Dearth of updates lately. Sorry, 7 readers and occasional strangers who accidentally find this site when Googling 1980s Denver Broncos. Been busy in general with various things that are either not blogworthy or are SECRETS.

*I will be able to reveal one secret project shortly, after an entry deadline passes in April, and I am assured of no internet thieves plundering it. Rest assured it is really, really nerdy.

*We have been busy planning various house projects. We’re doing a bathroom remodel soon, which has required a lot more thinking about sinks, tile, and faucets than I am normally accustomed. Our house has a pretty terrible bathroom filled with aquamarine nightmare deco and ancient fixtures (IT WAS LIKE THAT WHEN WE FOUND IT I SWEAR) and this update will generally improve our lives. We will also be getting some new fencing in the backyard, in preparation for…

*…a dog! Not sure when exactly we’ll get one, but it’s in the works. A fence is required first, and we have some traveling through the summer that we should get on the other side of, as well. We are having long heart-to-heart talks with the cats about FutureDog, and how it won’t ruin their lives and please don’t do things cats are known to do when something displeases them, like start peeing all over the house in protest.

*Baseball season starting! Checking…yes, I am still employed, which has many benefits, but one of them is definitely not the freedom to watch games all the time. But I am still excited. I have been extremely fond of this Seattle Mariners commercial. Oh also, man was this examination of Diamond Kings glorious. I’ll have to chat about these myself when I get some time for some non-baseball-context, because these deserve a much wider audience. Their fantastic-ness is by no means limited to dudes who were 12 in 1989 and liked baseball cards.

*Rainy weather and some busy-ness have conspired to prevent me from getting the telescope out for a while. March was a sort of quiet sky night anyway. Saturn will be coming up in April, so I’ll get back out there soon.

*Star Trek watch continues (uh, see most recent posts) but is slowing a bit right now as I am slogging through the third season. OH THAT was the reason this series got canceled. It’s really not that good, let’s face it. But I’m about halfway through it and will circle back around to season 1 and might pick up some steam.

*How is it even news that there will be an election in 2012? Why isn’t everyone just collectively saying, “Good lord, we let those Tea Partiers in and they went right after teachers and workers’ rights. What an outrage! Gosh we were stupid for trusting them. Lesson learned! We are now going to vote for progressive candidates before this country really goes to hell.” How is this not possible? The fact that it will not be an absolute landslide against those folks means that we are utterly doomed. Is there a country that has itself together as well as the Scandinavian nations, but where they eat less fish and it is warm? (I don’t care about the temperature so much, but K does. I am the one that cares about the fish thing.)

The visor is a long story. Please try to disregard it.64. The Tholian Web. Possibly the weirdest episode I’ve seen so far. Weird-good, though. Weird, 1960s TV, classic Trek good. If you want people going crazy, I mean SPACE CRAZY, this is a fine example. Mostly I think I will remember this episode for two things: space suits, and a really grumpy Spock. The Enterprise finds a missing ship and beams aboard to check it out. But there are some weird issues with this area of space. Namely, that the ships sensors don’t actually think the ship is there. Everyone can see it but it’s fading in and out and it generally seems like a bad idea to go aboard. However, they figure as long as they are wearing awkward ’60s space suits, all will be good. Nope! The ship disappears, taking Kirk with it. Seems like he must be dead, but Spock doesn’t give up, even though there’s a lot going wrong. This whole area of space is screwy. Everyone’s snapping at each other and the Enterprise is running out of energy. Everyone’s ripping Spock for his bad decisions, and Spock seems genuinely irritated the entire time. Sometimes in the past he’s seemed cold or awkward, but his personality is now going more towards curmudgeonly. And who can blame him? YOU come up with some brilliant plan to understand what the heck’s going on, entire rest of crew. Anyway, if things weren’t edgy enough, some dudes called Tholians show up and after a period of blustery threats, begin constructing an elaborate energy web around the Enterprise in an effort to contain the ship. Of course, this takes quite a long time, plenty of time for the Enterprise to figure out how to find Kirk and escape. I guess the bottom line here is that I feel like for all the directions this episode tried to go, nothing really hung together, and it all took just long enough to pad out the content until the end. Plus it was filled with weird stuff I couldn’t really relax about. For example, the Tholians laid the slowest trap ever. Was that supposed to be threatening? Basically, they say that they will kill you in one hour. And if you leave, then you get to go free. So, uh, you leave. Sure, it was complicated by the ship being disabled at the beginning of that hour, but we all knew they were going to fix it. All the other problems add up to a very difficult episode for Spock, who has to deal with crewmembers continually approaching him and barking angrily until they wear themselves out trying to get a rise out of him. Killer Spock line: none. He was not in the mood. Overall: a rich episode for sure, but too much awkward for me. 3 out of 5.

