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Star Trek: The Original Series Season 1 (view source)

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


SPOILERS AHOY
{{Spoilers}}


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


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101: '''The Man Trap''' ''[[]] [[]]''
101: '''The Man Trap''' ''[[]] [[]]''
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I like that this episode predates "redshirts".  The loser crewmen to die in this episode only wore blue or yellow shirts.
I like that this episode predates "redshirts".  The loser crewmen to die in this episode only wore blue or yellow shirts.


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102: '''Charlie X''' ''[[]] [[]]''
102: '''Charlie X''' ''[[]] [[]]''
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(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.
(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.


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103: '''Where No Man Has Gone Before''' ''[[]] [[]]''
103: '''Where No Man Has Gone Before''' ''[[]] [[]]''
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Interesting that at least for this episode, they treat ESP like a known and quantifiable fact, with different people having different "esper" ratings.
Interesting that at least for this episode, they treat ESP like a known and quantifiable fact, with different people having different "esper" ratings.


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


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105: '''The Enemy Within''' ''[[]] [[]]''
105: '''The Enemy Within''' ''[[]] [[]]''
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Written by [[Richard Matheson]].
Written by [[Richard Matheson]].


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


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.
(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.
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.


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


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(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.
 
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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.
 
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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.
 
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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.
 
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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.
 
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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?
 
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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?
 
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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.
 
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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.
 
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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?
 
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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.
 
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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.
 
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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?
 
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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.
 
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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.
 
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122: '''Space Seed''' ''[[1967]] [[February 16]]''
122: '''Space Seed''' ''[[1967]] [[February 16]]''
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(First watched 2008-03-03)
(First watched 2008-03-03)


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


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


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


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126: '''Errand of Mercy''' ''[[1967]] [[March 16]]''
126: '''Errand of Mercy''' ''[[1967]] [[March 16]]''
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I didn't realize it until checking Wikipedia, but apparently this is the first appearance of the Klingons.
I didn't realize it until checking Wikipedia, but apparently this is the first appearance of the Klingons.


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


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


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


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