The last four! I’ll have one more wrap-up post, then you’re free of Trek.

34. The Apple. If you live in the Trek universe and find yourself on a beautiful garden paradise planet that somehow no one has discovered before–and I may not need to tell you this–but you are in some pretty serious danger. You should also look down. Are you wearing a red shirt? You will be definitely be dead soon. Thank you for your service to the United Federation of Planets! “The Apple” may be exhibit A in the Security Persons United lawsuit against the UFP, if it ever comes to that. Redshirts get darted by poisonous spores, disintegrated by lightning, obliterated by explosive rocks, and attacked by natives. It’s only when Spock gets zapped by lightning (and simply shakes if off, by the way) does Kirk decide to actually bail on the mission, too. Kirk’s varying feelings on redshirt death are a fascinating study. Sometimes he can’t hold back the grief, other times he doesn’t so much as blink. Spock has to console him after one nasty death, but Vulcans aren’t very sympathetic I suppose. Spock offers condolences but looks more like he’s thinking, “What’s the big deal? We’ve got like 200 more on the ship.”

Anyway, “The Apple” as a whole isn’t a terribly remarkable episode. Pretty standard native-encounter stuff covered elsewhere in the series. The people are very peaceful, and quite naive about their circumstances. When Kirk first encounters one he thought was about to attack, he punches the guy in the face, which makes him start to cry. (Kirk then feels bad and says, “I won’t hurt you” [guy I just punched in the face].) Turns out they’re all slaves to Vaal, a giant snake-headed machine. McCoy in particular gets antsy about the whole situation, feeling like the natives are slaves and lack free will, which turns the episode into an interesting Prime Directive discussion. You’re not supposed to mess with native cultures, but maybe this is yet another exception? McCoy is all about violating it, he’s furious that the culture isn’t growing, just tending to some machine. But the debate is solved for them when Vaal immobilizes the ship and they’re forced to take action. Lucky for them, Vaal can only go a few hours without eating so they’re easily able to drain its power. (I have the same weakness, so I will not plan to enslave any civilizations.) Killer Spock line, after some natives wrap festive flowers around his arm and Kirk asks if that does anything for him. “Yes, indeed it does. It makes me uncomfortable.” Overall: some interesting stuff, nothing too outstanding. 3 out of 5.

Trek tropes:

• Anonymous redshirt killed
• Violation of Prime Directive
• Spock displays Vulcan superpower never really seen again

35. Doomsday Machine. Generally I believe that war movies were better in the past than they are today. I don’t watch a lot of modern movies at all but when I watch anything about war it’s either (a) an action movie, in a war context, so like, just an excuse for Vin Diesel to throw a knife into somebody, or (b) nauseatingly and shamelessly patriotic in tone. The best war movies I can think of off the top of my head are Paths of Glory or Patton. Maybe The Seven Samurai or its American remake, The Magnificent Seven, while not technically war movies, tackle a lot of the same themes. (Note: I have not seen a lot of war movies. Arguments against these choices are likely correct.) Anyway, I’d suggest that movies made a generation ago understand war a lot better, simply because society as a whole understood it better. Most of the cast and crew were probably veterans, in fact, or their fathers or older brothers were. Today there is an utter disconnect between people who make movies and write stories, and actual soldiers, and a thick level of patriotic propaganda between the two. (Most modern military action being political or economical, I suppose.) Or maybe the teenage males that make up the core film audience simply expect movies to not get any emotionally deeper than a fervent afternoon of Cheetos and “Call of Duty.” Anyway, old Trek can slap together some fine military drama when it feels so inclined, and “The Doomsday Machine” is a good example.