Trek tropes:

  • Lighthearted banter to close episode (though in the running for the least funny instance of it – I think this is my clue the show is losing steam)

65. Plato’s Stepchildren. Mostly this episode is painful. Painful themes, painful for the cast, painful to watch. Not painful, like, bad. Painful, like, people are put through really humiliating things and you get to suffer along with them. It’s effective, but trying as an episode. The Enterprise crew is held hostage by a race of telekinetic people who use their powers to force them to perform humiliating acts for their amusement. It forces the cast to do a lot of pretending to be forced to do these things, which borders on cheesy but I don’t think quite crosses the line. It ends up being effective and a testament to the acting chops of the regulars. That said, the episode is thin on an actual plot. After a while, Kirk and company figure out the source of the telekinetic powers and are able to replicate them and fight back. But until that point we’re just watching an array of bizarre things, like Kirk and Spock doing Riverdance or Kirk being ridden by a dwarf like a horse. These are not things I really want to be watching. I think it might have been more interesting to get some character depth from any of the villains, though we do get to know Alexander, dwarf who has been enslaved as a court jester, and he ends up being very a very sympathetic character, giving the whole thing an even more serious tone. Killer Spock line, in reply to a woman’s question about how old she looks, posed to Spock, Kirk, and McCoy, and said with absolutely no compunction: “35.” Overall: it was well-done but very little fun to watch. 2 out of 5.

Trek tropes (number of instances encountered in series so far in parentheses):

  • Earth history will always be relevant (not recent Earth history, though, escaping the trope of the importance of the 20th century, but still, Greeks in space)
  • Shatner showcase
  • Invisible Space Powers
  • Highly experimental plan with low probability of success somehow works anyway

66. Wink of an Eye. I don’t think there’s been any good mucking about with time episodes in TOS to this point. TNG was filled with them. Maybe because they looked at this one and realized how interesting it was and needed lots more like this. I dug this episode a lot. It’s got a great TNG-like strong sci-fi story combined with the swashbuckling, alien-babe loving TOS aesthetic. A race of hyper-accelerated aliens take over the Enterprise and wreak havoc on the crew by basically being a whole bunch of The Flash-es, moving so fast that the crew can’t see them or do anything about it. Eventually they shift Kirk into their time frame (the science is a little wonky–they drug Kirk’s coffee which somehow changes his temporal frame of reference–but, uh, okay) and of course that’s the wrong thing to do because we know Kirk isn’t going to stand for any of this nonsense, seductive alien babe aside. Anyway, there are a bunch of problems to solve and lots of good Kirk-Spock-McCoy-Scotty stuff. And for a series that really doesn’t put a lot of science in its sci-fi, it’s a nice change. Tor.com’s review points out about a billion plot holes, but I didn’t find myself thinking about them all that much. Killer Spock line, describing his transition to the higher-speed dimension of the aliens: “I found it an accelerating experience.” (har, har) Overall: Maybe the best 3rd season episode so far, 5 out of 5.

