Star Trek Episode 30: Castpaw - Recap
A "normal" recap for once; without skritp format, but with screencaps.
Episode 30: Catspaw
The Enterprise is in orbit around a planet, as it so often is. In this case, from space the planet appears to be a barren rock. No vegetation, no water, just a few clouds to make it look more interesting than, say, a pepple. So far, the most interesting thing about this world is that we learn absolutely nothing about it. No captain’s log, not even a futuristic-sounding-but-meaningless stardate. We’re not getting it, because Captain Kirk is busy. Which has never stopped him before, but I’ll let that slip for once.
I let it slip because the situation is epically dire. Since they came to this world, for whatever reason, they naturally had to beam down a landing party to have a closer look, even though apparently the sensors tell them from space that there is absolutely nothing down there to look at. You have to wonder if they stop by to take a walk on every asteroid they come across. I bet Kirk would, just so he’s got something to do other than sit in his chair all day, but in this case he didn’t go himself. The big surprise of the day: In a rare moment of common sense, the Captain didn’t leave the ship to lead the landing party and take his first officer along, leaving the Enterprise in the capable hands of the Chief Engineer. No, this time he… sent the Chief Engineer. And the helmsman, who also happens to be the resident botanist. The only resident botanist, I would assume, since they send him instead of one who didn’t just take botany as a hobby. Or a geologist, while we’re at it, as the world below appears to host tons and tons and tons of rock, but not a single plant.
The probability of random engines lying around for Scotty to look at also seems rather low. So much for common sense.
Scotty and Sulu have been accompanied by a certain Jackson, who we have never heard from before and who we will never see again. In the beginning, however, we see neither of them, as the landing party appears to be missing and refuses to answer their calls despite being “aware of standard landing party procedure”. The other episodes had me believe the standard landing party procedure translates as “Beam down the captain and be good until the girl is won and the adventure is over.” It appears I was wrong. Apparently it also includes answering calls. Hence Kirk being busy. And worried.
Eventually they receive a reply, but only Jackson hails them, asking to be beamed up and ominously ignoring their questions for the whereabouts of the important people. His call is received by Uhura, who looks particularly lovely today, with two little bird nests in her hair, right over her eyes. Ah, the sixties…
Since Scotty and Sulu can’t be arsed to reply, Kirk orders Jackson to be beamed up once he made it to the transporter room. He also asks Doctor McCoy to join him, perhaps overcome by a sudden moment of precognition, since the man sounded perfectly healthy and not at all scared or nervous or in need of a doctor on the transmission. Perhaps Kirk wants him checked over in case there was something wrong with his ears. When McCoy appears and asks what’s going on, Kirk wisely tells him, “Trouble.” Either that, or Scotty lost his communicator.
Jackson is beamed up by a technician in one of those short-sleeved red jumpsuits that seems to serve no purpose except save fabric. He appears, and to my considerable surprise is not wearing red but gold. As in, commando crew gold. One has to wonder what qualities made him the best choice to send down exploring an unknown planet. Together with the engineer and the pilot…
Jackson looks for all the world like a plastic doll - even the pose is right. One second later there is an epic moment of epic win when he slowly falls over: off the transporter platform and down the stairs, while Kirk watches it happen from a distance of one metre and his only reaction is to jump aside so the man won’t hit him when he crashes down. Way to go, Captain! Bones is a bit ahead of him: he actually moves when he sees Jackson is about to fall, and has the decency to wince when he hits the floor. I guess Kirk is just too cool for that. Or he used his precognitive abilities and saw from the beginning that, despite wearing the wrong colour, the man was dead already. Which he is.
No reason to worry, Jim. The man's just fallen flat on his face right in front of you.
“The man is dead,” Bones states gravely, refusing to say Jim’s name, perhaps because he thinks he’s a shitty captain. Jackson at least seems to think so: despite being dead, he has the balls to tell Kirk that his ship is cursed. But no, apparently he didn’t mean ‘cursed with its captain’, but generally cursed. The “Leave this place or you will all die!” kind of curse. Naturally, Kirk decides to stay.
But only after the credits.
Just before the credits we get a dramatic close up of Jackson’s face and his slightly moving lips. It’s fun to be dead!
The credits are worth mentioning only because these are the first credits that mention not only William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy, but DeForest Kelley as well. In theory, at least, since in theory this was the first episode of the second season. Actually, it was broadcast as the seventh episode of the season, while the fifth one was broadcast as the first. Fortunately there is no ongoing plotline that could be disturbed by the fact that just about no episode is where it originally was supposed to be.
After the credits, we finally get the Captain’s Log, but it only tells us what we already know: Crewman Jackson is dead, for apparently no reason, and Sulu and Scotty are still missing. Since Jackson wasn’t important, they never tried to revive him, and for once Kirk doesn’t feel the need to snap at Bones because he can’t tell the cause of dead. To be fair, he doesn’t have a chance to even try, as Kirk immediately drags him along to follow standard landing party procedure.
That’s right: That one.
Jackson’s warning to leave this place is apparently forgotten, and we now learn what you have to do as a captain if your third and fourth in command are missing: You beam down yourself and take your second in command with you, leaving the ship in the trained hands of “Assistant Chief Engineer DeSalle”. I kid you not.
Naturally, Bones is with them, and considering that Scotty and Sulu are likely dead, judging from Jackson’s fate, that even makes sense for once: Kirk would need him to say the magical words.
For the moment there is no one around, though. Except rocks. And fog that didn’t show up on the sensors. Thinking of the poisonous gasses etc. that might also not have shown up on the sensors, I admire their bravery to beam down there without protection.
After Kirk tests the fog for potential deadliness by walking into it, the other two follow and they wander around for a few seconds before calling the ship for sensor readings. DeSalle, who makes a disturbingly competent commander for a lieutenant who was never seen before (and, you guessed it, will never appear again) transfers the request to Ensign Chekov who, incidentally, appears that moment for the very first time. If we ignore the broadcasting order, that is.
From the way his appearance is handled, you couldn’t guess that he hasn’t been there since the beginning. (Easy to miss, that, even for the writers of The Wrath of Kahn.) Once we have gotten over the shock of his truly epic hair, we begin to understand that according to the sensors, the Original OT3 is the only life form on the entire planet. Bad news for Scotty and Sulu! Fortunately for them, Kirk never learns this, because the transmission ends in white noise.
Fear the tube wig!
McCoy wonders if the fog could have to do with the interference, but Kirk rejects the idea, because it wasn’t his. Instead he states that “something” has to be responsible, which is safely on the vague side but apparently excludes the fog.
Other than the ship, the three of them are reading multiple life forms. Also, they hear voices. Singing. After listening for a while, they are visited by the three witches from Macbeth, who are transparent and floating in the air. Even though there are three witches and three spacemen, they all three of them only address Captain Kirk. The fact that they are singing everything they say makes it hard to understand, but apparently neither of them tells the captain that he’s wearing too much foundation make-up this episode. Instead they remind him of the curse everyone has forgotten about and sing something about wind that will be. Spock is not impressed. I have rarely seen him unimpressed at quiet the same level.
The witches float away. Spock’s comment brings it to the point: “Very bad poetry, Captain.”
Kirk doesn’t consider this helpful.
After Spock tells him what must have been obvious to anyone but Kirk, i.e. that there have not, in fact, really been singing witches floating before them, Kirk is happy, and he’s even more happy when he learns that there are some actual life forms around, even confused ones. But alas! There’s wind, and it blows them back. It blows Kirk dramatically around, from one rock to the other, and Spock and McCoy dramatically into each other’s arms. They hide behind more rocks until Jim is done being dramatic and the wind stops. “A pretty real illusion, Mister Spock,” Bones notes - but a pointless one. Once the wind has died, it doesn’t come back and nothing stops them from going further.
Here Bones makes the find of the day: A giant castle that just happens to stand around there and seems to be surprisingly easy to overlook. This time even Spock looks a little impressed. Kirk suggests that the building might cause the interference in the transmission, but even though it’s Kirk’s idea, Spock considers it wrong. The life forms are inside, but neither they nor the castle are visible to the ship. (How Kirk knows that remains a mystery, though, as Uhura never had a chance to tell him that they seem to be the only ones down there.)
