Star Trek: Three Episodes and a Lizard
Here's the latest installment of my Star Trek original series watch-through. The fight choreography on this show is proving to be an endless source of hilarity to me. I mean, look at this:
Kirk attempts to use himself as a human bowling ball! The guys he's fighting catch him, because...? Notice also the guy who has his hand all over Kirk's butt and crotch. Wowza.
Now, on to my episode reactions. Spoilers, if you care about spoilers for a show that's been out for close to 50 years.
1x18, “Arena”
Ah, this is the one with the famous fight with the Gorn, aka guy in a lizard suit with disco eyes. I think I may have seen this many years ago, but had pretty much zero memories from it. That scene is pretty well known (probably mostly for the lousy 1960s fight choreography), but even aside from 1960's limitations in costuming and fight realism, I wasn’t all that impressed with the episode. The pacing wasn’t great, and this wasn’t the best use of the “nigh-omnipotent aliens insult humans’ barbarism and manipulate them” trope. If the Metrons were so annoyed at lower races using violence, then why did they not only make the ships’ captains fight single combat but also plan to kill the crew of the loser’s ship? That would be a lot of death directly on their hands. I suspected for a while that the episode was building towards a reveal that the Metrons were the ones who had attacked the Federation outpost and were framing the Gorn so they could watch the Gorn and humans fight. Alas, that wasn’t the real plot.
Also, I was not particularly impressed by Kirk’s supposedly being morally advanced by electing not to finish off the Gorn AFTER shooting him with the homemade diamond canon. It’s easy to lay down your weapons when you’ve already pretty much won. Maybe you could have tried a little diplomacy with the Gorn earlier on you could have avoided getting the crap kicked out of you and then shooting the Gorn with diamonds. (Using the homemade canon you made out of ingredients found lying around on the surface of the ground in ready-to-use form, because that would TOTALLY work.)
Meanwhile, McCoy labelled himself a sensualist. I wonder how many fanfics have invoked that line.
1x19, “Tomorrow is Yesterday”
Today, the Enterprise finds itself in a strange and savage place: Earth in the late 1960’s! Kirk’s “WTF” expression when he heard their location was pretty great. This episode introduces technobabble about slingshotting around the sun to travel in time that will come into play again in The One With the Whales. (Possibly other times too, but that’s the one I remember.) Sadly, in this episode we don’t pick up any whales, just confused Air Force officers.
I’d seen tumblr gifsets of the moment when the accidentally captured 20th-century dude sees a female Enterprise officer and is like “a woman??!?”, to which Kirk replies, “A crewman.” Seeing it in original form with sound, I must say that the feminist message was somewhat undermined by the sexy saxophone when the miniskirted officer walked past. Still, kudos to Kirk if not the soundtrack. Meanwhile, when Confused Pilot Guy is on the bridge staring at Spock, Uhura clearly thinks this is the funniest thing to happen in ages. I <3 her.
The computer keeps calling Kirk “dear,” which was initially funny, but less so after the “LOL WOMEN R CRAZY” explanation for how it developed that programming quirk. Still, I am left strongly suspecting that there must be Kirk/Enterprise fics resulting from this.
This was a pretty intense episode for the crew throwing themselves over the bridge. Install some seatbelts, dudes. Also, the scene where Kirk fought three military guys was rather hilariously dance-like. Kirk was basically throwing his body at the other dudes. (That’s what the fic writer said!)
The ending was sort of fuzzy, and even on the Star Trek scale the explanation for the Enterprise’s abductees having their memories erased by beaming them back over their past selves (or something?) was pretty nonsensical. Also, it seems unnecessarily complicated. Here is my plan for being able to return the Air Force dudes without having them spill too much information: get them really, really drunk before beaming them down. They will probably not have a clear memory, and anything they do claim won’t be believed. Better yet would be to give them some sort of drug that induces short-term memory loss, if such a thing was available.
All in all, this episode had a fuckton of plot holes, but I had fun watching it.
1x20, “Court Martial”
Wait, so the attorney prosecuting Kirk when he gets court martialed is one of his old flames? And then he takes a suggestion for a defense attorney from the prosecutor? There are some serious conflicts of interest here. I am unimpressed by the space justice system. Also, Kirk’s defense attorney’s argument for books over computers was really unpersuasive, and I say this as someone who loves physical books and has zero desire for an e-reader. He came across as a ranting kook, not someone with a point.
Diversity points for having the commander of the space station where the Enterprise parks be a black guy, plus the female lawyer. There was even an Asian woman officer in a small role as a witness. Star Trek tries, but in a lot of episodes it’s a whole bunch of white guys plus Uhura and Sulu with one line each. This episode looked a little more like the future we want.
After two episodes in which Kirk kept his shirt intact despite some ridiculous fight scenes, we achieved another ripped shirt here when Kirk fought the not-really-dead crewman. Also, why did the court and the bridge crew send Kirk (who had at that point not been formally exonerated) to go confront what’s-his-face alone? And then continue to hang around on the bridge while the ship started to crash?
This episode’s premise was okay, but it was not all that engaging to me. We viewers know that Kirk couldn’t have been guilty, so we can surmise that someone altered the computer records. The only mystery for the episode was who, and honestly they didn’t make that quite enough.
