at each other, smile, don’t say a word, and run into the room with the McGuffin to the fight. This scene so perfectly encapsulates the Kirk/Spock dynamic I don’t know what I could possibly add to it.

Grade

A+

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 wasn’t enough, Kirk is thin and Scotty has weird hair.

Back in the fake world, Kirk is setting out to find Spock’s brain within the twenty-four hours Spock’s body can live on its own. They chase the ship to a system with three inhabitable planets that might be hiding the McGuffin. There’s a genuinely neat scene where Kirk, Chekov, Sulu and Uhura all interact as if the rest of the crew matters and it’s not all about Kirk, Spock and Bones. This glimpse of a more inclusive decision-making process reminds me a lot of the Next Generation conference room scenes where all the major characters get together to talk through the problem at hand. Those scenes are a staple of Next Gen but are almost nonexistent in this series.

But then we jump back to Kirk and Bones searching for Spock, with Scotty in tow as a replacement technical wizard. It’s kind of sad that Scotty gets short shrift in so many episodes; Doohan is capable of doing so much with the character, and whenever he’s given the chance we get some great performances, but he just can’t get enough screen time to make it work.

This is another episode that heavily plays on Kirk’s loyalty to his friend, and it treads that already well-trod ground without kicking up any new dust.

But in spite of the ridiculous premise and a bland reveal, this episode is good. Doohan and Shatner perform well, Kelley gets a chance to play his usual love/hate relationship with Spock, and the villainess is neither over the top nor banal.

Best bit of ironic dialog

“I certainly did notice the delightful ass…pects”

Grade

A-

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 just ‘the academy,’ but let’s assume that’s familiarity speaking and not just TOS’s ridiculously low level of consistency in these matters). Gill has not been responding to Earth’s communiques, and now they’re going to send Kirk and Spock down to search for him.

But before they can even get to the planet, the Ekosians launch a nuclear warhead at them, which is both unfriendly and far beyond what the Ekosians should be able to do technologically.

Spock: Perhaps they had help.

Well, Spock, let’s think about it. One: we’re going to establish in just a moment that the Ekosians are in regular contact with the Zeons, who live on another planet. Somehow interplanetary travel is fine, but nukes aren’t? And we’re also going to dwell rather a lot that the Ekosian’s technology is just around mid-twentieth-century Earth… which is exactly when we figured this stuff out. So maybe they just put E and MC² together on this one.

But anyway, now it’s time for Kirk and Spock to go down to the surface and see some guy get beat up, so that Spock can helpfully remind us all about the Prime Directive, here called “the non-interference directive,” which isn’t nearly as catchy.

But despite their efforts to blend in and be as non-interferencey as they can, it’s inevitable that they’ll fail due to Spock’s pointy ears. You’d think that eventually the crew would figure out that, even though the psychic powers and technical wizardry come in handy, Spock isn’t a good undercover agent, except on that one planet on the far side of the Alpha Quadrant where everyone has pointy ears, and where the Enterprise never seems to go.

But I’m losing the plot in all my snark. I’ve forgotten to even mention that the aforementioned guy being aforementionedly beaten up is being aforementionedly beaten up by the even-more-aforementioned Nazis. Upon seeing this, Kirk and Spock have a conversation which I will summarize thusly:

Mr. Exposition: How could they develop this same culture? They’d have to have some incredibly well-informed earth historian to lead them! Now, where is that incredibly well-informed earth historian we’re looking for?

Anyway, those ears get the pair landed in the jail cell next to the twice-now-aforementioned guy-getting-beaten-up, who has this conversation with Spock, who is played by a Jew, in a totally non-ironic manner:

Thrice-Now-Aforementioned Guy-Getting-Beaten-Up: [To Kirk] Why did they take you? You are not a Zeon, and he [Spock] is certainly not one. Why do the Nazis treat you as enemies?
Spock: Why do the Nazis hate Zeon?
Quatrice-Now-Aforementioned Guy-Getting-Beaten-Up: Why? Because without us the hate would be nothing to hold them together. So the party has built us into a threat; a disease to be wiped out.
Spock: Is Zeon a threat to them?
Penticlice-Now-Aforementioned Guy-Getting-Beaten-Up: Were did you come from? Our warlike period ended generations ago.

Then everyone gets free using the usual tricks, and Sextuple-Now-Aforementioned Guy-Getting-Beaten-Up leads Kirk and Spock to the underground where we learn that his name is Isak, and his brother is Abrom.

Yeah, really.

It’s at this point that Kirk and Spock introduce themselves and decide to do something about the whole situation. This is as close as Star Trek comes to “Taking Names and Deciding to At Some Future Junction Begin Kicking Ass.”

There’s some infiltration, some dress-up-as-a-Nazi, and some silliness, but overall this is a not-bad episode. It explores how society changes, and how power corrupts. It has a mystery that isn’t immediately obvious and works to guard its secrets with secondary and even tertiary mysteries.