When Kirk suggests that a kind of force field might hide the castle, Bones points out that it would influence Spock’s tricorder too, which it doesn’t. This is not a good day for Kirk’s ideas.
Bravely, they near the castle, accompanied only by the fog and the darkly-dramatic music. Once inside, Kirk is nearly scared to death by a cat that doesn’t appear to approve of their presence. It would totally take on one, even two of them, but three is too much. Mewling, it retreats. Spock obviously would like to run after it. Bones identifies the setting - three witches, castle, black cat - as a terrible cliché, and Kirk thinks of Trick of Treat. Spock doesn’t get it. Kirk thinks he’d be a natural.
After promising to explain it to Spock one day that will never come, Kirk heroically sends his husbands to explore the area while reaming leaning against the doorframe himself and being generally too cool to do anything. Meanwhile, the Enterprise is still in orbit and Chekov’s hair is still epic. By now, he has realised that at this point they have lost all of their important officers. Congratulations.
DeSalle doesn’t seem to mind. That captain’s chair does look comfortable, doesn’t it? And he does look better in it than Kirk, admittedly. Fortunately for him, he got assigned to the USS Enterprise, the only ship that can take out the entire chain of command from Captain to helmsman in one go.
Chekov, however, seems shocked. In imitation of his great role model, James T. Kirk, he speaks with. Dramatic. Pauses. Uhura is worried for Scotty and everyone else and beginning to sound a little pessimistic. DeSalle doesn’t care much - he is secretly convinced that Chekov doesn’t do his job right, and I am secretly with him. The idea of a magnetic field disturbing their sensors comes up. Must be one hell of a magnetic field if it disturbs the sensors so much they can’t even find the field. Once they ruled out malfunctions and Chekov insisted on being old enough to recalibrate his sensors without help (whatever that is supposed to be a euphemism for), they continue to do everything that already didn’t work before.
In the castle, Kirk, Spock and McCoy wander along, following either the sensor readings or Spock’s tingling cat-sense. The cat’s way, however, is accompanied by ominous music. This doesn’t bode well!
The corridor is full of appropriately clichéd torches and spider webs, the latter most likely made of sugar. Kirk looks appropriately apprehensive, while McCoy mostly looks annoyed. Then, right between them and the cat, the ground opens and they fall down. We know this, because there is blurr and they are gone, and then we see a very neat looking hole in the ground, in which the three of them are lying unconscious, but neatly in formation. At the edge of the hole, the cat looks down and says, “LOL.”
In the next scene, we find our heroes hanging from chains in a dungeon, with Kirk and McCoy in the middle between Spock and a Random Skeleton. I think I knew that one from tenth grade biology class. We called it Bob.
Bones and Plastic!Bones.
Kirk wakes up first. After worriedly ascertaining Spock’s wellbeing, he notices that Bones is also present, but somewhat distracted by Bob. Unable to think for himself, Kirk asks Spock for his opinion and learns that, yes, the chains are indeed very real. Bugger.
In the close ups we see that Spock has returned to the green eye shadow and the pink lipstick. I do love a man who can wear make-up with such confidence, especially if the colour of the lipstick so totally goes against the colour the lips of a green-blooded hobgoblin should have. Bones, used to the make-up and concerned with other things for the moment, wonders if this could be an Earth parallel development. (Ah, yes… those. The convenient plot device used to explain why so many civilisations look exactly like Earth of the past, like the Roman Empire Planet, or the Nazi Planet, or (right on top of my WTF-list) the American Civil War Planet. Because it makes sense for so many planets to develop exactly the same way, down to the names of their nations and the design of their banners. Later, the show will kindly develop holodecks and pretend these planets never existed. Also, the fact that the show randomly discovered a way to travel in time in one of the very first episodes makes this one of the most useless plot devices ever.) Kirk thinks this is more like a manifestation of human nightmares, and Spock suggests that whoever created this must know what frightens humans most, on an instinctive level. Thank you, Spock, for confirming that you have absolutely no idea what frightens humans most, because cheesy horror movies = not so frightening. It’s rather for the lulz, something to laugh about with a couple of friends and a couple of beer. No, really.
Then the door opens and there’s something frightening right there: Scotty and Sulu walk in, but Scotty’s pointing a phaser at them (rather pointlessly, considering they are chained to the wall and all) and altogether they look a lot like Jackson has just before he dropped dead. In fact, Sulu looks so much like Jackson you’d think they recycled the actor. (They didn’t.) Kirk, failing to notice anything odd, is quite happy to see them, while Spock tries to deal with his itching back by rubbing against the wall. Bones remains invisible because the camera forgot he exists.
Then Kirk realises that something’s wrong, and McCoy is allowed to state that they look drugged because they don’t blink. “Neither did Jackson,” Spock muses. Yes, genius. That’s because he was dead! Also, Spock can’t actually know that, because he wasn’t there. (Unless the others mentioned this detail to him: “Jackson appeared and he didn’t blink and then he fell over dead.”)
“At least these two are alive,” says Kirk, though he doesn’t really seem convinced. Sulu, other than Scotty, is at least able to answer questions with nodding or shaking his head, although that is not really helpful for questions like “What happened?” At least he’s going to release them with his big, slightly suggestive looking key. He frees McCoy first, who would have had a chance to knock him out and steal the key since Scotty can only look straight ahead, apparently, and wouldn’t have noticed. Then Sulu frees Kirk, then Spock (who as the only one doesn’t rub his wrists but rather straightens his shirt, which wandered up his chest when he rubbed his back against the wall). We see this in great details, because, well, 45 minutes are a long time and they have to be filled with something. The ominous music stays with us the entire time.
After Scotty lets them know they are expected to walk out of the cell, the action heroes Kirk and Spock bravely let Bones go first. But look, there was a plan to that! They want to take out Sulu and Scotty, and because Bones kind of sucks at fighting, the other two have to be last and therefore closest to the enemy (i.e. Zombie!Scotty threatening them with a phaser and Zombie!Sulu, threatening them with the key). Unfortunately, the fight is a brief one, because when someone tells them to stop, they actually do.
The one telling them to stop is a bald guy in a silly, but not entirely castle-appropriate outfit. He complains about humans having to know everything when Kirk asks what’s going on. He, apparently already does know everything, including who Kirk and co. are - a knowledge he seems to share with his cat. In fact, the way he talks to the cat suggests that she told him. It makes him look slightly nutty.
When Kirk asks why they were brought here, the man, Korob, argues that they came by themselves despite having been warned to stay away, and damn if he isn’t right. Kirk still manages to makes it his fault, but not by pointing out that they had abducted two of their men, but by pointing out that they had warned them not to come, so logically they had to come and see why they shouldn’t. Korob keeps talking to his cat like the nice, insane uncle from next door, and then we finally get some information about the planet from Spock: Other starships have been in the system before, and they never noticed any life forms. Which thoroughly fails to explain why the hell the Enterprise even came there in the first place.
Korob admits that they are not native to this planet and then is reminded by his cat that he’s an inattentive host. He invites the Threesome to have seat at the table, all the while Scotty is still pointing his phaser so stiffly I’m beginning to worry he’s going to shoot someone just to remind them he’s not furniture. Unfortunately, at the moment he is.
McCoy notices that the cat is odd, and Spock concludes that it must be a demon pet send by Satan to accompany the wizard, although he denies the accusation of being superstitious. Korob identifies him as the different one, who only sees things in black and white logic (showing that he doesn’t know Spock that well, after all) and doesn’t believe anything he sees. Bones appears to find this funny: “He doesn’t know about trick or treat.” Korob, all knowing as he is, doesn’t get it (probably because his cat doesn’t get it either) and promptly declares it unimportant. He waves his magic wand and food appears, which Kirk approves of. Unfortunately, Bones remembers that Jim’s on diet and declares them collectively not hungry.