Maybe the most surprising takeaway here is how it covers ground that several other episodes do, only it’s way better. Three things:

1. The politics of command. There are a few episodes about this, and they always go way out of their way to worship the absolute power of command. And it’s usually highly ridiculous. I’ve made a point before about how it falls flat today because as a whole, society is much more inclined to question authority. But this time, how the crew reacts when the shellshocked Commodore takes over control of the ship is actually really interesting. Dude IS a higher rank AND fought the bloody thing already. SHOULDN’T he be in charge? Even if he evidently hasn’t shaved, bathed, or slept in like a week?
2. Effects!  Here they serve the story, not the other way around. We’ve had some where I feel like I’m supposed to be so blown away by the effects that I won’t care that the concept is stupid (e.g., “The Tholian Web”). It’s worth mentioning that this might be another one of those where I don’t get the true experience because I watched the remastered version with updated, modern effects. But I don’t know that that matters, because the themes are handled so well.
3. Crazy plans that actually work. It finally made sense to do something insane! Decker goes about it wrong, hurling his stolen shuttlecraft into its core, which is probably like attacking an active volcano by jumping into it with a spear. But the Enterprise’s nutty plan actually makes the most logical sense. I love how Kirk asks Scotty if he can let the impulse engines overload to create the desired effect, and given that the ship has been damaged pretty badly already, he says something like, “Of course I can. I can barely keep them from overloading the way it is.”

Killer Spock line: Two of ’em. “Vulcans never bluff.” Or this exchange: Spock: “Random chance seems to have operated in our favor.” McCoy: “In plain, non-Vulcan English, we’ve been lucky.” Spock: “I believe I said that.” Overall: really successful execution of well-trod ground. 4 out of 5.

Trek tropes:

• All security officers are susceptible to simple ruses
• Even in interstellar space, the best way to resolve problems is with your fists
• Enemy allowed easy access to highly sensitive area of the ship
• Recent Earth history will always be relevant

36. Catspaw. I looked up the writer of this episode, Robert Bloch, and found that he’s quite famous. He wrote Psycho and lots of other creepy stuff. He also wrote a couple of other Treks, “What are Little Girls made of?” which is a bit creepy but I liked it, and “Wolf in the Fold” which was creepy and bad. On the whole I’ve done a bad job paying attention to the writers, given that’s what I am actually caring about here. (I should review who wrote the best and worst episodes. Perhaps I’ll do that for my series wrap-up.) Anyway, none of that matters here because this is a bad episode. It’s yet another “crazy planet ruler traps the crew and torments and annoys them until they find a way to escape” episode. Offers refreshments? Check. Blustery yet ineffective? Check. Not actually the one in charge? Check. So while I mostly care about writing with these shows, I suspect the initial scripts always get diluted in production or there wouldn’t be so many with the same formula. Since I didn’t get a ton out of this one, I don’t have a unifying thing to talk about, so, bullets it is:

• I knew going in there was some kind of cat creature in this one, and it was a black cat. We have a black cat, her name is Bea. This has evolved into the nickname of “Beastie.” So all I really wanted out of this episode was for Scotty to see the black cat as refer to it as a beastie, as he seemed likely to do. He did not do this, though, so I will deduct at least one point from my evaluation.
• The first quarter of the episode has Kirk & Co. milling around the planet encountering various manner of haunted house effects. These initially seemed creepy, then became no more scary than an actual neighborhood haunted house, only we aren’t blindly reaching our hands into something icky for effect. The net result is that even the actors are smirking at everything. This…is not effective.
• Mr. LaSalle, some dude we’ve never seen before ever, is running the Enterprise. So he’s like, fifth captain, after Kirk, Spock, Scotty, and Sulu? When the heck to Chekhov or Uhura get a shot? Haha, just kidding, of course. A Russian or a woman. Imagine.
• Apparently they can just manufacture precious gems on the ship. So, in the future, the jewelry industry must be in tatters. Good.
• The mystery element is also a mess in this one. The alien cat leaves the room. Then the woman enters it. COULD SHE BE THE CAT
• She’s also relentlessly fidgeting with the jewel on her necklace, which looks eerily like what the cat was wearing. COULD THAT BE IMPORTANT
• As per standard “we’re trapped on the planet and want to leave” episode, the antagonists have created some kind of forcefield around the Enterprise. There are multiple scenes of Mr. LaSalle and crew attempting to break out of it. Naturally, all of this time amounts to nothing, as the forcefield eventually goes away anyway when the folks on the surface resolve things. Meaning, all of those scenes were wasted time, or simply padding. Do the producers feel that they need to show us that the crew is taking a shot at doing something? That they are not simply huddled together sobbing?
• Ultimately this episode relies a lot on effects, which are terrible. The haunted house effects are silly, and when they get serious with the cat, they don’t have the budget or technology to pull it off. We’re left to see a really big shadow of a housecat, with some kind of menacing growl. Basically, if you are relying on technology instead of a story, you’re going to be in trouble anyway. If you don’t even have the technology, you get Trek Filler.