Trek tropes (number of instances encountered in series so far in parentheses):

  • Highly experimental plan with low probability of success somehow works anyway
  • Invisible Space Powers
  • Anonymous redshirt killed (But then he comes back. But then they kill him for reals.)
  • In the future, computers are magic, but still make teletype sounds
  • Kirk hits it off with alien babe

67. The Empath. I only a little to say about this episode, and they are related to the tropes. First off, this was the third episode in a row where some sort of invisible space power was able to control Kirk and Company. I know we’re making these shows on the cheap, fellas, but man. Enough with the telekinetic rays already. Second, this is another instance of lighthearted show-closing banter that was decidedly unfunny. I think it just goes along with other problems with this third season: lots of things just aren’t as fun or as well done as in the first two years. Anyway, the rest of the episode is mostly a blur with a few bits and pieces clearly remembered. This is my fault. I probably didn’t give this one a fair watch because I was ungodly tired when I saw it. I was probably legally asleep, even though my eyes were open. When someone wants to start paying me for writing these, I promise to only watch when alert (and organize my thoughts better, proofread, not publish zero drafts, etc.). I think my biggest impression from this one is that it’s only a thin variation on the superior “The Cage”. Telepathic aliens are messing with the humans and there’s a sympathetic fellow prisoner to help them out and is actually the most interesting character. Mostly I remember that it’s a good character relationship episode between Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. Killer Spock line: “The sandbats of Menard IV appear to be inanimate rock crystals, Doctor. Until they attack.” Overall: I think it was good. 4 out of 5.

Trek tropes (number of instances encountered in series so far in parentheses):

  • The indomitable human spirit conquers all
  • Invisible Space Powers
  • Lighthearted banter to close episode

I watch the NCAA selection show most years. Somehow it’s fun to see the bracket and matchups revealed, even though it’s always precisely the same:

  1. Talking heads bicker over which teams should be #1 seeds.
  2. Talking heads bicker over which marginal, impossible-to-quantify teams are most deserving of those last few inclusions. They neglect to consider that these teams usually end up as 12-seeds and lose their first game 66% of the time.
  3. Tournament field revealed. Cut to shots of players whooping and hollering as their long season is rewarded with a chance to be on TV. (I actually love this.)
  4. Talking heads resume bickering about what a crime it is that such-and-such marginal team was not given one of those 12-seeds. They neglect to consider that the number of marginal teams they feel must be included substantially exceeds the number of available spots. They also neglect to consider that most of the teams they are defending finished like 5th in their conference, so there’s no evidence that they can do well in a national tournament.
  5. Talking heads badger the selection committee chair, whose long answers essentially amount to: “Listen guys, someone has to be left out unless we just start the tournament in November and include all 345 Division I basketball teams. Or would you just rip us for not including Division II?”

If I had time and access to a good copyright lawyer I would love to have a video montage of Seth Davis ranting about which teams were snubbed year after year.

CBS then bails for 60 Minutes but ESPN keeps things rolling with more outraged heads. The new set of heads also tries to pick the whole field, something they have never done any better than any random person in your office pool. They also pick favorites almost all the time and forget all about those poor 12 seeds they all argued about in the first place.

Sports!