Since Korob insists, they sit anyway - apparently on the cat, judging from Spock’s expression. Korob further demonstrates that everyone in the universe, including him and the cat, are aware of McCoy’s alcoholism. You know, the one that doesn’t exists except in fanfics. McCoy looks slightly pissed. He looks even more pissed when Kirk decides to be stubborn and Korob tries to buy their cooperation with jewels that suddenly appear on their plates: as a doctor, he does not recommend eating them. Also, in the 23rd century they can replicate the stuff. Another crack in Korob’s omniscience.
So the attempt to make them leave with riches fails. I kind of find myself wondering why Korob doesn’t simply offer to give back Scotty and Sulu. Perhaps he knows that now Kirk’s in stubborn-mode he doesn’t give a shit about Scotty and Sulu as long as there are questions unanswered.
However, Korob admits that this was all a test: They came despite being warned to stay away, to save their comrades (Another error on his part: they came because they were warned to stay away. The comrades are just a bonus.), they were not frightened (of the cheesy castle, the singing witches and the random wind, I suppose) and they could not be bribed (he assumes - he has nothing to bribe them with). Kirk likes this flattery. Spock and Bones look somewhat impatient. As is the cat, who apparently has to use the litter box. She leaves, and a second later a woman comes in, causing Kirk to rise. From his chair, I mean.
When she comes in, Bones stands as well, because of good manners, and Spock does so too, because everyone else is standing. As a reward, Sylvia, Korob’s colleague, actually acknowledges their presence, while her main attention remains on Captain Kirk. Said captain finally remembers Furniture!Scotty and Sulu, and Sylvia explains that brainwashing humans is simple. She talks about how easy it is to get into a human’s mind because they are so simple and full of too many levels, which is not a contradiction at all. Spock listens in friendly interest. Having gotten away with countless mindfucks because he’s, well, Spock, her smug bragging about mental rape really doesn’t impress him. “Telepathy,” he sums up her elaborate speech, while McCoy finds himself fascinated by her pendant. Sylvia points out that telepathy is only reading minds, not controlling them. Even I would have known that. Spock unimpressedly fails.
But while Spock fails, Kirk attacks Scotty and takes the phaser the poor man is still pointing at them, even though no one’s paid attention to him in ages. I bet Sulu is still holding the key.
Now no longer a threat, Scotty gets pushed away by Kirk - quite unnecessarily so, and probably out of spite. Kirk demands the rest of their equipment back, but this time it’s Sylvia who’s not impressed. Instead, she pulls out a little model of the Enterprise on a chain and tells Kirk and Spock (McCoy is in hibernation somewhere off screen, together with Scotty and Sulu) something about sympathetic magic, that basically means killing people by knowing they’re dead. She offed Jackson like this, and now threatens the rest of the crew the same way. She holds the little model over a candle and Kirk gets his communicator back so he can call the ship for confirmation, while Korob protests Sylvia’s actions and Spock looks funny and slightly nervous. Kirk looks like… Kirk. He’s sporting the very same expression he’s had the entire episode.
On the Enterprise, Kirk’s call nearly gets missed in the red alert. On the bridge, people who do not usually have a place there run around uselessly, but DeSalle kindly comes over to Uhura’s place and informs his captain that the temperature suddenly went up. We also learn that apparently DeSalle doesn’t like Chekov, as he keeps calling him “Mister”. Perhaps he’s just put off by all that hair. In any case, Chekov dramatically declares that they are burning up. Or at least he is: under the wig the temperature must be twice as high as everywhere else.
Kirk gives some brilliant orders to relieve the situation, only to learn that his current replacement is not, in fact, completely stupid and has already tried that. So Jim promises to handle things himself - He grabs the model and yanks it away. Hurray, I think, you’ve saved the ship! Now it’s time to shoot the woman, gather your team and go home!
But what’s that? After Kirk took away her hostages, he hands them back, gives her the phaser and tells her she’s won.
Whut.
At least the ship is safe for the moment. Chekov confirms this, telling everyone the temperature is dropping fast and almost back to normal. They need him to tell them, because they look just as hot as before, especially Uhura. (But then, Uhura is always hot.)
Since Kirk also gave the communicator away, they can’t hail him again. At least now they know the team’s still alive, so DeSalle won’t decide to declare them dead and fuck off with the Enterprise.
Korob wants to know more about the visitor’s science, and we learn by Kirk’s clever observation that he is quite different from Sylvia, who wants to exercise power rather than learn. Also, she calls their science magic, while Korob calls is science. Kirk calls it neither, as they seem to do with their minds what Kirk and co. do with tools. Korob wants to explain it, but Sylvia decides he’s talking too much. He also wears too much make up.
This is another form of torture!
During all this, Bones used his time off screen for some thinking, and finally asks how Sylvia and Korob knew they’d come if they kept Scotty and Sulu. Now we learn that Scotty and Sulu are quite naïve: “We didn’t have to know; they knew,” Koros says, which is sweet, and it breaks my heart to think how the two of them would feel if they knew that at least Kirk forgot on at least three occasions that they even existed. (And am I the only one who finds it amusing that the captain himself, the first officer and the CMO came to save Scotty and Sulu, but no one bothers to come and save the captain, the first officer and the CMO?)
Sylivia still doesn’t want Korob to talk; apparently they only get along when she’s a cat. Now she demands answers, but Kirk refuses to give them, convinced that now they contacted the ship, a search party will come to rescue them soon. The threat the two aliens present to him and his ship is already forgotten, as is the fact that he didn’t warn the potential search party of what to expect down there. After all, Kirk, Spock and McCoy once started as a search party too.
But the redshirts that would have been beamed down are in luck: Korob remembers these things and puts the little Enterprise in a block of plastic: safe, but useless. Chekov, on the ship, declares that they are inside some kind of force field that came out of nowhere and keeps them from doing anything. DeSalle is standing beside him, completely motionless in that way that says “One more word, and I’m going to throttle you!” Chekov keeps talking.
Sylvia also remembered something: They can control minds, so getting the information she wants does not depend on Kirk’s cooperation. She warns him, though: Extracting information is extremely painful, and leaves you a zombie. Her looks indicate that they did that with Scotty and Sulu, but apparently their either skipped the information bit with them and went straight to zombie, or Scotty and Sulu knew less about science and technical details than Kirk.
The next bit is so predictable it hurts: Scotty gets his phaser back and is ordered to escort the others back to their cell, but as they leave, Sylvia tells McCoy to stay behind to have his mind flayed. Kirk makes a heroic attempt to protest, while Spock does absolutely nothing. In fact, he seems rather impatient to leave. So in the end Kirk and Spock leave without Bones, while Bones obviously thinks that he could have done without this particular share of screen time. The music agrees with him: “Well,” it says. “Suck’s to be you.”
I was right, by the way: Sulu is still holding the key.
Meanwhile on the Enterprise: DeSalle wants a wavelength analysis from Chekov, Chekov can’t analyse shit. So DeSalle calls engineering and tells them in elaborate words to fire all they’ve got at the force field they can’t analyse, because if they can’t break it, they can at least put a dent in it. I love how he says it with such drama, as if a dent in the still unbroken force field would actually be of any use.
In their cell, Kirk tries to prove that he is sexier than Spock when rubbing his back against the wall, with debatable success. He asks Spock how long “it” has been and reacts slightly pissed when Spock can tell him to the second. What has been twenty-two something minutes remains unclear. If they are talking about the time since they got delivered back to the cell, they needed damn long to get settled. My guess is it’s been that long since they first beamed down. That could be about right.
Kirk's bringing sexy back!
Kirk wonders what the aliens are doing with Bones. Since the alien told him in detail what they would do with Bones, he just proves that he didn’t listen.
Leaning closer in his chains, Spock tells Kirk that it seems the aliens thought this environment was actually normal for their species, because they try to reach the human consciousness for information but hit the subconscious level instead. So they got deep into the “race memory” of Kirk, McCoy, Scotty and Sulu and found castles. And chains. And cats. (Though I suspect the cat was actually provided by Spock.)
