Star Trek TOS Season 1 Part 4
We've come to the end of the first season! Man, 29 episodes a season is a lot.
Overall, there are a lot more episodes that are more fun than they have any right to be. Only a few clunkers. We see cool, weird stuff like Uhura sometimes wears a gold command dress (in more than one episode!), Nurse Chapel changes hair color a few times, every time Leonard Nimoy is in civilian clothes, he's inexplicably hot, fun crew inconsistencies and flirtations, etc., etc.
And there's all the 60s junk. Star Trek is extremely progressive...for the time. Leonard McCoy can not respond to an order several times because he's distracted by a purdy lady (boys will be boys!)...but any ranking female officer has a second delay and she gets truly bitched out by Kirk. Kirk has a very strange reaction to a lot of the women who are subject matter experts. Like we're in the present day and a company calls in a woman consultant and certain dudes just HATE her for doing her job.
I guess this isn't a 60s thing. This is just a thing. Anyway. Onto the reviews.
Ep24: This Side of Paradise
Rating: 6/10
Notes: It’s the planet of the jizz flowers. Spock gets a load in the face and just fuckin’ loves it. Turns out, jizz in the face makes everyone happy. It makes McCoy “Southern-drawl-mint-julep” happy. TOO happy for Kirk’s taste (if McCoy was calling you Jim-Boy like Foghorn Leghorn you’d have enough of the happy shit, too). Humans: we’re not programmed for jizz-flower happiness where our every need is taken care of. We need to struggle. When we’re happy we don’t achieve anything. And nothing is better than achievement. God, this episode explains everything about boomers.
Ep25: The Devil in the Dark
Rating: 7/10
Notes: PAIN! Spock mind-melds with a rock who is PISSED that miners have destroyed nurseries full of her eggs. We all learn that it’s better when we have symbiotic relationships with alien lifeforms. Makes everyone less killy, generally.
Ep26: Errand of Mercy
Rating: 6/10
Notes: Kirk and Spock want to visit planet Medieval Times. Unfortunately, so do the Klingons. In varying degrees of black/brown face. (Characters who speak are in full brownface. Characters in the background look like they’ve been in a mining accident.) Oh 60s. The Medieval Times reenactors are having none of the anachronism. Klingons: Straight to fascism! Star Fleet: Us too, actually! We’re dicks too! Bigger dicks, actually!
I’m convinced that a lot of Star Trek is about Star Fleet not being that good since its heroic moments are typically about subversion of Star Fleet order.
Ep27: The Alternative Factor
Rating: 1/10
Notes: Murder floaters. Ever get eye floaters so badly that you think you see yourself fighting yourself? Lazerus does. Is it a hole in the optic nerve? A hole in the universe? Matter and anti-matter fighting in one dude’s head? Who cares! This episode is very dumb. I had to start it three times to make it through. The end gets better, but everything setting up the premise is very very dumb.
Ep28: The City on the Edge of Forever
Rating: 10/10
Notes: Kirk and Spock somehow find themselves on the set of Guys and Dolls. When you see a cap and a Spock in a hat…you can be that they’re doing it for McCoy… I love that they get there through a portal to all time that’s just hanging out on a random planet. “Hey roving aliens! Wanna have some fun in the past and really fuck up your future? Right this way!”
Kirk falls in love with Edith Keeler. “Edith Keeler must die.” --Spock (This is how I’m going to respond to my friends from now on when they confess love interest.) Kirk gets a shit ton of trauma and then the portal is like…wanna go for another ride? NO, RANDOM TIME PORTAL. BAD RANDOM TIME PORTAL.
Ep29: Operation: Annihilate!
Rating: 6/10
Notes: The Enterprise needs to go pick some space scabs off the Brady Bunch living room wall. These space scabs killed Kirk’s brother, so he has feelings about it. Spock gets space scabies, but fights it vulcanly. To get rid of spaces scabs you must expose them to light. Ooops, now Spock is blind. Oh, just kidding because deus ex Vulcan eyelid.
