18. Arena. Arena asks you to reflect on your feelings about vengeance. Arena asks what justice is worth. Arena asks if you’re a proponent of ironic punishments. Arena asks if you will continue to watch, and genuinely like, an old TV show that features a creature with a truly ridiculous mask, costume, and roar. Arena asks, “Who would win in a fight between a really strong thing that’s super slow, and a relatively weak thing that’s much faster?” Arena asks if you can recognize white powders merely by glancing at them on a monitor. Arena asks if you know the chemical composition of gunpowder. But mostly, Arena is a test of whether or not you will like classic Trek. Universally accessible themes and iconic characters BUT a reliance on special effects that are cheesy but still highlighted as though they are not, highly questionable science (but at least an attempt at it), and lots of fightin’/scrappin’. This is what Trek IS. You like all of those things unironically or you do not like the show.

Me, I LOVE Arena. To me, it’s one of the Three Classic Iconic Episodes of the show, with Amok Time and The Trouble With Tribbles. But I know it’s got some problems. The Gorn is really laughable. The puzzle element to it is terrific, but the “clues” for it are pointless.

My main question about Arena is: does it belong in the category of things that you cannot begin to like as an adult? You either experience them growing up, and earn a soft spot for them, or you don’t, and by the time you’re old you’re not going to be able to appreciate them. I think Monty Python and the Holy Grail and video games are things like this. I suspect Arena is, too.

Killer Spock line: none. But I love when he’s watching Kirk’s battle on the monitor and sees the scattering of white powder, and instantly knows how to win the fight. What? I don’t know a lot about chemistry, but I know there are an awful lot of things that come in the form of white powder. Plus we better gloss over that if everything was a test of ingenuity, Vulcans would completely destroy humanity. Overall: 5 out of 5.

Trek tropes:

• Anonymous redshirt killed

19. Tomorrow is Yesterday. A memorable time travel-story, and pretty fun, but chock full of logical flaws that derail it. Classic Trek has a way of doing stuff like this that drives me crazy. They acknowledge the moral dilemmas and spend lots of dramatic time debating things, then go right ahead and mess everything up anyway. See: every episode that deals with the prime directive. Also see: this episode, and any discussion related to not letting the 20th-century dudes know about their futures. For instance, Spock, after venting all kinds of concerns about letting Capt. Christopher know anything about the future, goes ahead and lets him know they need to get him back to Earth because he’ll be having a son down the road. Kirk & Co. realize it’d be better to just keep the next guy they accidentally beam up in the transporter room. Eventually they realize they can just Vulcan neck pinch everyone and save themselves a lot of hassle. I don’t even want to get into the crazy getting-back-to-the-present physics. But then again, they have laid the groundwork for how easy it is to accidentally time travel if you have a starship. Killer Spock line–McCoy: “Shouldn’t you be working on your time warp calculations, Mr. Spock?” Spock (apparently just standing around): “I am.” Overall: 3 out of 5.

Trek tropes:

• Recent Earth history will always be relevant
• In the future, computers are magic, but still make teletype sounds
• Highly experimental plan with low probability of success somehow works anyway
• Lighthearted banter to close episode

20. Court Martial. A very strong entry for Trek: unusually tightly plotted, and a good character piece for most of the principals. Mostly I just have notes for this one.

Fun stuff:

• The Lawyer (Elisha Cook) is awesome. He goes on this great rant about how great books are, because it’s the only way you can really find anything and computers are terrible. His skill at digging the context and meaning out of books has made him the lawyer he is. I couldn’t agree more*.
• Kirk has a Starfleet Citation for Conspicuous Gallantry. That is just the best.
• I like how Spock proves the computer is malfunctioning by defeating it multiple times at space chess. (There’s an editing snafu there, for fun, or which contributes to his victory–he makes two moves in a row.)
• Uhura takes over piloting the ship during an emergency. This is a pretty huge deal, and it’s too bad they don’t do more with this. I mean, if she’s capable of piloting the ship, that implies that her position as communications officer is a choice, right? All too often they portray Sulu or Spock as being mega awesome and Uhura as a glorified secretary, so this was good to see.

Weird stuff:

• Everyone’s really upset about the death of some crewman, which is odd because a redshirt dies in like every episode.
• Kirk has a special button on his Captain’s chair, right where his hand rests, specifically for jettisoning an important pod. Don’t accidentally hit the “jettison pod” button that’s located right at your fingertips! It will lead to a court martial! And sure enough, it sure does cause him some trouble! (This should be the plot for a Red Dwarf episode rather than Trek, I think.)
• Kirk boasts that the computer can boost audio by “One to the fourth power.” One to the fourth power is, uh, one, Mr. Conspicuous Gallantry.
• Finney is supposedly Kirk’s classmate but is like 20 years older than Kirk.

