Star Trek TOS Season 1 Part 3
It would have been really fun to do a kind of MST3K style walk-through for these episodes. There are so many little things that are silly or fun or weird or don't make sense (WHY DO WE EVEN HAVE THAT BUTTON?! Spock is going to do telepathy through a wall to get the guard to give them their doorknob back! Etc.).
Alas. I'm motivated to do the me-style reviews, but only SO motivated. These aren't overly thorough recaps, after all.
Ep19: Tomorrow is Yesterday
Rating: 7/10
Notes: Tomorrow is yesterday! Spyjinks abound when Kirk decides to kidnap a dude from the 1960s. Well, not really. But Spock is sitting there going “If you put this dude’s plane in a tractor beam it’ll probably break apart,” yeah, yeah, yeah Spock. How fun is it to be right when no one is going to listen to you next time either? Points to Spock, though, for telling the dude that he has made no significant contributions to the world and therefore it’s cool for him to not return. Oh, except he forgot about the dude’s kid. Who hasn’t been born yet. Guess it’s spyjinks time!
This ep is more fun than it ought to be. Kirk is a dick to the 1960s airforce for no reason, really. Well, maybe it’s because their uniforms are inexplicably purple. There must have been a fabric sale.
Ep20: Court Martial
Rating: 8/10
Notes: Episode: Why do we even HAVE that button? Look. This all could have been avoided if you didn’t put the “eject the pod” button right next to the red and yellow alert buttons. You’re telling me out of all the buttons the captain could have on his chair you get red and yellow alert and EJECT THE POD?! Aside from this it’s a LAWYER TREK episode. Lawyer Trek is always good, even if Spock’s whole argument for the impossibility of Kirk’s fuckup/purposeful murder is “it is counter to what is known of his personality, therefore it is impossible” as though Kirk is super well defined. You get some actual “oh fuck, maybe Kirk did some shit” feelings (mostly because of doctored ship logs, etc.,) but they’re revealed slowly.
Also the prosecution is his hot ex. Because of course. Nothing like a good court martial as foreplay.
Ep21: The Return of the Archons
Rating: 7/10
Notes: Landru wants me to rate this higher. Landru can get bent because I’m not of the body! This is surprisingly proto-Borg Star Trek: Everyone is controlled by a computer across a collective consciousness. Except during the rape hour (or maybe still during the rape hour?!). They never actually explain why they even HAVE the rape hour. I thought it had some purge-esque explanation with it, but no. It’s just how it is. Everyone loves rape hour so much they call it the festival. Everyone is terrible. This is all “zealotry is bad” and “hey, we have this western set leftover from Bonanza or Gunsmoke or something so….western town!” A perfect society with no soul is not a perfect society, etc. Star Trek Classic.
Ep22: Space Seed
Rating: 6/10
Notes: This is why you don’t mess with shitty doms. They find Khan (yes, that Khaaaaaan!). The pretty lady historian (who Kirk has NO patience for) gets all distracted by Khan, the shitty dom. As if McCoy never needed orders repeated to him over again after seeing a pretty woman, Kirk is irritated. Khan negs her: “Why do you insist on wearing your hair in such an unattractive way?” It makes her melt. Khan jerks her around in a shitty-dom way (you hesitated to say you wanted to stay…then you were too unenthusiastic…so now you have to beg to stay). She loves it. My eyes cannot roll hard enough. Just like regular shitty doms, enough people give him what he wants (a whole planet!) that he’s just going to continue being an asshole because it works for him. See also: Wrath of Khan (the shitty dom).
Ep23: A Taste of Armageddon
Rating: 9/10
Notes: Scotty shall take none of your shit now that the haggis is in the fire! It’s nice to see Scotty get to be in command (he trusts no one! Especially not the dude in the command-pants-of-the-one-orange-leg) and it’s nice to see Kirk being a dick for a reason (for once) down on the planet. (Kirk is so unnecessarily antagonistic sometimes!) Basically, two planets are playing war battleship with computers, and for every “hit” they have the population of that place report for extermination. So the war has been going on for 500 years. Kirk knows that if you have war without blood and pain you have no incentive to STOP the war. He also knows that the hot chick who was showing them around has to report for extermination.
So Kirk starts a real war by violating the planet’s treaty for them, and also saying: look, fuckers, I’m blowing you up in 2 hours if you don’t knock it off. Even the crappy ambassador is kind of cool once he comes around from being a total rube. “But captain, this was a risk!” “Nah, they’ve been killing millions a year for 500 years. Destroying their whole planet would be less loss of life.” Badass.