Killer Spock line, in response to a vision of witches on the planet: “Very bad poetry, Captain.” Overall: 2 out of 5.

Trek tropes:

• Recent Earth history will always be relevant
• Kirk hits it off with alien babe
• Even in interstellar space, the best way to resolve problems is with your fists

37. I, Mudd. Harry Mudd gets to be the first recurring guest in the show, and why not bring back the sleazy interplanetary pimp? I’m not sure what makes Mudd the choice, but then, I think I dislike the original Mudd episode more than most. This one ups the sleaze (because, that’s what was missing the first time around, I guess) by revisiting him among a planet of robots, one of which is a replication of his terrible wife held in silent stasis. He takes the occasional moment to power her up and let her yell at him merely so he can derive the satisfaction of telling her to shut up and turn her back off. So anyway, as is protocol of all Trek, the antagonist traps Kirk and fellows on the planet’s surface and proceeds to work through the standard checklist: Offers refreshments? Check. Blustery yet ineffective? Check. Not actually the one in charge? Check Wait: here’s a good twist on this type of Trek, which is probably the episode’s saving. Turns out Mudd wants to trap them there so he can leave. Only the androids won’t let him leave either, forcing them all to team up. Probably any story where foes have to team up is a good setup, right? (Well, maybe not the Space Lincoln one.) I guess with Mudd, it sets up a goofy final act of the crew acting as zany as possible to blow all the androids’ minds.

“I, Mudd” is a precursor to Next Generation in a couple of ways. (We’re nowhere near the actual end of the show, but it is for me.) First, there’s a Borg-like aspect to it. The androids live as a big hive mind and can only be defeated by taking out the leader. Not quite like the Borg, and obviously the idea gets fleshed out a lot more in TNG, but the seed is here. More interesting to me was this idea about being offered paradise. Mudd’s planet isn’t a shabby situation at all. It’s a holodeck-like environment, actually. All of their needs and fantasies are attended to. To the point where some of the crew actually don’t really want to leave. Of course, Kirk is always the spoilsport in these situations. Anything where a human can’t be a real human, what with the pain and yearning and filth, is not something he’s going to be down with.

• Androids take over ship’s engineering, and in the end they get control of course, but not as easily as usual. Perhaps a part of space engineer training is a boxing or judo track, because this batch of engineers is feisty and puts up a fight.
• Best scene is the first encounter with Mudd. As he relates the story of how he arrived on this planet, which is essentially a string of lies and boasts, Kirk actively translates to English, e.g., Mudd: “I borrowed a ship–” Kirk: “He stole a ship.” Only really snappy, and it goes on and on. Outstanding.
• The actor who plays Mudd is a giant, seriously. He towers over everyone. His head is like the size of McCoy’s torso.

Killer Spock line: “Nowhere am I so desperately needed as among a shipload of illogical humans.” Overall: better than the last Mudd episode. I can still do without the sexist humor, but there’s a lot else to like here: 4 out of 5.

Trek tropes:

• Enemy allowed easy access to highly sensitive area of the ship
• They’ve gone to the trouble to develop an override but it doesn’t work
• Even in interstellar space, the best way to resolve problems is with your fists
• Computers can be buggered by logical traps
• The indomitable human spirit conquers all

Just two more sets of episodes and I’m done. Starting season two.