I particularly like the Killer Spock Line this time around because they still haven’t established whether Spock is a “Vulcan” or a “Vulcanian”: “I am half Vulcanian. Vulcanians do not speculate. I speak from pure logic. If I let go of a hammer on a planet that has a positive gravity, I need not see it fall to know that it has in fact fallen.” Overall: 4 out of 5.

Trek tropes:

• Anonymous redshirt killed
• Kirk meets up with an old flame
• In the future, computers are magic, but still make teletype sounds
• Enemy allowed easy access to highly sensitive area of the ship
• Even in interstellar space, the best way to resolve problems is with your fists
• Lighthearted banter to close episode

21. The Return of the Archons.

I briefly got K to watch Trek with me a few years ago, but she inevitably fell asleep whenever we watched. (60s TV pacing: she is no fan.) I have fallen asleep to my share of these, but “The Return of the Archons” did the trick quicker than usual. All I remember is that the crew runs around this Earth-like place just about forever trying to get a meeting with the alien leader. I was sort of dreading getting back to this episode, knowing it was pretty boring. So I’m not going to bother, and I’m moving on. Deal with it, Return of the Archons.

*Maybe relevant: I’m a professional librarian.

14. Balance of Terror. Something I don’t like about TOS is that many of the episodes don’t really make any attempts to write a new story. There might be a twist ending of a sort, the usual fashion being when we learn that the driving force behind an antagonist is actually an evil computer, or a child, or whatever. Quite often that’s intentional, though. There aren’t surprises. The plots are very straightforward. Trek owes a lot to other popular genres of the time, namely Westerns. A problem is encountered, and because they’re the best, they push through and right the wrong. That’s not necessarily bad, I’m saying. It’s just that once it’s set up, you know how this one is going to go, more or less. Because you’ve seen it already–if you’ve seen any WWII submarine thriller ever. There will be a lot of military tactics, and the two commanders will mutter lots of things about how much respect they have for their opponent in this chess match slash cat-and-mouse game slash battle of wills. The episode is quite good anyway, tense and absorbing and well-acted, if ultimately an homage. Though it doesn’t help matters that there’s a terrible cliche in the very first scene. Kirk is about to marry a young happy couple and just as he starts, there’s an emergency. They have to put things on hold to sort out the extremely dangerous thing that’s about to happen in which hopefully neither of the betrothed will be ironically killed. Spoiler: one of them is ironically killed. Killer Spock Spock’s Dad line (from Mark Lenard, who is better known as Spock’s father Sarek, as the Romulan Captain): “He’s a sorcerer, that one! He reads the thoughts in my brain!” Overall: blah blah above, but still a classic episode in the series. 5 out of 5.

Trek tropes:

• Really nothing, but I’m going to lump Mr. Groom’s death into the ‘Anonymous redshirt killed’ category just because the death could not be less surprising

15. Shore Leave. Deeply flawed but thoroughly entertaining. This one starts off with a tremendously awkward scene where Kirk is fidgeting on account of a sore back. He’s also having a conversation with Spock, but he’s so twitchy that Yeoman Barrows dives right in and starts massaging him in his chair. Kirk doesn’t bat an eye but for some reason assumes Spock is doing the massaging. Why would ANYONE be doing the massaging, much less the coldly dispassionate Vulcan? I guess the idea is just to introduce Yeoman Barrows as a slightly less annoying Yeoman Rand, though only because that’s such an easy competition. We get to spend the rest of the episode rolling our eyes at this terrible character, whose highest dream is apparently to be dragged off by Don Juan while wearing Princess clothing. (We miss you, Helen Noel.) In her defense, all the characters have their deepest wishes become known, though, as the Enterprise visits a planet where every thought becomes reality. Sulu, as we already know from The Naked Time, is a warrior at heart who finds a loaded gun and battles a samurai. McCoy gets to go along with Yeoman Barrows’ princess fantasy, and he later materializes with a cabaret dancer on each arm. Kirk gets to whale on an old Academy nemesis, a character astoundingly Even More Irish than Lt. Riley. (I wonder why a show that made such strides towards racial equality let itself have so much fun insulting the Irish. Was this the socially acceptable outlet for ’60s white guys?) And seriously, their fight (actually their SECOND fight) might go on longer than the Rowdy Roddy Piper/Keith David fracas. Anyway, as a whole, “Shore Leave” is a wild one. It doesn’t really have a story so much as a bunch crazy bunch of stuff that happens until time’s up and the proprietor reveals himself and everyone has a good laugh. Killer Spock line: “To me it is quite illogical to run up and down on green grass using energy instead of saving it.” Overall: 4 out of 5.

