Star Trek: The Original Series Season 2

Star Trek: The Original Series

Star Trek: The Original Series Season 1

SPOILERS AHOY

---

201: Amok time 1967 September 15

Spock's surprised outburst of "Captain!  Jim!" has got to be one of his top moments on the show.

Also, Chekov.

---

202: Who Mourns for Adonais? 1967 September 22

This is an interesting episode concept, but admittedly I'm a bit of an ancient astronaut theory whore.  I can't help but think there should've been a way to reach a better outcome, but maybe I'm thinking too TNG here.  Apollo wants things to be as they once were, but if he could make a bit of compromise there'd still be a place for him.  Surely if knowledge of him got to the Federation at large there would be people willing to become voluntary followers.  Or he could've found new purpose with a non-human species, since he clearly has no equivalent to the Prime Directive.

Enterprise seems to have a knack for getting crewgals who fall for the wrong ancient guy.  This time one goes for Apollo, and it was just a few episodes back that one fell for Khan.

Also, Chekov is only 22?  Didn't realize I'd started passing up TOS Enterprise crewmembers in age.

---

203: The Changeling 1967 September 29

---

204: Mirror, Mirror 1967 October 6

---

205: The Apple 1967 October 13

(First watched 2008-03-19)  MORE flowers shooting people, this time with goofier sound effects.

Though as usual I disagree with Kirk that forcing the people away from their life was the necessarily right thing to do... in this case I think they were justified from a self-defense standpoint in taking out Vaal.  I wonder if Vaal's name came from Baal?

Again convenient that Spock is Super Vulcan.  Early on Vaal vaporized a redshirt with a lightning bolt, but Spock got away with second-degree burns.

Also, so nice of Kirk to say Spock looks like Satan.

---

206: The Doomsday Machine 1967 October 20

(First watched 2008-03-20)  Considering weapons technology of now (or even the late 60s), it seems like a few hundred years from now man would be able to make a 97 megaton explosion a bit more cheaply than sacrificing a Constitution-class starship.  Just how powerful are those photon torpedos supposed to be anyway?  That does seem a relatively easy explosion for destroying something that destroys planets; that they conjecture was a final effort doomsday device of some unknown civilization.

At least in the original special effects, the shuttlecraft appears huge.  At least, the shots of it next to the planet killer don't make it seem much smaller than the shots of Constitution-class starships next to the planet killer.

---

207: Catspaw  1967 October 27

(First watched 2008-03-21)  The hidden racial memory fears of mankind are witches, cats, and old castles?  Really?

For the umpteenth time, Spock mentions a form of life as possibly coming from another galaxy.  When did he become expert on every goddamned thing in the Milky Way?

The little marionettes used at the end were funny, in that the strings were quite visible.

---

208: I, Mudd 1967 November 3

---

209: Metamorphosis 1967 November 10

Boy, Cochrane sure looks and speaks a lot different when he's old-young.  His reactions to the Companion weirded me out.  First, he was ambivalent about it.  Then he learned it was female, and felt violated and angry.  Then it joined up with the human female, and he had the hots for it enough to abandon any other human contact for the rest of his life.

I don't quite get that, though.  Sure, he's a famous guy who might get bugged... but he's already been alone (other than the Companion) for 150 years; would it be too much to have a FEW visitors occasionally and have at least a communications terminal or something?

Also, what the hell kind of story is Kirk going to make up for their strange problems that doesn't mention Cochrane but does explain away how they lost an entire diplomat they were supposed to be helping.

---

210: Journey to Babel

---

Star Trek: The Original Series Season 3