Overall, there are a lot more episodes that are more fun than they have any right to be. Only a few clunkers. We see cool, weird stuff like Uhura sometimes wears a gold command dress (in more than one episode!), Nurse Chapel changes hair color a few times, every time Leonard Nimoy is in civilian clothes, he's inexplicably hot, fun crew inconsistencies and flirtations, etc., etc.
And there's all the 60s junk. Star Trek is extremely progressive...for the time. Leonard McCoy can not respond to an order several times because he's distracted by a purdy lady (boys will be boys!)...but any ranking female officer has a second delay and she gets truly bitched out by Kirk. Kirk has a very strange reaction to a lot of the women who are subject matter experts. Like we're in the present day and a company calls in a woman consultant and certain dudes just HATE her for doing her job.
I guess this isn't a 60s thing. This is just a thing. Anyway. Onto the reviews.
Ep24: This Side of Paradise
Rating: 6/10
Notes: It’s the planet of the jizz flowers. Spock gets a load in the face and just fuckin’ loves it. Turns out, jizz in the face makes everyone happy. It makes McCoy “Southern-drawl-mint-julep” happy. TOO happy for Kirk’s taste (if McCoy was calling you Jim-Boy like Foghorn Leghorn you’d have enough of the happy shit, too). Humans: we’re not programmed for jizz-flower happiness where our every need is taken care of. We need to struggle. When we’re happy we don’t achieve anything. And nothing is better than achievement. God, this episode explains everything about boomers.
Ep25: The Devil in the Dark
Rating: 7/10
Notes: PAIN! Spock mind-melds with a rock who is PISSED that miners have destroyed nurseries full of her eggs. We all learn that it’s better when we have symbiotic relationships with alien lifeforms. Makes everyone less killy, generally.
Ep26: Errand of Mercy
Rating: 6/10
Notes: Kirk and Spock want to visit planet Medieval Times. Unfortunately, so do the Klingons. In varying degrees of black/brown face. (Characters who speak are in full brownface. Characters in the background look like they’ve been in a mining accident.) Oh 60s. The Medieval Times reenactors are having none of the anachronism. Klingons: Straight to fascism! Star Fleet: Us too, actually! We’re dicks too! Bigger dicks, actually!
I’m convinced that a lot of Star Trek is about Star Fleet not being that good since its heroic moments are typically about subversion of Star Fleet order.
Ep27: The Alternative Factor
Rating: 1/10
Notes: Murder floaters. Ever get eye floaters so badly that you think you see yourself fighting yourself? Lazerus does. Is it a hole in the optic nerve? A hole in the universe? Matter and anti-matter fighting in one dude’s head? Who cares! This episode is very dumb. I had to start it three times to make it through. The end gets better, but everything setting up the premise is very very dumb.
Ep28: The City on the Edge of Forever
Rating: 10/10
Notes: Kirk and Spock somehow find themselves on the set of Guys and Dolls. When you see a cap and a Spock in a hat…you can be that they’re doing it for McCoy… I love that they get there through a portal to all time that’s just hanging out on a random planet. “Hey roving aliens! Wanna have some fun in the past and really fuck up your future? Right this way!”
Kirk falls in love with Edith Keeler. “Edith Keeler must die.” --Spock (This is how I’m going to respond to my friends from now on when they confess love interest.) Kirk gets a shit ton of trauma and then the portal is like…wanna go for another ride? NO, RANDOM TIME PORTAL. BAD RANDOM TIME PORTAL.
Ep29: Operation: Annihilate!
Rating: 6/10
Notes: The Enterprise needs to go pick some space scabs off the Brady Bunch living room wall. These space scabs killed Kirk’s brother, so he has feelings about it. Spock gets space scabies, but fights it vulcanly. To get rid of spaces scabs you must expose them to light. Ooops, now Spock is blind. Oh, just kidding because deus ex Vulcan eyelid.