Star Trek: The Original Series Season 1
Star Trek: The Original Series
SPOILERS TOTAL. You've been warned.
10X: The Cage [[]] [[]]
Spock: "The women!"
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 [[]] [[]]
(First watched 2008-12-11) For a creature that could apparently be nonviolent... it sure did seem needlessly violent. The Enterprise crew can be a bit trigger happy at times, but if it had just up-front said "Hey, I'm the last of my species. I need some salt." it would probably find itself in sodium heaven.
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 [[]] [[]]
(First watched 2008-12-26) This must be the second pilot. Uniforms are different and so is half the cast. Spock is still a bit emotional and smiling at times, even though by this time he's verbally dissing emotion. Boy this show went through a lot of changes early on.
Aired right after Charlie X, though, it seems like they're hitting the "modified human with superpsychic powers goes power-mad" well pretty heavily.
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 [[]] [[]]
(First watched 2008-12-27) I knew TNG's "The Naked Now" was based on this episode, but I didn't realize the similarities went as far as having a crewmember take over the ship and seal himself in Engineering. Though I guess if they want the ship to be in peril, someone's got to do something along those lines. "Captain" Riley was a hoot.
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 [[]] [[]]
(First watched 2008-12-31) The original crazy transporter malfunction episode? Actually this one was really good. Since it involved two different parts of a person that eventually needed to be reintegrated it reminds me a bit of [Star Trek: Voyager Season 1 Voyager's "Faces"]. I didn't quite like how they called the two Kirks good and evil, and kept talking about how the captain needed his evil to be the captain. It seemed more of... overthinking Kirk and primal Kirk.
So I don't quite understand why they couldn't help the people on the planet's surface more. If there was a reason they couldn't send a shuttlecraft (other than it hadn't been introduced to the series yet) I didn't hear it. Also, while there were problems with things like heaters and people duplicating and not functioning properly, would that have stopped them from sending a decent tent or something? All these guys just seemed to have one flimsy blanket.
Written by Richard Matheson.
106: Mudd's Women [[]] [[]]
(First watched 2009-01-02) So these women are so desperate for companionship that they're willing to be traded via conman to horribly desolate planets to men who will only care if they're on beauty drugs? This seems like such a shitty plan for everyone but Mudd.
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? [[]] [[]]
(First watched 2009-01-05) What a weird episode.
So these people had been missing five years, already had two attempts made to find out what happened to them... and the Enterprise is being sent now'? I hope it was just on their way; such a mission seems a bit of a waste of time under normal circumstances.
I can understand why reprogramming a person to lose certain emotion is a Bad Thing, but they seemed awfully opposed to the idea of androidization at all. Korby seemed to be himself pretty well, at least until the out-of-nowhere freakout at the end where he said he'd prove his humanity by solving equations. Sure he was acting differently than they expected, but it wasn't due to the sort of changes he was talking about. He never suggested removing compassion from people.
So the moral of the story is... it's better to die than to use heavy prosthetics? If your android starts to feel emotions, you better disintegrate it? If someone won't kiss you, kill them?
Also, Kirk's plan to expose the android is crazy. One, that such a thing should work. If it's going to copy his entire brain, the sentence that he's saying at the time of transfer shouldn't have much impact. Two, that it did work. Three, that Kirk came up with the plan immediately.
Also Lurch.
108: Miri [[]] [[]]
(First watched 2009-01-07) So it's a bit far-fetched that they run into a duplicate Earth, but since it's just an excuse to say "What if WEIRD SITUATION happened to our culture and we looked a few hundred years into the future?" I can accept that major hurdle.
Was it really THAT big a deal that they lost their communicators? I mean, if I'm on the Enterprise, pretty soon I'm going to just beam them down another and see if that helps me get a response.
I'm no expert on human maturation, but I'd think even if people weren't glandularly developing, the experience of living for hundreds of years would bring more of them to something beyond eternal childhood.
Unnecessary Kirk shirt ripping to show off his messed up arms. And not just one sleeve, but two!
A "beaker full of death", Spock? You've got a flair for the dramatic.
109: Dagger of the Mind 1966 November 3
(First watched 2009-01-08) This will sound pretty generic, but... standardly nice. There's a problem and a mystery, and (most of) the crew acts competently to get to the bottom of it.