But what it does very poorly is fail to tackle the central Zeons-as-Jews conceit it is built on. In this telling the Zeons are an external threat and not an internal one, which makes them a far less insidious-seeming scapegoat and a less powerful fear generator. The Final Solution in this telling is a bold attack on the peace-loving Zeons, and not a secret and ruthless extermination of their culture and population. By changing the basics they lose the grander point, and lose a powerful storyline along the way.

Grade

B

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 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.

End Spoilers

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+

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 the Klingons provide them?

This episode has a great idea at its center, but it suffers from the same old problem of not enough going on, and it fills the space with crap. The basic dynamic of discovering if the Klingons are involved and the slow-motion ethical conundrum over what to do if they are is sound, and well done. But the episode flails about badly in the surrounding story of Kirk being attacked by a rubber suit monster and his healing by Nona, a hill people witch who wants weapons for her people, too.

Nona is not a bad character, but her costume and makeup make her look like a trailer queen and she’s terribly acted. But the really problem is that she is given such an important role while her husband Tyree, who resists the escalation, is given no real lines about his resistance or why he does so, and is left with just angst. This cripples the major story, which is a what-should-be-done about providing these people with weapons to defend themselves.

And what’s really interesting about the episode is this escalation conflict, which is a pretty obvious commentary on Vietnam. The Federation and the Klingons are the Cold War powers, and they are pushing arms into this poor little backwater to wage a proxy war with each other. McCoy is vocally against this strategy, but Kirk thinks it’s the only thing that will possibly keep both sides alive; mutually assured destruction for the black powder set. The end of the episode leaves the actual outcome uncertain, most likely because Kirk’s solution is the only real way out that can be shown onscreen, barring a silly deus ex machina. That the writers didn’t think of giving each side some nonmilitary technology that would foster trade (or somesuch diplomatic solution) is kind of sad.

Also, that rubber suit monster is really lame, as all rubber suit monsters are.

However, the above is a pretty negative view of the episode, and I actually rather enjoyed it. The central idea is sound, the writing is good, and the pacing hits at the right times, even if some of those hits are the lame surrounding story. This episode even has a C-plot involving Spock healing up in the Enterprise after getting shot in the cold open. It’s interesting even though it is in no way related to the main action, even on a thematic level. But this episode is saying something about the world it lived in, which was a brave and smart thing to do, even if they only point out a problem and don’t even offer a hint of a solution, or a direction in which a solution could be found.

Bottom line: a good episode, but it could have been great.

Grade

B-

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 knows that the thing is alive and intelligent. McCoy and Spock are so confused by his irrational behavior that they consider relieving him of duty. This upside-down interplay between the three primary characters makes this episode so radically different than any other episode that it’s a welcome and refreshing change of pace.

This episode is also just leaps and bounds better than the normal episode on a technical level. The lighting is more pronounced, upping the contrast visually and making everything more pronounced. The camera angles are tighter, giving the episode a unique claustrophobic feeling that pulls you into the characters as they struggle with what’s going on around them. And the writing is spot on:

Spock: “I need your advice.”
McCoy: “Then I need a drink.”
Spock: “I do not understand your reasoning.”
McCoy: “You need advice from me? You must be kidding.”

The acting, as always, could use a little work. It’s the weakest link in the chain, here, with Shatner giving his usual uneven performance. In some scenes you can sense that confusion and obsession; in others he plays it too heavy and just shouts it. (He’s also looking a little heavy in this episode.) But the acting is better than average, especially from Kelley, who hits the conflicted but determined note just right.

Grade

A+

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 show all the little details that distinguish him from a hypothetical older self. If he were a little slower, a little more forgetful, or a little less calculating it could all fall apart. And to top it all off, they show exactly what would happen with another guy in the big swivelly chair.

And for an added benefit, they bring back the Corbomite Maneuver!

Best Bit of Ironic Dialog

Spock: Doctor I have made the necessary computations and produced this serum. It is crude, and dangerous, but we have no time for refinements.
McCoy: Alright! Let’s uh- let’s go! Spock: It could cure. Or kill, Doctor.
McCoy: Don’t give me any Vulcan de-tails, Spock! Just gimme the shot!

I love that the fact that they may be taking a vial of poison is not just a detail, but a Vulcan detail. Who cares about the difference between medicine and poison? Vulcans! Pfft!

Grade

B+

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 throw weapon; kill Grant instantly]

One scene later, Kirk defends Grant’s decision. Really, Kirk? Because Grant was an idiot.

And you know who else is an idiot in this episode? Scotty! Scotty, who is normally on top of things, falls for the most obvious trap I’ve ever heard of. Really, Scotty? I had more faith in you.

But as for the actual content of this episode, it’s a rather bland little adventure where the Enterprise is trying to secure mining rights (yawn) and has to be hospitable, but fails, and then there’s a coup so it doesn’t matter that they’ve failed, but now they’re on the run from the usurper. Just for kicks, they bring along the very-pregnant wife of the former leader. There’s a little bit of a chase, and the lame B-plot with Scotty, and a resolution that feels forced. Unsatisfying.

Of note, however, is that this is the first time we see a Klingon vessel. It’s a glowing yellow chevron of light. I hope that’s not because you spend all your budget on the ridiculous costumes in this episode.

Grade

C-