The visor is a long story. Please try to disregard it.60. Is There In Truth No Beauty? I’ve been tabulating Trek Tropes as I go, but I’m finding that it doesn’t really affect my enjoyment of any particular episode. I might like a really trope-heavy show because it’s got all that lovable Trek stuff, or might find it boring because it’s nothing new. But none of the trope-light shows have been disappointing. I think if they have a good enough core idea that they don’t need to resort to a fistfight or Kirk seducing someone, well, that’s probably a good thing. There aren’t many tropes in this one–in fact, a few were presented then turned around on us for a distinct outcome. The general setup is that the Enterprise is shuttling a representative of the Medusans, named after the mythical character because like Medusa, human eyes cannot view these creatures. The explanation is that they’re so ugly it drives humans insane, but that’s a little unbelievable, and anyway whenever a Medusan is hinted at there is a dazzling green light, so let’s say that there’s something about that light that mucks up your brain circuits (they are non-corporeal beings, mind you). As a Vulcan, Spock can see a Medusan, but only with the aid of a special visor. Most of the plot revolves around the human envoy for the Medusan, Dr. Miranda Jones, who has undergone special Vulcan emotion-zapping training, and further, is blind but makes use of a special sensor array in her clothing to see. She evidently spends so much time fending off unwarranted advances (no less than five dudes take a shot during the episode) that you can understand her desire to disassociate with our race. Particularly pushy is another envoy who wants her to give up her career to stay with him, but as she’s so particularly well-suited to her job she won’t, and out of jealousy he tries to murder the Medusan. This necessitates seeing the thing and going insane, Star Trek style, which essentially means wide-eyed running around the ship and eventually getting into engineering and causing big troubles, flying the ship clear out of the galaxy. (Seriously, Scotty. Put a security keypad on the door to engineering and like 20% of these episodes never happen.) They eventually subdue him and Spock works out a mind-meld thing to make use of the Medusan’s incredible navigational abilities to set things right. There are some good takeaways here: lessons about how being pretty isn’t everything, and how even Spock needs friends. Getting this back around to my original thought, most interesting to me was how the show upset several common tropes. In the Trek universe you can usually solve problems with a quick punch in the neck but this time that doesn’t work. Kirk usually comes up with a plan where he needs to seduce someone but this time she’s not buying it. I was just waiting for Dr. Jones to give up her important job to marry someone but she never did. Killer Spock line: “I see, Dr. McCoy, that you still subscribe to the outmoded notion, promulgated by you ancient Greeks, that what is good must also be beautiful.” Overall: actually quite a good episode, engaging with a lot of twists. 4 out of 5.

Trek tropes (I’m bailing out on trying to count these. Too many episodes and too many tropes. I seriously had a whole spreadsheet going but then I’d decide there was a new one and have to go back and edit both the spreadsheet and the old post.):

  • Enemy allowed easy access to highly sensitive area of the ship
  • Spock displays Vulcan superpower never really seen again
  • Highly experimental plan with low probability of success somehow works anyway

61. Spectre of the Gun. When I started my TOS watching I was grateful they hadn’t developed holodeck technology yet and I would be spared those bizarre cross-genre whiffs. Well, it turns out that early Federation crews just found more exotic ways to find themselves enmeshed in Nazi culture, or trying to sneak around 1960s Earth, or, as in this case, milling around the old west. Kirk and crew encounter a bizarre probe in space, and it tells them not to pass, but Kirk obviously just smirks at that and off they go. Next thing they know, most of the principals are transported to an odd foggy planet where their captor tells them they shouldn’t have pushed his buttons. The fog clears and suddenly they’re on a Hollywood back lot complete with a cheap western set, and the general crappiness is justified with something about how they pulled the event from Kirk’s brain, where memories not related to alien babes or fistfights are hazy, therefore it’s incomplete and looks like a a cheap Hollywood back lot. They quickly figure out they are serving as the losing side of the historic gunfight at the OK Corral, and they encounter a few Earps and Doc Holiday, but find them to be spectacularly uninterested in any negotiating. So they’re stuck and have only a few hours to find their way out of a death by bullet-riddling. At this point I was wondering how I would make it through the remainder of the hour: I hate these holodeck-type setups. Does Star Trek really need to address the gunfight at the OK Corral? Hasn’t drama already covered this? Like, westerns TV shows? Movies? Does a space show really need to shoehorn itself in? Well, clearly not, but the show finds an interesting and suspenseful path anyway. They keep coming up with plans only to have them foiled by the constraints on the simulation: they can’t leave town because they run into a forcefield, they can’t hide in the bar because when the time for the fight comes they just get transported to the site, their attempt at brewing a tranquilizing potion doesn’t work for no rational reason. It’s the most rigged Choose Your Own Adventure in the universe. But, an interesting twist: this is where the show gets saved. Had the tranquilizer worked, for example, it would have rehashed a pretty standard Trek escape hatch. Instead, it helps them figure out the mechanics of the simulation, and they use their brains (and some borrowed Vulcan willpower) to win. Killer Spock line: “If I remember correctly, that would involve you in what was called ‘The Fast Draw.’ It initiated unfortunate events.” Overall: there’s some pretty cheesy setup and execution here but you know what? I liked where they went in the end. 4 out of 5.

