Star Trek: The Original Series Season 3

Star Trek: The Original Series

Star Trek: The Original Series Season 2

SPOILERS AHOY

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301: Spock's Brain 1968 September 20

(First watched 2008-04-18)  "His brain is gone!"

So the man's surviving without his brain.  Is it REALLY necessary to install a remote-control system to make him walk around?

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302: The Enterprise Incident

(First watched 2009-04-04)  Pretty flagrant aggressive action on the part of the Federation here.  Kirk and Spock use subterfuge to steal the cloaking device, but it's perfectly clear who did it.  Considering how at odds the Federation and Romulans are, it's surprising this didn't cause some much bigger blowback.

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303: The Paradise Syndrome

(First watched 2009-04-08)  Hey, finally the "I am Kirok!" episode.

I guess this is as close as Kirk gets to a "The Inner Light" situation, living another life, though it doesn't last for decades as for Picard.  So really in that regard it's more like a couple Stargate SG-1 and Atlantis episodes I can think of.

Busy episode for Kirk, though.  Becomes a god, medicine man, husband, father-to-be, and widower within the span of one episode.

Was it really such a surprise to Salish that the god Kirok could bleed?  I mean, he eats and breathes and behaves in all other ways like a regular person.  Why not bleed?  Even if he was a god, it would seem he'd taken complete human form in a biological sense.

Spock was talking about the logical choices and all, but he really seemed to blow it by blowing the engines.  They had to waste 2 months crawling around.  Perhaps with full power they could've used those two months to devise an alternate plan, or go get more help, rather than requiring last-minute use of a Preserver device.

Preservers are an interesting concept.  An ancient race that moved life forms around from planet to planet to help things not die off.  McCoy says it helps explain why there are so many humanoids around, but not really; it would only help explain why there are humans around on other worlds, or whatever other duplicates.

And featuring... white people as Native Americans!

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304: And the Children Shall Lead

(First watched 2009-04-09)  I like the goofiness of being able to summon a spirite/energy being/whatever by just replaying the summoning ceremony's audio.  I guess we viewers are damned lucky the glowing guy in robes didn't appear for all of us.

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305: Is There in Truth No Beauty?

(First watched 2009-04-11)  Hey, Dr. Pulaski!  And she's blind!  Funny how they made such a big deal about how even with an advanced sensor dress, a blind person shouldn't pilot the ship.  A biiit different from the first season of TNG when Geordi and his VISOR helmed the Enterprise-D.

I think maybe TOS and I have a language problem.  Sometimes there's a concept that I think I can grasp, but they explain it in what seems an off way.  For instance, I can buy that there's something weird about the Medusans that can cause many humanoids to go insane upon seeing them... but to just repeatedly call that "ugliness".  Come oooon.

The end confused me a bit.  Kirk seemed to be making accusations without certainty, and I wasn't happy with the lack of resolution.  If she wasn't trying to kill Spock by influencing his mind, he was just being a big asshole.  If she was, it doesn't seem a good idea to just happily send her on her way after she helps him recover.

The Spock/Kollos melding was pretty interesting.  And gives Nimoy one of his few chances to use a very different demeanor with Spock.

Standard Kirk move of the week: When called upon to create a distraction so big that it will distract Dr. Jones from telepathically noticing things... of course Kirk's solution is to try flirting.  Which fails.

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306: Spectre of the Gun

(First watched 2009-04-13)  More half-assed logic from Spock that turns out to be absolutely correct.  Their knockout gas doesn't work, and he concludes this means they're in an unreal situation.  OK, that's fair.  But from there he determines that things are only as real as they believe them to be... based on what?  Maybe their alien captors just replaced their knockout mixture with high tech.  Maybe it's a simulation that prevents dangerous toxins from being created, but where bullets are just as real.  With this kind of logic, Spock would end up dead in a Reg Barclay holodeck production.

I've got the benefit of having seen more Star Trek than these characters, but I saw the "it was a test to see if you'd kill" thing coming from a mile away.

I kind of like the way that using building fronts at a skewed angle was both a way to make the sets cheap and easy, and part of an incomplete alien recreation.

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307: Day of the Dove

(First watched 2009-04-15)  Another energy being.  This one seems to go about things in a needlessly complicated way.  It needs to feed on hatred, and can manipulate people's perceptions to help get it.  Given that, wouldn't it have been simpler to just use the crew of one ship against itself, rather than needing to bring together a small portion of the Enterprise's crew against Klingons?  And what was with going at extremely high warp?  If the dilithium crystals busted they weren't going to actually reach anyplace, and putting the ship in danger would end the game right quick.