The camera makes sure to catch Bob the Random Skeleton every now and then, probably so Kirk and Spock won’t feel the loss of Bones. Unfortunately, the better quality of the remastered episodes very clearly shows the seams of the plastic bones. On the other hand, perhaps the subconscious of the human race demands plastic. It wouldn’t surprise me.
Kirk eyes Bob with a speculative look on his face, then looses interest when he decides that, no, the real Bones is better. He agrees with Spock that the aliens have to be completely alien, and decides not to like them. The consent is that they have to be stopped. It is also agreed that they are stuck, with the chains and all.
Fortunately, the key returns with Sulu and the much missed McCoy, who has been brainwashed like the others. Since it was pronounced beforehand, this should come as no surprise, even to Kirk. Still, his reaction to this is kind of heartbreaking.
Yet, when McCoy manhandles him toward the door, Kirk is scandalized. He clearly prefers things the other way round.
Meanwhile, Sylvia and Korob discuss the way of the world. We learn, in case we missed it so far, that Sylvia is the Evil Twin here: she likes the new human bodies they have (because of course human bodies are better than any other shape the universe might come up with) and the power they have. She also discovered that torturing people is a kink of hers and that she’d like to squash Korob, which doesn’t even seem to surprise him. Neither does it prompt him to take any actions against her, though.
“I have the power!”
When McCoy and Scotty take Kirk to them (with the key trailing after), Sylvia sends Korob away with the brainwashed ones so she’ll be alone with Kirk and her newfound human sensations. Can you tell where this is going?
First of all, though, Kirk accuses her of not being a woman, because women should have compassion (period) and she doesn’t. But she insists she is, now, and wants to learn more about power from him, in a very physical way, while Korob watches through the wall behind her chair. Despite him not being especially well hidden, Sylvia of course misses his presence and goes on to tell Kirk how she will dispose of him. The only one she won’t destroy is Kirk, because power apparently equals being touched by him, and naturally she has totally fallen for him. In a slightly creepy, oddly emotionless way. But still. Because it is The Kirk. And now she wants mindsex, the way he only ever has it with Spock.
Kirk seems okay with it. Actually, he seems a little too enthusiastic to be believable, but even though we have to give him the benefit of doubt and assume he’s faking it, it could also simply be Shatner overacting just a little. Or both. Anyway, after some touching and kissing in that odd, passionately chaste way of the sixties, he calls her beautiful, which causes her to show him that she can assume the shape of any woman - for no reason at all, as things have been going well for her as she was.
Anyway, according to the smile of his face, Kirk seems to like that ability of hers. What a surprise. He probably wonders if she can turn into a female Spock or Bones, so his attraction to them would not longer confuse his sexual orientation.
After another sample, she turns back into the form she had in the beginning. Kirk finds it hard to choose, but snogs her anyway, and goes on rubbing his face against her in a disturbingly unsexy way while questioning her about her home world and the transmuter and how it works. We learn that people can only ever have fun if they know what sex is.
Lady, you are not learning it there.
Beware! If you torture Captain Kirk's friends, he will eat your face.
She realises that, actually. After deciding that she and Kirk are pretty much married to each other now, she suddenly gets that Kirk is using her, causing Shatner to overact even more. Getting hysterical, she threatens to kill him, his crew, his world, yadda, yadda. Kirk says “Fine, I’ll just stay with my brainwashed friends” and wanders off.
Sulu is still running after them with the key. Sadly enough, George Takei rarely had as much screen time as in this episode.
On the Enterprise, Chekov and DeSalle happily take note of the dent they put in the force field, which for some reason only Uhura can’t see, because she’s a woman or something. Anyway, the dent is as useless as they said it would be because as discussed before it can’t break the field, but Chekov gets orders to put up more of an effort. Apparently he’s now in charge of engineering. Since Scotty is gone and his assistant is in command of the Enterprise, Chekov now gets the job of the assistant.
Well, at least they all got some screen time.
Pointless screen time, admittedly, as we switch to the cell in the castle, where Korob frees Kirk and Spock from their chains (but cruelly leaves Bob) and tells them that he freed their ship from the block. (“[…] although they would have freed themselves soon” - so we won’t get the impression that they are completely useless.)
He hands them their weapons back and tells them that, basically, adopting a human form has turned Sylvia into a power mad nymphomaniac who wants to kill them all. He also mentions the transmuter, but we still get no explanation for that, as they are attacked by the cat in the corridor. Only, the cat is now much larger and wants to eat them. It causes Kirk to frown a little.
Spock finds it fascinating.
Apparently cats are “the most ruthless, most terrifying of animals”, or so Spock says. He should tell that to my cat. But she wouldn’t be listening to him, being too busy hiding in fear.
My cat is terrifying only to very small, flightless birds. Of course, considering the original form of Korob and Sylvia, this almost makes sense.
Kirk discovers that the phasers are out of energy and have been all along. “We could have jumped Scott and Sulu at any time.” Note how he doesn’t say they could have jumped Bones. Too close to the truth, perhaps?
Korob insists that she’s his problem and ushers them away to heroically sacrifice himself. The heroic sacrifice occurs when they try to escape through the room they originally landed in when falling through the floor. Kirk helps Spock up through the hole and prepares to follow, while Korob stands guard with only a door between him and the giant cat and yells “Get back, get back!” Great plan! I’m shocked it didn’t work.
Predictably, the door gives in and crushes him. It creates an opening too small for the cat to get through at her current size, so yeah. His sacrifice was heroic, and singularly senseless. The cat scuffles off and Kirk takes the transmuter staff and gets pulled up by Spock, only to be attacked by Bones with a medieval weapon that’s just a little too heavy for scrawny McCoy to use effectively - despite being actually made of plastic. While Kirk kicks him around the place, Spock gets attacked by Scotty, who has a similar weapon but more muscles. (Either that, or James Doohan forgot that it was supposed to be heavy.)
Without much effort, Kirk knocks out Bones and cuddles him a little to show he’s sorry. I don’t believe him. You’ll see why.
The touching moment is disturbed by Sulu, who wants a piece of the action even though he’s got no weapon and Korob took his key. No problem for Sulu: he attacks Kirk with this martial arts, so Kirk drops Bones and fights him while Spock nerve pinches Scotty into oblivion. After Sulu’s managed to knock himself out on the door, Bones gets back up, so Kirk brings him back down without so much as a By Your Leave. Poor Jim: he hurts his fist when it connects with McCoy’s face. Otherwise, he seems to enjoy himself quite a bit.
As does Spock.
Before they can collect their unconscious team and wander off, the cat comes back. Or rather, its shadow on the wall and its rather annoying hiss come back. Kirk realises that the transmuter might be a good weapon, so he runs off to where Spock left it lying on the floor. Fortunately, the cat patiently waits for him to return and refrains from eating Spock in the meantime.
It might regret that, a minute later, when Sylvia takes back her human from and tries to get Kirk with flattery. It would have worked, but Spock gets a little bitchy at her, so after an epic staring match with one pissed Vulcan, she takes herself and Kirk to her dining room for some privacy. He still won’t give her the transmuter, though, because he figured out it’s the source of her power. Sylvia complains that by denying her he gives up everything his species desires (i.e. women. She might have done well with another specimen to study for comparison), he complains that she tortured his men (though he was having a lot of fun knocking them around).
Oops, turns out there’s one working phaser left. Who would’ve thought?
But there’s only a minute of running time left. Not time for drama. So Kirk smashes the transmuter on the table, simple as that, and everything disappears, leaving Kirk and the others on the rocky surface of the planet. As Spock, Bones, Scotty and Sulu come over, you can see the fake stones wobble under their feet. Sylvia and Korob return to their original forms of, you guessed it, small flightless birds, and die. Never mind that Korob was dead anyway. They go up in smoke and I can make out just barely the strings of the marionettes.
My cat likes this sight a lot!
Kirk and the music remind everyone that this wasn’t just an illusion because Jackson is dead, then they beam up and leave the planet behind.