Trek tropes (number of instances encountered in series so far in parentheses):

  • Strange probe encountered in space
  • Spock displays Vulcan superpower never really seen again
  • Recent Earth history will always be relevant

62. Day of the Dove. You know what happens a lot in the future, in space? Swordfights. However, it must be a part of Academy training because there isn’t a crew member on the Enterprise who isn’t ready for it. And if swordfights on a spaceship are your thing, this is the hour of ’60s TV for you. If not, there’s a bunch of Klingon politics and other forms of scrapping to like here, in the classic Trek vein. The Enterprise answers a colony’s distress call only to find that the colony isn’t there anymore. At the same time, some Klingons show up claiming the Enterprise fired on them and their crew is decimated. Also there’s a weird light entity flitting about behind the rocks. In short, no one knows what the heck is going on. Kirk employs a little ruse to get the Klingons back aboard the ship and under control (it’s a little crazy that the Klingon commander falls for it, but anyhow…), but the little energy ball follows them, and that’s when things get really weird. I try to avoid all but the most minimal plot recaps here so to summarize: there’s a whole bunch of fighting and running around until Kirk and Spock discover that the energy ball is behind it and earn peace with the Klingons. There are a million plot holes and conveniences to set up all the action and then break it back down again at the end, and it’s ostensibly done by the energy ball although really it’s the show writers doing it. You can’t take away that it’s an important episode regarding race relations and the clash of the two cultures, and it’s mostly quite fun and action-packed, but you also can’t ignore that the whole thing is more contrived than a Fox News segment. If you want explanations or more talky stuff, take it up with Picard. Killer Spock line: “May I say that I have not thoroughly enjoyed serving with humans. I find their ill-logic and foolish emotions a constant irritant.” (Note that he says this while under mind control.) Overall: 3 out of 5 if you care about tight writing; 4 out of 5 if you want to watch Scotty chase Klingons with a claymore.

Trek tropes (number of instances encountered in series so far in parentheses):

  • Shatner showcase
  • Even in interstellar space, the best way to resolve problems is with your fists (uh, or swords)
  • Enemy allowed easy access to highly sensitive area of the ship

63. For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky. Two big ideas here. First there’s the secret computer master where a primitive race worship something they think is a mighty god, but actually it just turns out to be some kind of beepy supercomputer. Also there’s the generation ship idea, where said race worshiping said supercomputer is blissfully unaware they are actually passengers on a ship traveling for thousands of years to a new destination. Both of these ideas have been done repeatedly in sci-fi, and I’m not sure FTWIHAIHTTS adds much to them other than to squeeze them onto the same people at the same time. In this case, they are passengers on a giant asteroid-like ship hurtling towards another populated planet. Kirk, Spock, and McCoy get aboard and figure they can correct the trajectory of the ship without overly upsetting yet another primitive civilization. Well, you can guess how that turns out: the high priestess falls totally in love with McCoy and Kirk and Spock more or less destroy their religion. McCoy’s situation is interesting, though. He’s been diagnosed with a fatal disease and has a year to live, so staying behind with the high priestess sounds like a better way to go than spending his last days trundling around the Enterprise bickering with Spock. But after Spock repairs the computer’s broken bits, he takes the opportunity to raid its information repository, and wouldn’t you know it, he finds a cure for McCoy. So without impending death, McCoy suddenly decides he’s got better things to do then retire. The priestess is a little ruffled but accepts all of this, especially since it means that neither her boyfriend nor her entire race are facing imminent death. All in all I enjoyed the episode, it was nicely paced and intriguing throughout. There aren’t many new ideas to credit here, but all was well done. Killer Spock line: none. Overall: when your biggest flaw is an overlong title, that’s a good thing. 4 out of 5.

Trek tropes (number of instances encountered in series so far in parentheses):

  • Violation of Prime Directive (forgivable in this case, it probably really was the right thing to do)
  • In the future, computers are magic, but still make teletype sounds