Dr. Noel, though... nah. She seemed to border on the insubordinate by dissing Kirk's concerns during the first half of the episode. And it especially bugged me when she said that taking a closer look at a failed project would have no scientific purpose. One, that's absolutely false. Learning from mistakes is a Big Thing. Two, since it turned out to be the "failed" project that messed up the doctor who escaped to the Enterprise, it was directly relevant to their investigation; something they wouldn't know if they only looked on the surface of everything.
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 [[]] [[]]
McCoy and Kirk bug me early in this episode. There's a mysterious object messing with the ship. The whole ship has been put on alert. The captain has been called to the bridge in what's clearly an emergency situation. And yet... the doctor purposefully ignores this, because he deems the last minute of Kirk's quarterly physical to be of greater importance. Then after Kirk gets ticked off at McCoy for that... he decides it's more imperative to go to his quarters and change his clothes than rush to the bridge and see things firsthand. Seriously, fuck you guys!
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 [[]] [[]]
(First watched 2009-01-21) So there really was no additional twist at the end. Kirk was like "They wanted a race of slaves!" and Spock was all "No just wait there's more!", but that's pretty much it. It's just that Spock decided that forcing Pike to go back into the awesome cage he'd previously railed against was worth risking his career and the death penalty for. And the fine folks at Starfleet seemed to agree with him, even when they hadn't heard his explanation? If it wasn't that we know there are no further consequences, I'd think that was just a faked message, too.
So the Pike bit ended pretty much as I predicted. Almost all of The Cage bits were accurate to their original form, except the part that was originally supposed to be a totally-fake Pike was now intended to be a partially-fake Pike, the imaginary healthy version of the shitty version that went down.
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 [[]] [[]]
(First watched 2009-01-22) I thought this episode had an overall good thing going, but threw in a lot of little stupid. A governor who felt forced into a horrible action, dead or disappeared? Is he the actor? Is he still killing witnesses?
BUT... they seemed to have a hard time deciding whether Anton Karidian and Kodos were the same. I know this is a Future 60s, but even by the 1960s they had ways of identifying people, and probably some good guesses on how the future could do better. In this episode they went no further than comparing a recent picture of the actor with an old picture of Kodos, and comparing a recent voice pattern of the actor with an old voice pattern of Kodos. No DNA testing? Not even any fingerprinting or testing blood types or dental records? No comparing pictures of Kodos with old pictures of the actor? Yet this drags out through the episode.
I enjoyed seeing Captain Lieutenant Riley again. Though I don't understand Kirk's motivations in temporarily reassigning him? It made him more vulnerable. Was he just trying to keep him completely out of the way so he wouldn't see Kodos on his own by chance and freak out?
Kirk seemed abnormally ticked that Spock figured out what was going on. Why? It did no harm, and yes, it is Spock's job to know what the heck is going on around this place.
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
(First watched 2009-01-26) Quite nice. Kirk and the Romulan commander's back-and-forth strategizing was quite interesting.
Though yet another insubordinate bridge crewmember. Jesus. Stiles sees a Romulan with pointy ears and starts treating Spock like an enemy.
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
(First watched 2009-02-09) A pretty nice Spock episode, though yet again some junior officers seem to totally despise him for his differences. If things had been left to those guys, I think they'd have spent their entire time on the planet killing native life forms and burying each other.
I think the episode goes too far in trying to present some of Spock's choices as hard to understand for a human crew, or later emotional. First, people balk about a potential plan which could leave several people on the planet. Until they discovered the giant apes, I don't see why this is such a problem. Once in orbit the goal would be to contact the Enterprise. If that's done successfully, they can just send more help down to pick up the people remaining on the planet. If they failed at that they'd be boned anyway, so what difference would it make if they were on the shuttle or not? Later, they talk of Spock's "flare" maneuver as an emotional act of desperation... but what choices were left? They hadn't been found by Enterprise in the first few minutes, so they seemed to be gone. What were the options? Stay in orbit a few minutes longer, hoping that either another friendly ship happens by or that Kirk will turn his ship around? Losing a few minutes of orbit to make a signal that can be noticed from a distance seems the most logical thing to do.
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
So Trelane has screwed up his era of Earth knowledge due to the speed of light. Aside from how ridiculous it is that he'd be able to make out such detail from hundreds of light years away, is this another bit of evidence that they had really not yet determined when this series was supposed to be taking place? There's talk of Trelane seeing the past of 900 years prior, but Trelane is certainly not copying stuff from the 1300s, but several hundred years later.