We never learn why they went there in the first place.
March 28, 2010
Episode 30: Catspaw
The Enterprise is in orbit around a planet, as it so often is. In this case, from space the planet appears to be a barren rock. No vegetation, no water, just a few clouds to make it look more interesting than, say, a pepple. So far, the most interesting thing about this world is that we learn absolutely nothing about it. No captain’s log, not even a futuristic-sounding-but-meaningless stardate. We’re not getting it, because Captain Kirk is busy. Which has never stopped him before, but I’ll let that slip for once.
I let it slip because the situation is epically dire. Since they came to this world, for whatever reason, they naturally had to beam down a landing party to have a closer look, even though apparently the sensors tell them from space that there is absolutely nothing down there to look at. You have to wonder if they stop by to take a walk on every asteroid they come across. I bet Kirk would, just so he’s got something to do other than sit in his chair all day, but in this case he didn’t go himself. The big surprise of the day: In a rare moment of common sense, the Captain didn’t leave the ship to lead the landing party and take his first officer along, leaving the Enterprise in the capable hands of the Chief Engineer. No, this time he… sent the Chief Engineer. And the helmsman, who also happens to be the resident botanist. The only resident botanist, I would assume, since they send him instead of one who didn’t just take botany as a hobby. Or a geologist, while we’re at it, as the world below appears to host tons and tons and tons of rock, but not a single plant.
The probability of random engines lying around for Scotty to look at also seems rather low. So much for common sense.
Scotty and Sulu have been accompanied by a certain Jackson, who we have never heard from before and who we will never see again. In the beginning, however, we see neither of them, as the landing party appears to be missing and refuses to answer their calls despite being “aware of standard landing party procedure”. The other episodes had me believe the standard landing party procedure translates as “Beam down the captain and be good until the girl is won and the adventure is over.” It appears I was wrong. Apparently it also includes answering calls. Hence Kirk being busy. And worried.
Eventually they receive a reply, but only Jackson hails them, asking to be beamed up and ominously ignoring their questions for the whereabouts of the important people. His call is received by Uhura, who looks particularly lovely today, with two little bird nests in her hair, right over her eyes. Ah, the sixties…
Since Scotty and Sulu can’t be arsed to reply, Kirk orders Jackson to be beamed up once he made it to the transporter room. He also asks Doctor McCoy to join him, perhaps overcome by a sudden moment of precognition, since the man sounded perfectly healthy and not at all scared or nervous or in need of a doctor on the transmission. Perhaps Kirk wants him checked over in case there was something wrong with his ears. When McCoy appears and asks what’s going on, Kirk wisely tells him, “Trouble.” Either that, or Scotty lost his communicator.
Jackson is beamed up by a technician in one of those short-sleeved red jumpsuits that seems to serve no purpose except save fabric. He appears, and to my considerable surprise is not wearing red but gold. As in, commando crew gold. One has to wonder what qualities made him the best choice to send down exploring an unknown planet. Together with the engineer and the pilot…
Jackson looks for all the world like a plastic doll - even the pose is right. One second later there is an epic moment of epic win when he slowly falls over: off the transporter platform and down the stairs, while Kirk watches it happen from a distance of one metre and his only reaction is to jump aside so the man won’t hit him when he crashes down. Way to go, Captain! Bones is a bit ahead of him: he actually moves when he sees Jackson is about to fall, and has the decency to wince when he hits the floor. I guess Kirk is just too cool for that. Or he used his precognitive abilities and saw from the beginning that, despite wearing the wrong colour, the man was dead already. Which he is.
No reason to worry, Jim. The man's just fallen flat on his face right in front of you.
“The man is dead,” Bones states gravely, refusing to say Jim’s name, perhaps because he thinks he’s a shitty captain. Jackson at least seems to think so: despite being dead, he has the balls to tell Kirk that his ship is cursed. But no, apparently he didn’t mean ‘cursed with its captain’, but generally cursed. The “Leave this place or you will all die!” kind of curse. Naturally, Kirk decides to stay.
But only after the credits.
Just before the credits we get a dramatic close up of Jackson’s face and his slightly moving lips. It’s fun to be dead!
The credits are worth mentioning only because these are the first credits that mention not only William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy, but DeForest Kelley as well. In theory, at least, since in theory this was the first episode of the second season. Actually, it was broadcast as the seventh episode of the season, while the fifth one was broadcast as the first. Fortunately there is no ongoing plotline that could be disturbed by the fact that just about no episode is where it originally was supposed to be.
After the credits, we finally get the Captain’s Log, but it only tells us what we already know: Crewman Jackson is dead, for apparently no reason, and Sulu and Scotty are still missing. Since Jackson wasn’t important, they never tried to revive him, and for once Kirk doesn’t feel the need to snap at Bones because he can’t tell the cause of dead. To be fair, he doesn’t have a chance to even try, as Kirk immediately drags him along to follow standard landing party procedure.
That’s right: That one.
Jackson’s warning to leave this place is apparently forgotten, and we now learn what you have to do as a captain if your third and fourth in command are missing: You beam down yourself and take your second in command with you, leaving the ship in the trained hands of “Assistant Chief Engineer DeSalle”. I kid you not.
Naturally, Bones is with them, and considering that Scotty and Sulu are likely dead, judging from Jackson’s fate, that even makes sense for once: Kirk would need him to say the magical words.
For the moment there is no one around, though. Except rocks. And fog that didn’t show up on the sensors. Thinking of the poisonous gasses etc. that might also not have shown up on the sensors, I admire their bravery to beam down there without protection.
After Kirk tests the fog for potential deadliness by walking into it, the other two follow and they wander around for a few seconds before calling the ship for sensor readings. DeSalle, who makes a disturbingly competent commander for a lieutenant who was never seen before (and, you guessed it, will never appear again) transfers the request to Ensign Chekov who, incidentally, appears that moment for the very first time. If we ignore the broadcasting order, that is.
From the way his appearance is handled, you couldn’t guess that he hasn’t been there since the beginning. (Easy to miss, that, even for the writers of The Wrath of Kahn.) Once we have gotten over the shock of his truly epic hair, we begin to understand that according to the sensors, the Original OT3 is the only life form on the entire planet. Bad news for Scotty and Sulu! Fortunately for them, Kirk never learns this, because the transmission ends in white noise.
Fear the tube wig!
McCoy wonders if the fog could have to do with the interference, but Kirk rejects the idea, because it wasn’t his. Instead he states that “something” has to be responsible, which is safely on the vague side but apparently excludes the fog.
Other than the ship, the three of them are reading multiple life forms. Also, they hear voices. Singing. After listening for a while, they are visited by the three witches from Macbeth, who are transparent and floating in the air. Even though there are three witches and three spacemen, they all three of them only address Captain Kirk. The fact that they are singing everything they say makes it hard to understand, but apparently neither of them tells the captain that he’s wearing too much foundation make-up this episode. Instead they remind him of the curse everyone has forgotten about and sing something about wind that will be. Spock is not impressed. I have rarely seen him unimpressed at quiet the same level.
The witches float away. Spock’s comment brings it to the point: “Very bad poetry, Captain.”
Kirk doesn’t consider this helpful.
After Spock tells him what must have been obvious to anyone but Kirk, i.e. that there have not, in fact, really been singing witches floating before them, Kirk is happy, and he’s even more happy when he learns that there are some actual life forms around, even confused ones. But alas! There’s wind, and it blows them back. It blows Kirk dramatically around, from one rock to the other, and Spock and McCoy dramatically into each other’s arms. They hide behind more rocks until Jim is done being dramatic and the wind stops. “A pretty real illusion, Mister Spock,” Bones notes - but a pointless one. Once the wind has died, it doesn’t come back and nothing stops them from going further.
Here Bones makes the find of the day: A giant castle that just happens to stand around there and seems to be surprisingly easy to overlook. This time even Spock looks a little impressed. Kirk suggests that the building might cause the interference in the transmission, but even though it’s Kirk’s idea, Spock considers it wrong. The life forms are inside, but neither they nor the castle are visible to the ship. (How Kirk knows that remains a mystery, though, as Uhura never had a chance to tell him that they seem to be the only ones down there.)