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308: For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky 1968 November 8

(First watched 2008-04-29)  Meeting a species for the first time, deciding to stay and marrying one, divorcing one and leaving all on the same day?  Isn't that a bit fast, Bones?

Having no prior symptoms, discovering you've got a rare condition that gives you one year to live, immediately displaying symptoms, and finding/applying a cure all on the same day?  Isn't that a bit fast, Bones?

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309: The Tholian Web

(First watched 2009-04-16)  I've seen episodes that follow this up, books, comics... but finally I see the original.  It's interesting, given the title of the episode,  how incidental the Tholians are to the main plot.  They look weird and set up their fancy web, but essentially it just sets a time limit on the Enterprise's attempted rescue activities, as many other things could have.

Kirk's taped message to Spock and McCoy in case of his demise really anticipated their difficulties.  And both of them too embarrassed to admit having watched it.

Kirk floating around through things was kind of goofy, but I guess really no more so than other instances of people being "out of phase" in Star Trek or other sci-fi.

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310: Plato's Stepchildren

(First watched 2009-04-21)  Considering what is said about Shatner as an actor on set, I wonder if he found the ridiculous things he had to do in this episode insulting, or gratifying since it put so much attention on him.  This episode just goes on and on with the scene where he's being forced to dance or act like a pony for Alexander and yada yada yada.

In the end, they win by way of learning the secret of giving regular humans powerful telekinesis... never to be heard from in Star Trek again.

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311: Wink of an Eye

(First watched 2009-04-22)  Interesting premise executed in an extremely flawed and inconsistent way.  The sped-up people seemed to be going so fast that the regular people were completely still... except when they were sometimes just really slow.  And at those kinds of speeds, the time taken in this episode should've been months?  They show a regular-time scene of Spock and McCoy, but on either side of it there are fast-time scenes with Scott frozen in the same place?  During the time when it's still showing fast-time with Kirk and Spock at the end, it goes to an external shot of the Enterprise which appears to be orbiting at regular speed?

I notice this episode has a pretty obvious "putting on the boots" scene.

Second episode in a row where they come upon some amazing discovery that can give powers (albeit with a dangerous side-effect) to a regular person, never to be heard of in the franchise again.

Also the second episode in a row where some species of small population tries to force people to stay behind for their own benefit.  Really, beyond the kidnapping thing neither of these worlds were so bad--surely if they'd just sent out the space equivalent of Want Ads people would gladly answer.  "Wanted: Doctor to infrequently help a small colony in usually good health."  "Wanted: Anyone biologically compatible and willing to mate at high speed."

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312: The Empath

(First watched 2009-04-25)  So the Federation knows a star is going nova soon, and there are multiple inhabited planets orbiting it... and their response is to set up an observation station where they leave two guys?  What the hell.  At least one of the planets had a highly advanced civilization so it's not like there was even a Prime Directive concern in that case.

Though for that matter, maybe that civilization could've saved more of the solar system's inhabitants if they'd spent more time working on evacuation and less time setting up moral tests for species from other planets.

Gem seems a pretty stupid name to pick for the empath, considering their tiny group already had a Jim in it.  That aside, though, she was more interesting than the average Star Trek woman-of-the-week.  No vocal communication made for something completely different, and with all that makeup on (though not quite enough to make her a full-blown Earth mime) she looked like a doll.

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313: Elaan of Troyius

(First watched 2009-04-27)  Again this universe does not seem to match the one that really solidified in the later years.  So this is a solar system that's in... disputed Federation territory, which the Klingons also claim?  With two planets that aren't really in the Federation and have much lower levels of technology?  And the Enterprise is made to act essentially as a carriage for a marriage that's supposed to create peace between two clashing worlds in the system?

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314: Whom Gods Destroy

(First watched 2009-04-29)  So there are only a little more than a dozen people in the Federation with an incurable mental illness?  And someone thought it was a good idea to segregate them onto their own planet with just a couple people to watch over them?  And keep them in tiny cells?  And a new wonder drug can take away all of their problems forever?

Garth was interesting to watch swing from in-control delusions of grandeur to lashing out at those around him.

It's nice to see that at least crazy Andorians and Tellarites can get along.

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315: Let That Be Your Last Battlefield

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