Star Trek: The Original Series Season 1: Difference between revisions

[[Star Trek: The Original Series]]

10X: '''The Cage''' ''[[]] [[]]''

I really dislike how in the end even Captain Pike agrees it's best to leave Vina on Talos IV, because while living in reality is better than living in a cage of fantasy... living in a cage of fantasy is better than looking like an ugly person in the real world.

101: '''The Man Trap''' ''[[]] [[]]''

I like that this episode predates "redshirts".  The loser crewmen to die in this episode only wore blue or yellow shirts.

102: '''Charlie X''' ''[[]] [[]]''

(First watched 2008-12-25)  17-year old boy makes a funny face to make crazy things happen.  Not a problem when giving a gift, but a problem when making people disappear.  I feel sorry for the kid, though.  This is his first exposure to humans in many years so it's understandable that he's not well-adjusted.  But after a few days of bungling things up (and killing some people) he's doomed to go back to the lonely existence with the people who shaped him into this crazy self to begin with.

103: '''Where No Man Has Gone Before''' ''[[]] [[]]''

Interesting that at least for this episode, they treat ESP like a known and quantifiable fact, with different people having different "esper" ratings.

104: '''The Naked Time''' ''[[]] [[]]''

I like how this episode's unnecessary Kirk shirt ripping came courtesy of Dr. McCoy, who for some reason badly needed to inject his serum into the Captain's upper arm.

105: '''The Enemy Within''' ''[[]] [[]]''

Written by [[Richard Matheson]].

106: '''Mudd's Women''' ''[[]] [[]]''

The pill seems pretty shitty, too.  It seemed to give more color to their face and erase some wrinkles, but nothing so drastic as they seemed to act like it did.  This was sort of hit on when the placebo pill seemed to have nearly the same effect at the end of the episode.

107: '''What Are Little Girls Made Of?''' ''[[]] [[]]''

Also Lurch.

108: '''Miri''' ''[[]] [[]]''

A "beaker full of death", Spock?  You've got a flair for the dramatic.

109: '''Dagger of the Mind''' ''[[1966]] [[November 3]]''

So this episode had the original mind meld.  A bit different than what they boiled it down to later.  More hand-to-face positions, more of Spock asking himselves questions.  Not so much the simple hand-on-face pattern and "''My mind to your mind.  My thoughts to your thoughts.''" stuff.

110: '''The Corbomite Maneuver''' ''[[]] [[]]''

Spock mentions that Balok (or the puppet version they first saw) reminded him of his father.  I wonder if this is another indication (along with something Mudd said a few episodes back) that as originally intended, full-blooded Vulcans would look decidedly more alien.

111: '''The Menagerie, Part I''' ''[[]] [[]]''

(First watched 2009-01-something)  I know it's a Future 60s, but boy, they couldn't do much for Pike.  His mind's perfectly fine but he's got a disfigured body... I think we could do a better job NOW at helping him communicate than a lame wheelchair and the ability to control a single beeping light.

112: '''The Menagerie, Part II''' ''[[]] [[]]''

So I wonder what's supposed to have happened after that?  Now that the Talosians have the male and female they wanted, do they actually go about breeding them?  Or considering they're both victims of horrible accidents are they infertile?

113: '''The Conscience of the King''' ''[[]] [[]]''

Spock and McCoy seemed worried that if Kirk is looking for Kodos, he's just going to kill him.  Why immediately assume the worst?  Couldn't he just be planning on jailing him?

114: '''Balance of Terror''' ''[[1966]] [[December 15]]''

I like that most of the Romulans wear goofy helmets, to prevent their needing to wear goofy prosthetic ears.