When Kirk suggests that a kind of force field might hide the castle, Bones points out that it would influence Spock’s tricorder too, which it doesn’t. This is not a good day for Kirk’s ideas.
Bravely, they near the castle, accompanied only by the fog and the darkly-dramatic music. Once inside, Kirk is nearly scared to death by a cat that doesn’t appear to approve of their presence. It would totally take on one, even two of them, but three is too much. Mewling, it retreats. Spock obviously would like to run after it. Bones identifies the setting - three witches, castle, black cat - as a terrible cliché, and Kirk thinks of Trick of Treat. Spock doesn’t get it. Kirk thinks he’d be a natural.
After promising to explain it to Spock one day that will never come, Kirk heroically sends his husbands to explore the area while reaming leaning against the doorframe himself and being generally too cool to do anything. Meanwhile, the Enterprise is still in orbit and Chekov’s hair is still epic. By now, he has realised that at this point they have lost all of their important officers. Congratulations.
DeSalle doesn’t seem to mind. That captain’s chair does look comfortable, doesn’t it? And he does look better in it than Kirk, admittedly. Fortunately for him, he got assigned to the USS Enterprise, the only ship that can take out the entire chain of command from Captain to helmsman in one go.
Chekov, however, seems shocked. In imitation of his great role model, James T. Kirk, he speaks with. Dramatic. Pauses. Uhura is worried for Scotty and everyone else and beginning to sound a little pessimistic. DeSalle doesn’t care much - he is secretly convinced that Chekov doesn’t do his job right, and I am secretly with him. The idea of a magnetic field disturbing their sensors comes up. Must be one hell of a magnetic field if it disturbs the sensors so much they can’t even find the field. Once they ruled out malfunctions and Chekov insisted on being old enough to recalibrate his sensors without help (whatever that is supposed to be a euphemism for), they continue to do everything that already didn’t work before.
In the castle, Kirk, Spock and McCoy wander along, following either the sensor readings or Spock’s tingling cat-sense. The cat’s way, however, is accompanied by ominous music. This doesn’t bode well!
The corridor is full of appropriately clichéd torches and spider webs, the latter most likely made of sugar. Kirk looks appropriately apprehensive, while McCoy mostly looks annoyed. Then, right between them and the cat, the ground opens and they fall down. We know this, because there is blurr and they are gone, and then we see a very neat looking hole in the ground, in which the three of them are lying unconscious, but neatly in formation. At the edge of the hole, the cat looks down and says, “LOL.”
In the next scene, we find our heroes hanging from chains in a dungeon, with Kirk and McCoy in the middle between Spock and a Random Skeleton. I think I knew that one from tenth grade biology class. We called it Bob.
Bones and Plastic!Bones.
Kirk wakes up first. After worriedly ascertaining Spock’s wellbeing, he notices that Bones is also present, but somewhat distracted by Bob. Unable to think for himself, Kirk asks Spock for his opinion and learns that, yes, the chains are indeed very real. Bugger.
In the close ups we see that Spock has returned to the green eye shadow and the pink lipstick. I do love a man who can wear make-up with such confidence, especially if the colour of the lipstick so totally goes against the colour the lips of a green-blooded hobgoblin should have. Bones, used to the make-up and concerned with other things for the moment, wonders if this could be an Earth parallel development. (Ah, yes… those. The convenient plot device used to explain why so many civilisations look exactly like Earth of the past, like the Roman Empire Planet, or the Nazi Planet, or (right on top of my WTF-list) the American Civil War Planet. Because it makes sense for so many planets to develop exactly the same way, down to the names of their nations and the design of their banners. Later, the show will kindly develop holodecks and pretend these planets never existed. Also, the fact that the show randomly discovered a way to travel in time in one of the very first episodes makes this one of the most useless plot devices ever.) Kirk thinks this is more like a manifestation of human nightmares, and Spock suggests that whoever created this must know what frightens humans most, on an instinctive level. Thank you, Spock, for confirming that you have absolutely no idea what frightens humans most, because cheesy horror movies = not so frightening. It’s rather for the lulz, something to laugh about with a couple of friends and a couple of beer. No, really.
Then the door opens and there’s something frightening right there: Scotty and Sulu walk in, but Scotty’s pointing a phaser at them (rather pointlessly, considering they are chained to the wall and all) and altogether they look a lot like Jackson has just before he dropped dead. In fact, Sulu looks so much like Jackson you’d think they recycled the actor. (They didn’t.) Kirk, failing to notice anything odd, is quite happy to see them, while Spock tries to deal with his itching back by rubbing against the wall. Bones remains invisible because the camera forgot he exists.
Then Kirk realises that something’s wrong, and McCoy is allowed to state that they look drugged because they don’t blink. “Neither did Jackson,” Spock muses. Yes, genius. That’s because he was dead! Also, Spock can’t actually know that, because he wasn’t there. (Unless the others mentioned this detail to him: “Jackson appeared and he didn’t blink and then he fell over dead.”)
“At least these two are alive,” says Kirk, though he doesn’t really seem convinced. Sulu, other than Scotty, is at least able to answer questions with nodding or shaking his head, although that is not really helpful for questions like “What happened?” At least he’s going to release them with his big, slightly suggestive looking key. He frees McCoy first, who would have had a chance to knock him out and steal the key since Scotty can only look straight ahead, apparently, and wouldn’t have noticed. Then Sulu frees Kirk, then Spock (who as the only one doesn’t rub his wrists but rather straightens his shirt, which wandered up his chest when he rubbed his back against the wall). We see this in great details, because, well, 45 minutes are a long time and they have to be filled with something. The ominous music stays with us the entire time.
After Scotty lets them know they are expected to walk out of the cell, the action heroes Kirk and Spock bravely let Bones go first. But look, there was a plan to that! They want to take out Sulu and Scotty, and because Bones kind of sucks at fighting, the other two have to be last and therefore closest to the enemy (i.e. Zombie!Scotty threatening them with a phaser and Zombie!Sulu, threatening them with the key). Unfortunately, the fight is a brief one, because when someone tells them to stop, they actually do.
The one telling them to stop is a bald guy in a silly, but not entirely castle-appropriate outfit. He complains about humans having to know everything when Kirk asks what’s going on. He, apparently already does know everything, including who Kirk and co. are - a knowledge he seems to share with his cat. In fact, the way he talks to the cat suggests that she told him. It makes him look slightly nutty.
When Kirk asks why they were brought here, the man, Korob, argues that they came by themselves despite having been warned to stay away, and damn if he isn’t right. Kirk still manages to makes it his fault, but not by pointing out that they had abducted two of their men, but by pointing out that they had warned them not to come, so logically they had to come and see why they shouldn’t. Korob keeps talking to his cat like the nice, insane uncle from next door, and then we finally get some information about the planet from Spock: Other starships have been in the system before, and they never noticed any life forms. Which thoroughly fails to explain why the hell the Enterprise even came there in the first place.
Korob admits that they are not native to this planet and then is reminded by his cat that he’s an inattentive host. He invites the Threesome to have seat at the table, all the while Scotty is still pointing his phaser so stiffly I’m beginning to worry he’s going to shoot someone just to remind them he’s not furniture. Unfortunately, at the moment he is.
McCoy notices that the cat is odd, and Spock concludes that it must be a demon pet send by Satan to accompany the wizard, although he denies the accusation of being superstitious. Korob identifies him as the different one, who only sees things in black and white logic (showing that he doesn’t know Spock that well, after all) and doesn’t believe anything he sees. Bones appears to find this funny: “He doesn’t know about trick or treat.” Korob, all knowing as he is, doesn’t get it (probably because his cat doesn’t get it either) and promptly declares it unimportant. He waves his magic wand and food appears, which Kirk approves of. Unfortunately, Bones remembers that Jim’s on diet and declares them collectively not hungry.