30. Amok Time.  Maybe my favorite all-time episode. Just a great character set for Spock, very ambitious for a single episode, and really what Trek is all about when it’s at its best. With the new season, some new things are introduced. Chekhov, for one. (His principle characteristic being: he’s the Russian Guy.) Nurse Chapel is infatuated with Spock. (Is this actually new? I’m confused on the Chapel-Spock crush timeline at this point.) But mostly, it’s a Vulcan overdose after only hints and bits in season one. Nimoy’s great. I think furiously clenching a knife behind your back is a good stress-reliever. I’m doing it at work all the time now.

Anyway, I’ve seen this particular episode so many times I can’t rightly judge its suspenseful elements anymore. It has a Kirk-alien babe possibility that I think works, but the stakes go up really fast. I can still appreciate how good a sport Kirk is about the whole challenge thing. He’s game to let Spock whale on him some just for appearances. Until he finds out it’s a fight to the death. Then it’s legitimately nerve-wracking, I think. It seems to be a genuine Kobayashi Maru, perhaps made more effective by McCoy not even revealing to Kirk how he was going to get him out of it. Though why he wouldn’t makes no sense. “Thought it’d be fun to let you really think you were going to die, Jim.”

Notes:

• For some reason, this is the episode that I finally noticed that no one has pockets, and they have to awkwardly figure out what to do with their hands all the time.
• One nitpick is that the drama surrounding their need to make an ambassadorial appearance seems pretty tacked on, and ultimately doesn’t even matter. I guess it gives Spock an excuse to do extra weird things like disobey Kirk and not even remember. Or at least, it ups his desperation. But it doesn’t really make sense that Kirk can’t tell Starfleet how important it is to get Spock to Vulcan. Even McCoy agrees his health is in serious danger. Anyway, it’s just sort of a needless diversion.
• The soundtrack takes a big leap forward in this one. Spock’s tension is played out on a single bassline. And of course, this.

Killer Spock line: “The birds and the bees are not Vulcans.” He also compares himself to a salmon. Overall: One of my favorites. 5 out of 5.

Trek tropes:

• The Enterprise is the only ship within range
• “Doctor” McCoy admits he has no idea how Vulcan physiology works
• Spock displays Vulcan superpower never really seen again
• Even in interstellar space, the best way to resolve problems is with your fists
• Lighthearted banter to close episode

31. Who Mourns for Adonis? Pretty standard Trek filler for the most part. I think sometimes they just sort of flipped through a history text until they found an interesting era, and shoehorned a Trek into it. So this is just another of so very many episodes where a powerful alien traps them on a planet and barks idle threats until they figure out its weakness and escape. And its culture is basically some historical Earth remnant. Space is dangerous, though oddly familiar, is really the number one theme of Trek. You will get captured by malevolent races that want you to live in comfort on their world, except you have to worship them. The other theme, of course, being occasional sexism. Sheesh, this episode. I really don’t know what it’s trying to do on that front. Scotty is shamelessly drooling all over this week’s pretty girl, Lt. Palamas, and Kirk and McCoy can only look on helplessly and sigh, noting that she’s bound to meet some guy, and get married and leave the service. Because, what else could she do? End up as hopeless spinsters like Uhura? But then there’s another scene where Uhura is fixing some communication circuits and Spock respects her expertise. And Lt. Palamas’ own expertise on history is brought into focus when they meet Apollo. So, the show will make sure to mention these things, but then it can’t get out of its own way, because as soon as Apollo magically replaces her uniform with a pretty pink shimmery thing, she goes all goofy. Though in the end, the old “Crewmember leaves the ship for a new life with the alien of the week” trope didn’t end up happening. So, that’s a plus.