I like the continuity of Trelane having a salt vampire from The Man Trap on display.
So energy beings require an easily breakable machine that can hide behind a mirror to do their fancy tricks?
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
(First watched 2009-02-16) Those Metrons are nuts. They claim to be so advanced and impressed by Kirk's show of mercy... but they were the ones ready to set up a fight to the death at a moment's notice? And even when I at first thought that was their way of reducing death to just one individual... they then say that the loser's ship gets destroyed, too? So why go through all the trouble instead of just letting them duke it out as they were going to?
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
This is a fun episode, but there's some stupid stuff. Like in originally determining that they must keep Captain Christopher around, Spock just looks up whether he was important to history. Neglecting to check his further descendants was a bad mistake. Thinking that just having a UFO disappear an Air Force dude rather than him finishing his natural life of interaction with countless others won't affect things is an even worse one.
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
(First watched 2009-02-19) Even if Kirk doesn't raise any objections, isn't it a Bad Idea to have an old fling be the prosecution in his trial?
And even if the footage of Kirk hitting the "jettison pod" button early ended up being faked... isn't it pretty fucking awful design to have the main three buttons on your captain's chair be "Red Alert", "Yellow Alert", and "Jettison Pod"?
Usually I don't notice such things, but Shatner's fight double in this episode was a pretty bad substitute. He had a different hair color and beard stubble.
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
(First watched 2009-02-22) For an episode called The Return of the Archons, I was a bit surprised to not see actual Archons.
Does Starfleet generally wait a century before sending out another ship to see what happened?
This ancient stagnant non-human civilization sure did have some fancy ~1900 Earth clothing.
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
(First watched 2008-03-04) Interesting concept. A culture makes war more survivable by having the fights be false, but the deaths real, so the society isn't harmed. This makes war drag on forever since it's so survivable.
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
(First watched 2008-03-05) Boy oh, did those flowers ejaculating spores onto people look ridiculous.
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
Though everyone (but Spock) started out a bit blood-thirsty, this becomes a really positive sort of Trek story. Two species so different they're not even based on the same element start a relationship of accidental murder and retaliatory murder, but manage to reach an understanding and peace once a means of communication (Spock again) becomes available.
I notice his Vulcan telepathic capabilities seem stronger than Vulcan stuff I'm more familiar with. A few episodes back he controlled a guard on the other side of a door, and in this one he established a lower-level mind meld with the Horta from a small distance away. To get the best connection he had to place his hands on it, though.
McCoy's line on patching up the Horta with thermal concrete was great. "By golly Jim, I'm beginning to think I can cure a rainy day!"
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
Interesting that the Organians make the claim that in the future the Klingons and Federation will get along great, in that it took more than 20 years from the airing of this for us to see such a future in The Next Generation.
I guess the Organians don't have an equivalent of the Prime Directive... or at least are as loose with it as Kirk is. Meddling with the affairs of lesser-developed peoples seems to be a no-no, even if it's for preventing bloodshed.
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
Sorry, this episode just loses me. That there's two versions of this guy trading places, OK idea. But... the eventual danger they talk about is what will happen if the matter and antimatter versions meet. However, they've been going at this a while and it hasn't happened. They end up at each other's throats indefinitely and it doesn't happen. When was it supposed to happen? And wouldn't locking them together make something like that more likely instead of less?
Also silly-points to paranoid Kirk and the admiral or commodore or whoever at Starfleet he was talking to. An unknown phenomena occurs, and his best guess at what it means is that it's a prelude to invasion? That's your #1 guess with nothing to go on? Sure, it might be a good idea to take precautions in case that is what's going on, but they think that's the most likely scenario?
I also wonder if that effect (all gravity/magnetism/other such things momentarily not functioning) was really galaxy-wide or universe-wide as they suggested? And if so, what awful effects might it have caused far beyond the scope of this episode?
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
(First watched 2008-03-12) Kirk and crew vs... what appears to be fried eggs.
In retrospect it seems weird that for as big a character as Jim Kirk is, his brother Sam's actor only ever gets to portray a corpse. *After checking Wikipedia* Shit, that was just Shatner with some makeup on? I guess they didn't show him long enough for me to tell.
Though Spock's blindness was only temporary (thanks to being the show's resident magical non-human), it was still pretty foolish of them to rush him into testing the extreme brightness thing before they got the full results from their first test, which indicated they didn't need to go so visibly bright.
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.