115: '''Shore Leave''' ''[[1966]] [[December 29]]''

(First watched 2009-02-02)  This may be the weirdest seemingly-deadly but ultimately benevolent location yet.  A technology high enough to read their mind (though requiring a goofy antenna device) and almost immediately recreate what a person is thinking of.  You may get harmed, but you'll get patched right up.  Still, it kinda bugs me how these professionals allowed themselves to get so distracted by various things while it was still a mystery.  Sulu finds a gun on what's supposed to be an empty planet and immediately commences target practice.  Another woman member of the crew goes with really old-fashion desires and wants to be a princess who's fought over.  Kirk runs into a simulacrum of an old flame and basically falls for her immediately.

116: '''The Galileo Seven''' ''[[1967]] [[January 5]]''

Are higher-ups from the Federation sent to the Enterprise ever ''not'' dicks who question Kirk's every move?

117: '''The Squire of Gothos''' ''[[1967]] [[January 12]]''

I like how little change has to come to Trelane's words for him to go from apparently all-powerful to a petulant kid.

118: '''Arena''' ''[[1967]] [[January 19]]''

On the planet, what was Kirk thinking narrating everything?  The Metrons flat-out said they were giving them translation devices, yet Kirk was using it as if it was a log in which to talk about his planned battle strategies.

119: '''Tomorrow is Yesterday''' ''[[1967]] [[January 26]]''

Then the bit at the end, where their little time reverse before heading to the far future seems to erase their previous presence... that just doesn't make sense.  Following that rule, wouldn't they have wiped out more of their own earlier existence while zipping forward a few hundred years?

120: '''Court-Martial''' ''[[1967]] [[February 2]]''

Really, though, an episode that's all about the people.  With a bit of tech change, I could see this one taking place in a modern setting.

121: '''The Return of the Archons''' ''[[1967]] [[February 9]]''

Asking a computer questions until you've "blown its mind" and it actually starts to spark and explode?  Pfffft.

122: '''Space Seed''' ''[[1967]] [[February 16]]''

(First watched 2008-03-03)

123: '''A Taste of Armageddon''' ''[[1967]] [[February 23]]''

However, and I suppose as the very first season of Star Trek it's got to have some leeway, but... it really wasn't the place of the ambassador or Enterprise crew to be forcing themselves on this society and changing their way of life just because they think it's awful.  Prime Directive, sir!  Also, I was sure it was going to be revealed later on that the General Order 24 thing was a big bluff... but it wasn't.  So Starfleet actually has a numerical designation for an order to destroy the entirety of a planet's surface?  And Kirk was going to use it if the society they'd been meddling with didn't let the handful of captives go?  What the hell?

124: '''This Side of Paradise''' ''[[1967]] [[March 2]]''

I found myself wondering why Kirk was at first immune to the spores, and even once affected was sound enough of mind to be able to fight it off.  I suppose it's a difference between old and new Trek.  In a recent Trek show, there'd have been some eventual explanation about how his blood type was resilient and yada yada yada, but in old Trek he can just get away with it because he's Mr. Awesome.

125: '''The Devil in the Dark''' ''[[1967]] [[March 9]]''

There must be something really weird about Janus VI to cause the Hortas to evolve such a weird trait as a mass die-off and birth of a new generation with a single protector every 50,000 years.

126: '''Errand of Mercy''' ''[[1967]] [[March 16]]''

I didn't realize it until checking Wikipedia, but apparently this is the first appearance of the Klingons.

127: '''The Alternative Factor''' ''[[1967]] [[March 23]]''

Also, what was with the talk of the Lazaruses (Lazari?) fighting for eternity, until the end of time?  Unless I missed something, they're still fairly normal humanoids.  Won't they just starve and dehydrate pretty quickly?

128: '''The City on the Edge of Forever''' ''[[1967]] [[April 6]]''

Great episode, but it bugs me that their ultimate purpose is to save the future by nipping a peace movement in the bud.  Spock says something about Edit having "the right idea at the wrong time", but it still seems awfully militaristic.

129: '''Operation: Annihilate!''' ''[[1967]] [[April 13]]''

Isn't this like the third time in five episodes that Spock mentioned something being life, "but not as we know it"?  Actually he should've said that about the Organians too, but I don't recall him doing so.

[[Star Trek: The Original Series Season 2]]