I did come across this amazing graphic inspired by the long recitation of Kirk's awards, honors, etc. (original source)
The more I look at that picture, the funnier it gets. The cake!
Kirk attempts to use himself as a human bowling ball! The guys he's fighting catch him, because...? Notice also the guy who has his hand all over Kirk's butt and crotch. Wowza.
Now, on to my episode reactions. Spoilers, if you care about spoilers for a show that's been out for close to 50 years.
1x18, “Arena”
Ah, this is the one with the famous fight with the Gorn, aka guy in a lizard suit with disco eyes. I think I may have seen this many years ago, but had pretty much zero memories from it. That scene is pretty well known (probably mostly for the lousy 1960s fight choreography), but even aside from 1960's limitations in costuming and fight realism, I wasn’t all that impressed with the episode. The pacing wasn’t great, and this wasn’t the best use of the “nigh-omnipotent aliens insult humans’ barbarism and manipulate them” trope. If the Metrons were so annoyed at lower races using violence, then why did they not only make the ships’ captains fight single combat but also plan to kill the crew of the loser’s ship? That would be a lot of death directly on their hands. I suspected for a while that the episode was building towards a reveal that the Metrons were the ones who had attacked the Federation outpost and were framing the Gorn so they could watch the Gorn and humans fight. Alas, that wasn’t the real plot.
Also, I was not particularly impressed by Kirk’s supposedly being morally advanced by electing not to finish off the Gorn AFTER shooting him with the homemade diamond canon. It’s easy to lay down your weapons when you’ve already pretty much won. Maybe you could have tried a little diplomacy with the Gorn earlier on you could have avoided getting the crap kicked out of you and then shooting the Gorn with diamonds. (Using the homemade canon you made out of ingredients found lying around on the surface of the ground in ready-to-use form, because that would TOTALLY work.)
Meanwhile, McCoy labelled himself a sensualist. I wonder how many fanfics have invoked that line.
1x19, “Tomorrow is Yesterday”
Today, the Enterprise finds itself in a strange and savage place: Earth in the late 1960’s! Kirk’s “WTF” expression when he heard their location was pretty great. This episode introduces technobabble about slingshotting around the sun to travel in time that will come into play again in The One With the Whales. (Possibly other times too, but that’s the one I remember.) Sadly, in this episode we don’t pick up any whales, just confused Air Force officers.
I’d seen tumblr gifsets of the moment when the accidentally captured 20th-century dude sees a female Enterprise officer and is like “a woman??!?”, to which Kirk replies, “A crewman.” Seeing it in original form with sound, I must say that the feminist message was somewhat undermined by the sexy saxophone when the miniskirted officer walked past. Still, kudos to Kirk if not the soundtrack. Meanwhile, when Confused Pilot Guy is on the bridge staring at Spock, Uhura clearly thinks this is the funniest thing to happen in ages. I <3 her.
The computer keeps calling Kirk “dear,” which was initially funny, but less so after the “LOL WOMEN R CRAZY” explanation for how it developed that programming quirk. Still, I am left strongly suspecting that there must be Kirk/Enterprise fics resulting from this.
This was a pretty intense episode for the crew throwing themselves over the bridge. Install some seatbelts, dudes. Also, the scene where Kirk fought three military guys was rather hilariously dance-like. Kirk was basically throwing his body at the other dudes. (That’s what the fic writer said!)
The ending was sort of fuzzy, and even on the Star Trek scale the explanation for the Enterprise’s abductees having their memories erased by beaming them back over their past selves (or something?) was pretty nonsensical. Also, it seems unnecessarily complicated. Here is my plan for being able to return the Air Force dudes without having them spill too much information: get them really, really drunk before beaming them down. They will probably not have a clear memory, and anything they do claim won’t be believed. Better yet would be to give them some sort of drug that induces short-term memory loss, if such a thing was available.
All in all, this episode had a fuckton of plot holes, but I had fun watching it.
1x20, “Court Martial”
Wait, so the attorney prosecuting Kirk when he gets court martialed is one of his old flames? And then he takes a suggestion for a defense attorney from the prosecutor? There are some serious conflicts of interest here. I am unimpressed by the space justice system. Also, Kirk’s defense attorney’s argument for books over computers was really unpersuasive, and I say this as someone who loves physical books and has zero desire for an e-reader. He came across as a ranting kook, not someone with a point.
Diversity points for having the commander of the space station where the Enterprise parks be a black guy, plus the female lawyer. There was even an Asian woman officer in a small role as a witness. Star Trek tries, but in a lot of episodes it’s a whole bunch of white guys plus Uhura and Sulu with one line each. This episode looked a little more like the future we want.
After two episodes in which Kirk kept his shirt intact despite some ridiculous fight scenes, we achieved another ripped shirt here when Kirk fought the not-really-dead crewman. Also, why did the court and the bridge crew send Kirk (who had at that point not been formally exonerated) to go confront what’s-his-face alone? And then continue to hang around on the bridge while the ship started to crash?
This episode’s premise was okay, but it was not all that engaging to me. We viewers know that Kirk couldn’t have been guilty, so we can surmise that someone altered the computer records. The only mystery for the episode was who, and honestly they didn’t make that quite enough.
I did come across this amazing graphic inspired by the long recitation of Kirk's awards, honors, etc. (original source)
The more I look at that picture, the funnier it gets. The cake!