Miscellany:

• They need some chairs or consoles or something in the back of the bridge so that the random dudes standing around back there behind Kirk (usually McCoy) have something to do. I guess they fix this in TNG because Worf indeed has his own console. But no chair. Thanks, Captain. Love standing all day even though I’m a lieutenant.
• Chekhov in a rare moment of not just being the Russian Guy: his bit about providing way too much detail to Kirk. After a major info-dump, he defends himself: “The Captain requires complete information.” McCoy retorts: “Spock’s contaminating this boy, Jim.” Nice.
• Scotty’s “A god is hitting on my girlfriend” face.
• Kirk’s retort to Apollo at one point: “Mankind has no need for gods. We find the one quite adequate.” Holy christian-centrism, guys.
• One of their early plans to defeat Apollo was just to taunt him until he got so angry he’d zap one of them, then the others were supposed to jump him while he was weakened. Lt. Palamas stopped them, which was too bad, because this is officially The Greatest Plan Ever.

Killer Spock line: “Insult’s only effective where emotion is present.” Overall: I like the idea that maybe this guy brought ideas of Greek and Roman gods to Earth, and not the other way around. That’s about it, though. 2 out of 5.

Trek tropes:

• Recent Earth history will always be relevant. (I guess not really recent, but still…)
• Highly experimental plan with low probability of success somehow works anyway

32. The Changeling. There are certain groundbreaking episodes of Trek that were absorbed into popular culture so thoroughly as to neuter their original impact. This might be the single greatest example. It’s a victim of its own success. A pushy probe gets aboard the ship, called Nomad. You know that’s what it’s called because it announces this information at every opportunity. “I AM NOMAD*.” Nomad proceeds to berate the crew for being imperfect, threatening to exterminate them as biologic infestation. “I AM NOMAD. I AM PERFECT. YOU ARE IN ERROR.” The cultural viewpoint towards killer alien robots bedeviling you with their terrifying logic in 1967 was very different than it is today, of course. For one thing, the crew spends of a bit of time being puzzled about what Nomad actually is. They don’t assume it’s a robot. They assume it’s a tiny ship, with a tiny crew. (Which actually doesn’t make sense either, because how often in Trek do they actually encounter a tiny ship with a tiny crew? Like, never. Nearly all aliens are human sized and shaped.) The whole line of thought seems terribly quaint. Sci-fi robots are absolutely part of popular culture now. I don’t think anyone watching this show for the first time today would think Nomad is anything but a robot. A past-future space crew is astounded that it’s an automaton, and has the wherewithal to take itself around the ship. (Scotty refers to it as a “mechanical beastie.”) Anyway, Nomad is certainly still threatening. It vaporizes a couple of redshirts and generally makes a nuisance of itself until Kirk and Spock figure out how to get rid of it, of course, by confounding it with logical traps. Here’s another point where “The Changeling” loses its impact in the last 45 years. The idea that you can defeat a robot with logical traps is just a thing that we all understand now. It’s part of their mythology. But in the past’s future, this is a thing you have to discover. I feel certain I’ve read some old Asimov stories with this theme, but it’s treated like a fresh idea here. Killer Spock line moment: his thoroughly satisfied expression when Nomad scans him and reports that, unlike all the humans aboard, “THIS UNIT IS DIFFERENT. IT IS WELL-ORDERED.” Overall: Still a great episode, a cornerstone Trek. 5 out of 5.

Trek tropes:

• Strange probe encountered in space
• Anonymous redshirt killed
• Enemy allowed easy access to highly sensitive area of the ship
• Lighthearted banter to close episode