Alas. I'm motivated to do the me-style reviews, but only SO motivated. These aren't overly thorough recaps, after all.
Ep19: Tomorrow is Yesterday
Rating: 7/10
Notes: Tomorrow is yesterday! Spyjinks abound when Kirk decides to kidnap a dude from the 1960s. Well, not really. But Spock is sitting there going “If you put this dude’s plane in a tractor beam it’ll probably break apart,” yeah, yeah, yeah Spock. How fun is it to be right when no one is going to listen to you next time either? Points to Spock, though, for telling the dude that he has made no significant contributions to the world and therefore it’s cool for him to not return. Oh, except he forgot about the dude’s kid. Who hasn’t been born yet. Guess it’s spyjinks time!
This ep is more fun than it ought to be. Kirk is a dick to the 1960s airforce for no reason, really. Well, maybe it’s because their uniforms are inexplicably purple. There must have been a fabric sale.
Ep20: Court Martial
Rating: 8/10
Notes: Episode: Why do we even HAVE that button? Look. This all could have been avoided if you didn’t put the “eject the pod” button right next to the red and yellow alert buttons. You’re telling me out of all the buttons the captain could have on his chair you get red and yellow alert and EJECT THE POD?! Aside from this it’s a LAWYER TREK episode. Lawyer Trek is always good, even if Spock’s whole argument for the impossibility of Kirk’s fuckup/purposeful murder is “it is counter to what is known of his personality, therefore it is impossible” as though Kirk is super well defined. You get some actual “oh fuck, maybe Kirk did some shit” feelings (mostly because of doctored ship logs, etc.,) but they’re revealed slowly.
Also the prosecution is his hot ex. Because of course. Nothing like a good court martial as foreplay.
Ep21: The Return of the Archons
Rating: 7/10
Notes: Landru wants me to rate this higher. Landru can get bent because I’m not of the body! This is surprisingly proto-Borg Star Trek: Everyone is controlled by a computer across a collective consciousness. Except during the rape hour (or maybe still during the rape hour?!). They never actually explain why they even HAVE the rape hour. I thought it had some purge-esque explanation with it, but no. It’s just how it is. Everyone loves rape hour so much they call it the festival. Everyone is terrible. This is all “zealotry is bad” and “hey, we have this western set leftover from Bonanza or Gunsmoke or something so….western town!” A perfect society with no soul is not a perfect society, etc. Star Trek Classic.
Ep22: Space Seed
Rating: 6/10
Notes: This is why you don’t mess with shitty doms. They find Khan (yes, that Khaaaaaan!). The pretty lady historian (who Kirk has NO patience for) gets all distracted by Khan, the shitty dom. As if McCoy never needed orders repeated to him over again after seeing a pretty woman, Kirk is irritated. Khan negs her: “Why do you insist on wearing your hair in such an unattractive way?” It makes her melt. Khan jerks her around in a shitty-dom way (you hesitated to say you wanted to stay…then you were too unenthusiastic…so now you have to beg to stay). She loves it. My eyes cannot roll hard enough. Just like regular shitty doms, enough people give him what he wants (a whole planet!) that he’s just going to continue being an asshole because it works for him. See also: Wrath of Khan (the shitty dom).
Ep23: A Taste of Armageddon
Rating: 9/10
Notes: Scotty shall take none of your shit now that the haggis is in the fire! It’s nice to see Scotty get to be in command (he trusts no one! Especially not the dude in the command-pants-of-the-one-orange-leg) and it’s nice to see Kirk being a dick for a reason (for once) down on the planet. (Kirk is so unnecessarily antagonistic sometimes!) Basically, two planets are playing war battleship with computers, and for every “hit” they have the population of that place report for extermination. So the war has been going on for 500 years. Kirk knows that if you have war without blood and pain you have no incentive to STOP the war. He also knows that the hot chick who was showing them around has to report for extermination.
So Kirk starts a real war by violating the planet’s treaty for them, and also saying: look, fuckers, I’m blowing you up in 2 hours if you don’t knock it off. Even the crappy ambassador is kind of cool once he comes around from being a total rube. “But captain, this was a risk!” “Nah, they’ve been killing millions a year for 500 years. Destroying their whole planet would be less loss of life.” Badass.