Since Korob insists, they sit anyway - apparently on the cat, judging from Spock’s expression. Korob further demonstrates that everyone in the universe, including him and the cat, are aware of McCoy’s alcoholism. You know, the one that doesn’t exists except in fanfics. McCoy looks slightly pissed. He looks even more pissed when Kirk decides to be stubborn and Korob tries to buy their cooperation with jewels that suddenly appear on their plates: as a doctor, he does not recommend eating them. Also, in the 23rd century they can replicate the stuff. Another crack in Korob’s omniscience.
So the attempt to make them leave with riches fails. I kind of find myself wondering why Korob doesn’t simply offer to give back Scotty and Sulu. Perhaps he knows that now Kirk’s in stubborn-mode he doesn’t give a shit about Scotty and Sulu as long as there are questions unanswered.
However, Korob admits that this was all a test: They came despite being warned to stay away, to save their comrades (Another error on his part: they came because they were warned to stay away. The comrades are just a bonus.), they were not frightened (of the cheesy castle, the singing witches and the random wind, I suppose) and they could not be bribed (he assumes - he has nothing to bribe them with). Kirk likes this flattery. Spock and Bones look somewhat impatient. As is the cat, who apparently has to use the litter box. She leaves, and a second later a woman comes in, causing Kirk to rise. From his chair, I mean.
When she comes in, Bones stands as well, because of good manners, and Spock does so too, because everyone else is standing. As a reward, Sylvia, Korob’s colleague, actually acknowledges their presence, while her main attention remains on Captain Kirk. Said captain finally remembers Furniture!Scotty and Sulu, and Sylvia explains that brainwashing humans is simple. She talks about how easy it is to get into a human’s mind because they are so simple and full of too many levels, which is not a contradiction at all. Spock listens in friendly interest. Having gotten away with countless mindfucks because he’s, well, Spock, her smug bragging about mental rape really doesn’t impress him. “Telepathy,” he sums up her elaborate speech, while McCoy finds himself fascinated by her pendant. Sylvia points out that telepathy is only reading minds, not controlling them. Even I would have known that. Spock unimpressedly fails.
But while Spock fails, Kirk attacks Scotty and takes the phaser the poor man is still pointing at them, even though no one’s paid attention to him in ages. I bet Sulu is still holding the key.
Now no longer a threat, Scotty gets pushed away by Kirk - quite unnecessarily so, and probably out of spite. Kirk demands the rest of their equipment back, but this time it’s Sylvia who’s not impressed. Instead, she pulls out a little model of the Enterprise on a chain and tells Kirk and Spock (McCoy is in hibernation somewhere off screen, together with Scotty and Sulu) something about sympathetic magic, that basically means killing people by knowing they’re dead. She offed Jackson like this, and now threatens the rest of the crew the same way. She holds the little model over a candle and Kirk gets his communicator back so he can call the ship for confirmation, while Korob protests Sylvia’s actions and Spock looks funny and slightly nervous. Kirk looks like… Kirk. He’s sporting the very same expression he’s had the entire episode.
On the Enterprise, Kirk’s call nearly gets missed in the red alert. On the bridge, people who do not usually have a place there run around uselessly, but DeSalle kindly comes over to Uhura’s place and informs his captain that the temperature suddenly went up. We also learn that apparently DeSalle doesn’t like Chekov, as he keeps calling him “Mister”. Perhaps he’s just put off by all that hair. In any case, Chekov dramatically declares that they are burning up. Or at least he is: under the wig the temperature must be twice as high as everywhere else.
Kirk gives some brilliant orders to relieve the situation, only to learn that his current replacement is not, in fact, completely stupid and has already tried that. So Jim promises to handle things himself - He grabs the model and yanks it away. Hurray, I think, you’ve saved the ship! Now it’s time to shoot the woman, gather your team and go home!
But what’s that? After Kirk took away her hostages, he hands them back, gives her the phaser and tells her she’s won.
Whut.
At least the ship is safe for the moment. Chekov confirms this, telling everyone the temperature is dropping fast and almost back to normal. They need him to tell them, because they look just as hot as before, especially Uhura. (But then, Uhura is always hot.)
Since Kirk also gave the communicator away, they can’t hail him again. At least now they know the team’s still alive, so DeSalle won’t decide to declare them dead and fuck off with the Enterprise.
Korob wants to know more about the visitor’s science, and we learn by Kirk’s clever observation that he is quite different from Sylvia, who wants to exercise power rather than learn. Also, she calls their science magic, while Korob calls is science. Kirk calls it neither, as they seem to do with their minds what Kirk and co. do with tools. Korob wants to explain it, but Sylvia decides he’s talking too much. He also wears too much make up.
This is another form of torture!
During all this, Bones used his time off screen for some thinking, and finally asks how Sylvia and Korob knew they’d come if they kept Scotty and Sulu. Now we learn that Scotty and Sulu are quite naïve: “We didn’t have to know; they knew,” Koros says, which is sweet, and it breaks my heart to think how the two of them would feel if they knew that at least Kirk forgot on at least three occasions that they even existed. (And am I the only one who finds it amusing that the captain himself, the first officer and the CMO came to save Scotty and Sulu, but no one bothers to come and save the captain, the first officer and the CMO?)
Sylivia still doesn’t want Korob to talk; apparently they only get along when she’s a cat. Now she demands answers, but Kirk refuses to give them, convinced that now they contacted the ship, a search party will come to rescue them soon. The threat the two aliens present to him and his ship is already forgotten, as is the fact that he didn’t warn the potential search party of what to expect down there. After all, Kirk, Spock and McCoy once started as a search party too.
But the redshirts that would have been beamed down are in luck: Korob remembers these things and puts the little Enterprise in a block of plastic: safe, but useless. Chekov, on the ship, declares that they are inside some kind of force field that came out of nowhere and keeps them from doing anything. DeSalle is standing beside him, completely motionless in that way that says “One more word, and I’m going to throttle you!” Chekov keeps talking.
Sylvia also remembered something: They can control minds, so getting the information she wants does not depend on Kirk’s cooperation. She warns him, though: Extracting information is extremely painful, and leaves you a zombie. Her looks indicate that they did that with Scotty and Sulu, but apparently their either skipped the information bit with them and went straight to zombie, or Scotty and Sulu knew less about science and technical details than Kirk.
The next bit is so predictable it hurts: Scotty gets his phaser back and is ordered to escort the others back to their cell, but as they leave, Sylvia tells McCoy to stay behind to have his mind flayed. Kirk makes a heroic attempt to protest, while Spock does absolutely nothing. In fact, he seems rather impatient to leave. So in the end Kirk and Spock leave without Bones, while Bones obviously thinks that he could have done without this particular share of screen time. The music agrees with him: “Well,” it says. “Suck’s to be you.”
I was right, by the way: Sulu is still holding the key.
Meanwhile on the Enterprise: DeSalle wants a wavelength analysis from Chekov, Chekov can’t analyse shit. So DeSalle calls engineering and tells them in elaborate words to fire all they’ve got at the force field they can’t analyse, because if they can’t break it, they can at least put a dent in it. I love how he says it with such drama, as if a dent in the still unbroken force field would actually be of any use.
In their cell, Kirk tries to prove that he is sexier than Spock when rubbing his back against the wall, with debatable success. He asks Spock how long “it” has been and reacts slightly pissed when Spock can tell him to the second. What has been twenty-two something minutes remains unclear. If they are talking about the time since they got delivered back to the cell, they needed damn long to get settled. My guess is it’s been that long since they first beamed down. That could be about right.
Kirk's bringing sexy back!
Kirk wonders what the aliens are doing with Bones. Since the alien told him in detail what they would do with Bones, he just proves that he didn’t listen.
Leaning closer in his chains, Spock tells Kirk that it seems the aliens thought this environment was actually normal for their species, because they try to reach the human consciousness for information but hit the subconscious level instead. So they got deep into the “race memory” of Kirk, McCoy, Scotty and Sulu and found castles. And chains. And cats. (Though I suspect the cat was actually provided by Spock.)