33. Mirror, Mirror. This is The One With Parallel Evil Enterprise. We’re on quite a classic run at the moment. (Note: it ends next episode.) I think three of the four episodes in this batch are top-ten all-timers. (I will actually compile this list and see if that holds up once I’m done.) Like “The Changeling” I suppose this episode is so famous its surprise elements completely fail to work anymore. It doesn’t really even seem to surprise Kirk all that much to find himself on board an evil version of the ship after a transporter malfunction. He deduces what has happened pretty much immediately. (This, from the same guy that thought Nomad was a very tiny ship.) Perhaps they’ve learned the important lesson from “The Alternative Factor” that radical changes in facial hair indicate something serious is up. Well, what they don’t learn is any lesson about Engineering security. It’s one of the great ironies of this episode that in Evil Universe, the crew goes to great pains to secure and monitor engineering, because it makes their return scheme a whole lot harder. They still get past the initial guard with a comically stupid ruse but have all sorts of trouble avoiding the other security systems on the ship. I could probably dwell on Evil Kirk’s unbelievably fortunate possession of a machine that can kill any enemy at any time, but the episode ends up being more about how ill-fitting the Good crew is on the Evil ship, and I didn’t end up caring about it that much. In the end, they win over Evil Spock, purely out of a logical realization that he’s going to better off with his actual captain, not this milquetoasty version, and order is restored.  Killer Spock line: “They were brutal, savage, unprincipled, uncivilized, treacherous. In every way, spending examples of Homo Sapiens. The very flower of humanity. I found it quite refreshing.” Overall: a really fun hour of exploring good and evil and the significance of beards. 5 out of 5.

Trek tropes:

• Enemy allowed easy access to highly sensitive area of the ship
• In the future, computers are magic, but still make teletype sounds
• Shatner showcase
• Lighthearted banter to close episode

*I had the passing thought that “Nomad” would be a good name for a cat. I mentioned it to K, then immediately retracted it, because I realized it would lead to years of me saying “I AM NOMAD. I AM PERFECT” every time Nomad came in the room, eventually ending our marriage.

26. Errand of Mercy. This is a suspense episode with no suspense, about an important planet that has no apparent actual value, featuring a villain who poses no particular threat. I didn’t get this one at all. Kirk and Spock pose as locals to subvert a Klingon takeover of a peaceful planet. But things just really go nowhere. Like 45 of its 50 minutes are just milling around posturing. There are all manner of idle threats by the sneering, uninteresting villain and some unknown factor that keeps the locals from caring what happens one way or another. Which means, there are no stakes. Then they further subtract suspense by simply not revealing whatever the mysterious unknown is until things have been padded out enough. At which time nothing changes. This is like, the opposite of drama. Killer Spock line: I think there was a good one but I can’t find my note about it, and I’m not going back to watch this again. Overall: Unadulterated Trek filler. Contains less than 10% Trek product. 1 out of 5.

Trek tropes:

• Spock displays Vulcan superpower never really seen again
• Badger alien until you get what you want
• I’m not going to bother adding a new trope at this point, but I ought to go back and catalog all the times Spock provides ridiculously precise odds for something that could not possibly be predicted with any accuracy.

27. The Alternative Factor. If I had to pinpoint a single fatal flaw in TOS, it’s that they are absolutely willing to sacrifice storytelling for action. If the plot needs something to happen to keep it moving, well then, let’s do that, even if it really makes no sense at all and weakens the overall production. I suspect that, at the time, TV writing was just sort of a “churn it out and let’s get on with things” sort of process (not that it isn’t exactly that quite often today, too; it’s just that for a show like TOS that was so influential, when you really look at it objectively, the writing is regularly pretty bad). Or at least, the real sweat was put into the main characters’ soliloquies, rather than a comprehensible plot. TOS plots aren’t really about ideas so much as action, and an episode that doesn’t really fit the mold will get hammered into it anyway. I think “The Alternative Factor” could’ve been a great TNG episode: there’s certainly some potential in the story, which is brimming with SF ideas. But on TOS’ terms, it gets thoroughly wrecked.

So the setup is that the Enterprise is about to break orbit from a really boring planet when suddenly all their instruments go haywire for no explainable reason. Some bizarre magnetic field disturbance happened all over the galaxy at the same time, per a priority transmission from Starfleet. The only possible clue is the presence of a random crazy guy with a laughably bad beard named Lazarus running around on the planet’s surface. He claims to be fighting something but doesn’t make a heck of a lot of sense. So while they try to figure out his deal and what exactly is going on, naturally they just let him wander around the ship.

This might be the quintessential “enemy allowed easy access to highly sensitive area of the ship” TOS episode. Lazarus isn’t an enemy for certain, but he’s outwardly and obviously a nut. Yet, Kirk apparently sees no reason to restrict his access to highly volatile areas, or even bother to put a redshirt on escort detail. So to the detriment of the viewing experience, in a sequence of actions that simply could not have been more predictable or telegraphed, Lazarus breaks into Engineering (although “breaks into” implies it was difficult–“saunters into”?). The instant he’s shown lounging around in the cafeteria I knew he was going to do something naughty. The second time they have him in custody there’s actual dialogue to resolve that he doesn’t need any guards, for no reason whatsoever, despite his pleading earlier with Kirk about how much he really really wants some dilithium, and that he’s already broken into Engineering once. So of course the second they leave him alone he gets right up, easily sabotages the ship’s electrical system, and goes into Engineering to make off with the Enterprise’s lone power source, which was of course, not guarded or protected in any fashion. Door locks being forgotten technology in the future, one supposes. Contrast this with another episode somewhere along the line where an enemy got into engineering and locked the door so effectively that Scotty had to carve into the wall with a phaser to get access. What the hell, Engineering door.

I hate to dwell on plot holes, but, yeah, that, AND the ridiculous issue with them not being able to tell there were two Lazaruses. The dude has different identifying wounds and a completely different attitude at different times. Not to mention: a different beard! But it’s not until like 40 minutes in that Spock submits the possibility that the two very different appearances and behaviors may mean there are two people. (And then, just to really beat the other plot problem into the ground, do they then rush to capture Lazarus? No, Kirk spends another few minutes speculating on all the trouble that could be caused by not capturing him. Arrgh.)

Now here’s the really crazy thing: I still actually mostly liked this episode. It can’t help but be interesting, and as ridiculous as things are, they move along pretty fast. There’s a lot of crazy dudes in TOS but Lazarus is pretty memorable, even if he behaves pretty much exactly like the evil brothers in Myst. (His begging Kirk to let him have some dilithium is practically the exact same wording as Sirrus haranguing you to find all the red pages.) Two leftover thoughts:

• I like that the effect of a galaxy-wide magnetic field disruption is portrayed as a superimposed picture of a pulsating nebular while the actors flail around.
• Weird future oversight: when people aren’t busy (like when an officer gets left in the cafeteria by herself) they just do nothing. Stare at the wall and zone out. No one anticipated that people of the future would always keep their tricorder or whatever handy for entertainment in even the briefest moments of boredom.

Killer Spock line: “I fail to comprehend your indignation, sir. I’ve simply made the logical deduction that you are a liar.” Overall: Memorable episode weighed down by its inescapable TOS-ness. 3 out of 5.

Trek tropes:

• Enemy allowed easy access to highly sensitive area of the ship
• Even in interstellar interdimensional space, the best way to resolve problems is with your fists

28. The City on the Edge of Forever. K and I watched Star Trek IV fairly recently. I’ve seen it a billion times but not for several years. Man, it’s awesome. Completely goofy. It’s got an intangible 80s-ness to it now, too, that only makes it better. This movie never ever gets made today. There’s no real villain. Nobody’s all that cool in a conventional movie sense. It openly pushes a politically liberal agenda. The reboot Trek franchise has little in common with its ancestors other than having a bunch of characters with the same names. (This bit on Tor.com gets right at the problems with all the big movie franchises now: everything’s long, dark, gritty, and somehow simultaneously both epic and boring. I hate today’s movies.) Anyway, the seeds of Trek IV are sown in “The City on the Edge of Forever.” Kirk and Spock end up on the streets of 1930s New York, thanks to a time gate, in pursuit of an accidentally drugged and crazed Dr. McCoy who has somehow erased the future through some past actions. They have a few difficulties fitting in, naturally, as they try to figure out what sort of trouble McCoy caused. Kirk falls for a local social worker while Spock builds an incredibly advanced computer interface for his tricorder using only the tools and materials of the time. (Kirk gets some inspired leadership credit, as he motivates Spock to do this largely through taunts.)