The camera makes sure to catch Bob the Random Skeleton every now and then, probably so Kirk and Spock won’t feel the loss of Bones. Unfortunately, the better quality of the remastered episodes very clearly shows the seams of the plastic bones. On the other hand, perhaps the subconscious of the human race demands plastic. It wouldn’t surprise me.
Kirk eyes Bob with a speculative look on his face, then looses interest when he decides that, no, the real Bones is better. He agrees with Spock that the aliens have to be completely alien, and decides not to like them. The consent is that they have to be stopped. It is also agreed that they are stuck, with the chains and all.
Fortunately, the key returns with Sulu and the much missed McCoy, who has been brainwashed like the others. Since it was pronounced beforehand, this should come as no surprise, even to Kirk. Still, his reaction to this is kind of heartbreaking.
Yet, when McCoy manhandles him toward the door, Kirk is scandalized. He clearly prefers things the other way round.
Meanwhile, Sylvia and Korob discuss the way of the world. We learn, in case we missed it so far, that Sylvia is the Evil Twin here: she likes the new human bodies they have (because of course human bodies are better than any other shape the universe might come up with) and the power they have. She also discovered that torturing people is a kink of hers and that she’d like to squash Korob, which doesn’t even seem to surprise him. Neither does it prompt him to take any actions against her, though.
“I have the power!”
When McCoy and Scotty take Kirk to them (with the key trailing after), Sylvia sends Korob away with the brainwashed ones so she’ll be alone with Kirk and her newfound human sensations. Can you tell where this is going?
First of all, though, Kirk accuses her of not being a woman, because women should have compassion (period) and she doesn’t. But she insists she is, now, and wants to learn more about power from him, in a very physical way, while Korob watches through the wall behind her chair. Despite him not being especially well hidden, Sylvia of course misses his presence and goes on to tell Kirk how she will dispose of him. The only one she won’t destroy is Kirk, because power apparently equals being touched by him, and naturally she has totally fallen for him. In a slightly creepy, oddly emotionless way. But still. Because it is The Kirk. And now she wants mindsex, the way he only ever has it with Spock.
Kirk seems okay with it. Actually, he seems a little too enthusiastic to be believable, but even though we have to give him the benefit of doubt and assume he’s faking it, it could also simply be Shatner overacting just a little. Or both. Anyway, after some touching and kissing in that odd, passionately chaste way of the sixties, he calls her beautiful, which causes her to show him that she can assume the shape of any woman - for no reason at all, as things have been going well for her as she was.
Anyway, according to the smile of his face, Kirk seems to like that ability of hers. What a surprise. He probably wonders if she can turn into a female Spock or Bones, so his attraction to them would not longer confuse his sexual orientation.
After another sample, she turns back into the form she had in the beginning. Kirk finds it hard to choose, but snogs her anyway, and goes on rubbing his face against her in a disturbingly unsexy way while questioning her about her home world and the transmuter and how it works. We learn that people can only ever have fun if they know what sex is.
Lady, you are not learning it there.
Beware! If you torture Captain Kirk's friends, he will eat your face.
She realises that, actually. After deciding that she and Kirk are pretty much married to each other now, she suddenly gets that Kirk is using her, causing Shatner to overact even more. Getting hysterical, she threatens to kill him, his crew, his world, yadda, yadda. Kirk says “Fine, I’ll just stay with my brainwashed friends” and wanders off.
Sulu is still running after them with the key. Sadly enough, George Takei rarely had as much screen time as in this episode.
On the Enterprise, Chekov and DeSalle happily take note of the dent they put in the force field, which for some reason only Uhura can’t see, because she’s a woman or something. Anyway, the dent is as useless as they said it would be because as discussed before it can’t break the field, but Chekov gets orders to put up more of an effort. Apparently he’s now in charge of engineering. Since Scotty is gone and his assistant is in command of the Enterprise, Chekov now gets the job of the assistant.
Well, at least they all got some screen time.
Pointless screen time, admittedly, as we switch to the cell in the castle, where Korob frees Kirk and Spock from their chains (but cruelly leaves Bob) and tells them that he freed their ship from the block. (“[…] although they would have freed themselves soon” - so we won’t get the impression that they are completely useless.)
He hands them their weapons back and tells them that, basically, adopting a human form has turned Sylvia into a power mad nymphomaniac who wants to kill them all. He also mentions the transmuter, but we still get no explanation for that, as they are attacked by the cat in the corridor. Only, the cat is now much larger and wants to eat them. It causes Kirk to frown a little.
Spock finds it fascinating.
Apparently cats are “the most ruthless, most terrifying of animals”, or so Spock says. He should tell that to my cat. But she wouldn’t be listening to him, being too busy hiding in fear.
My cat is terrifying only to very small, flightless birds. Of course, considering the original form of Korob and Sylvia, this almost makes sense.
Kirk discovers that the phasers are out of energy and have been all along. “We could have jumped Scott and Sulu at any time.” Note how he doesn’t say they could have jumped Bones. Too close to the truth, perhaps?
Korob insists that she’s his problem and ushers them away to heroically sacrifice himself. The heroic sacrifice occurs when they try to escape through the room they originally landed in when falling through the floor. Kirk helps Spock up through the hole and prepares to follow, while Korob stands guard with only a door between him and the giant cat and yells “Get back, get back!” Great plan! I’m shocked it didn’t work.
Predictably, the door gives in and crushes him. It creates an opening too small for the cat to get through at her current size, so yeah. His sacrifice was heroic, and singularly senseless. The cat scuffles off and Kirk takes the transmuter staff and gets pulled up by Spock, only to be attacked by Bones with a medieval weapon that’s just a little too heavy for scrawny McCoy to use effectively - despite being actually made of plastic. While Kirk kicks him around the place, Spock gets attacked by Scotty, who has a similar weapon but more muscles. (Either that, or James Doohan forgot that it was supposed to be heavy.)
Without much effort, Kirk knocks out Bones and cuddles him a little to show he’s sorry. I don’t believe him. You’ll see why.
The touching moment is disturbed by Sulu, who wants a piece of the action even though he’s got no weapon and Korob took his key. No problem for Sulu: he attacks Kirk with this martial arts, so Kirk drops Bones and fights him while Spock nerve pinches Scotty into oblivion. After Sulu’s managed to knock himself out on the door, Bones gets back up, so Kirk brings him back down without so much as a By Your Leave. Poor Jim: he hurts his fist when it connects with McCoy’s face. Otherwise, he seems to enjoy himself quite a bit.
As does Spock.
Before they can collect their unconscious team and wander off, the cat comes back. Or rather, its shadow on the wall and its rather annoying hiss come back. Kirk realises that the transmuter might be a good weapon, so he runs off to where Spock left it lying on the floor. Fortunately, the cat patiently waits for him to return and refrains from eating Spock in the meantime.
It might regret that, a minute later, when Sylvia takes back her human from and tries to get Kirk with flattery. It would have worked, but Spock gets a little bitchy at her, so after an epic staring match with one pissed Vulcan, she takes herself and Kirk to her dining room for some privacy. He still won’t give her the transmuter, though, because he figured out it’s the source of her power. Sylvia complains that by denying her he gives up everything his species desires (i.e. women. She might have done well with another specimen to study for comparison), he complains that she tortured his men (though he was having a lot of fun knocking them around).
Oops, turns out there’s one working phaser left. Who would’ve thought?
But there’s only a minute of running time left. Not time for drama. So Kirk smashes the transmuter on the table, simple as that, and everything disappears, leaving Kirk and the others on the rocky surface of the planet. As Spock, Bones, Scotty and Sulu come over, you can see the fake stones wobble under their feet. Sylvia and Korob return to their original forms of, you guessed it, small flightless birds, and die. Never mind that Korob was dead anyway. They go up in smoke and I can make out just barely the strings of the marionettes.
My cat likes this sight a lot!
Kirk and the music remind everyone that this wasn’t just an illusion because Jackson is dead, then they beam up and leave the planet behind.
We never learn why they went there in the first place.
March 28, 2010