The whole thing works terrifically. It’s funny, intriguing, and inspired. The only real problem is that they don’t have time to really flesh out the ideas, leaving the ending feeling very rushed. There’s a lot to cover in the last few minutes but we have to settle for some pained Shatner expressions and even a little 1960s-TV-sanctioned cursing. (“Let’s get the hell out of here,” he says to his waiting crew, rather than explain anything about what’s happened the last few weeks of his life in real time.) It’s too bad, because this episode must have been mind-blowing at the time. I give TOS’s storytelling some amount of objective grief during retrospective viewing 45 years later, but some of these shows were totally groundbreaking. In particular, it would have been interesting to consider the reason Kirk’s new love must die: because if she lives, her influence will lead to widespread pacifism, which it turn will delay the U.S. entrance into WWII, resulting in German victory and ruining the entire future of civilization. That’s quite a clear message for the late 1960s, when Vietnam was ramping up and some folks had the gall to protest U.S. involvement. History obviously shows those were two very different conflicts, but they were just guessing in 1967. Still, it makes a confusing impression. (Apparently that comes from the fact that Harlan Ellison’s script went through a lot of changes in production. Ellison is a notorious jerk but probably had his work distorted in this case.) Killer Spock line: “I am endeavoring to build a pneumonic memory circuit with stone knives and bearskins.” Overall: A classic. 5 out of 5.

Trek tropes:

• Recent Earth history will always be relevant
• Enemy allowed easy access to highly sensitive area of the ship
• Spock’s suspicious Vulcan nature can be disguised with a good hat
• Kirk hits it off with alien babe

29. Operation: Annihilate! A quintessential “crew battles rubber space creatures” episode. This one somehow manages to be unique, even if it leans on Trek staples like space madness and scientific explanations using exceptionally dubious science. I sort of like the creatures, though. Something about them is charming, even if they are pretty much ridiculous. At one point, when examining one, Sulu says, “It doesn’t even look real!” Heh-heh, it sure doesn’t. It looks like a rubber space pancake or some fake vomit. Nevertheless, we are told they are blossoming throughout the galaxy spreading some sort of new space madness. Frankly, at this point in the series, I’m surprised when there’s an episode where there isn’t a scene with a sweaty guy ranting from a bed in sick bay. Somehow they determine that the individual creatures are like single brain cells, information which Kirk says “answers a lot of questions.” I submit that it actually raises a lot of questions, but OK. Eventually they stumble onto a solution for disposing of them: extremely intense light. Blindingly intense, actually, and before they spend five minutes remembering that light comes in a lot of wavelengths, including non-blinding ones, they go ahead and zap Spock in an effort to rid him of the creatures’ effect. It’s all good, though, because later on Spock recovers, remembering only then that he has an extra eyelid. So yeah, on the surface it’s pretty ridiculous but I couldn’t help but be entertained. I suspect this is an episode that appeals to fans of “Arena” or “The Devil in the Dark” (like myself) who can overlook terrible effects for a memorable hour of TV. If this was the first classic Trek you’d watched, you’d probably laugh off the series, and you wouldn’t necessarily be wrong. Killer Spock line: Didn’t note one. Spock spent a lot of the episode stifling his burgeoning space madness. Overall: I like it for some reason. 4 out of 5.

Trek tropes:

• Only Kirk can truly make command decisions (I liked in this episode how he spent a lot of time barking semi-unreasonable orders at people, then storming out of the room to avoid any questions)
• “Doctor” McCoy admits he has no idea how Vulcan physiology works
• Spock displays Vulcan superpower never really seen again
• Lighthearted banter to close episode