Trek tropes:

• We make fun of the Irish because we love those drunken rabblerousers
• Even in interstellar space, the best way to resolve problems is with your fists
• Kirk meets up with an old flame
• Lighthearted banter to close episode

16. The Galileo Seven. It’s important to remember that Trek isn’t really a sci-fi show. It’s really just a western set in space. The plots and themes line up much better. I guess the Enterprise is like a traveling band of vigilantes or a law enforcement posse or something. U.S. Marshals? I risk overdoing this analogy. Anyway, they go about solving problems and righting injustices, whether it’s on the 19th century United States frontier or the edge of explored space, it’s the same deal, ‘cept with lasers. I believe this because unlike it’s later-generation brethren, science and logic are generally glossed over in favor of action. “The Galileo Seven” displays another symptom, its lousy treatment of nerds. Spock commands a small shuttle crew which ends up stranded on a dangerous world, and Spock finds himself in his first crisis of command. (Worth noting that the shuttle has a crew of seven–hence the episode title–which is like, the same number of regulars that seem to be needed to run the Enterprise. I’m always happy when we see more Federation working stiffs other than security guards.) Of course he wants to do all the logical things to get the shuttle operational again and save the most possible lives. But while his actions look good on paper, his dispassionate approach rubs the crew the wrong way, even to the point of mutiny. Of course, logic doesn’t really work when trying to control the actions of illogical humans (and caveman monsters, or whatever the heck the bad guys are in this one), and he just ends up pissing everyone off without really solving all the problems. It’s a well-written episode, genuinely suspenseful, and hits right at the logic/passion theme of the series, although the difference here is that for better or worse it picks a clear winner and really hammers it home. (The AV Club review nails it, calling the episode a “fixed fight”.) Generally these things are much more ambiguous. Not this time. Kirk’s human stubbornness totally pays off, completely glossing over his delay delivering medicine to a plague-ridden colony. Worth repeating: he dragged his feet delivering medicine to a diseased colony in favor of hoping a few members of his crew would somehow, against all odds, not be dead. Meanwhile Spock’s Vulcan logic gets thrown right back in his face. At the end, he even gets hounded by the entire bridge crew about showing some emotion, like the smartest but most socially inept kid in class. As a bonus, we learn later in the series that any emotional displays are deeply embarrassing to him. Kirk even defends Spock over the matter. So basically, we are seeing Spock get humiliated by a bunch of jocks. Nice. Killer Spock line: “It is more rational to sacrifice one life than six, doctor.” Bones: “I’m not talking about rationality.” Spock: “You might be wise to start. ” Overall: a very good episode tainted a bit by some logical flaws (that’s right, LOGICAL flaws) 4 out of 5.

Trek tropes:

• Anonymous redshirt yellowshirt killed (eh, close enough)
• Highly experimental plan with low probability of success somehow works anyway. Actually two of them! Although only one ends up working, I guess. Scotty wants to fly a shuttle using phaser batteries and Kirk wants to randomly beam down to a planet in hopes of landing near the stranded crew.
• Lighthearted banter to close episode

17. The Squire of Gothos. I feel like I’ve seen this episode a million times. The crew gets trapped by a brash but bored alien that demands entertainment and stimulation. Kirk feels like there’s some danger because he can’t quite know what the antagonist is capable of, but ultimately he just sort of stalls by appealing to the bad guy’s base nature. Eventually Kirk wins. Worse, the reveal here turns out to be the same thing they just pulled in The Corbomite Maneuver: the villain is but a child. I’m really bored by these kinds of episodes. This is a quintessential “Badger the alien until you get what you want.” Meanwhile, we are subjected to forty minutes of boasting and threats. On the other hand it DOES faithfully re-create the experience of getting trapped in a conversation you can’t escape from. Some highlights:

• At one point Spock sends some crew members to the planet, but says that neither he nor Scotty can be spared. What? Since when do essential crew NOT beam down to a planet?
• Once in a while I read something about stories that couldn’t have happened in the modern era of cell phone ubiquity. But in Star Trek, where they have communicators, they go dead or are jammed pretty much every episode. If Trek is any indication, I don’t think we’re going to lose drama in the future, even with cell phones. There is always an easy way to negate this problem.
• I like one line when Trelane gets mad and yells, “You’re all dead men!” Then, to Kirk, “You especially!” Especially…dead? Like, extra dead?

Killer Spock line: “I object to you. I object to intellect  without discipline. I object to power without constructive purpose.” Overall: I really couldn’t wait for this one to be over. It’s not bad like third-season bad, but, 2 out of 5.

Trek tropes:

• Badger alien until you get what you want
• Recent Earth history will always be relevant
• Lighthearted banter to close episode

9. Dagger of the Mind. The best reason to apply a sci-fi theme to your dirt-cheap 1960s TV show? INVISIBLE SPACE POWERS. Things that happen in space are mysterious! Telepathy. Psychokinesis. Space madness. TOS excels at all of these things. You kinda never even think about it, until you read about a given show’s production or listen to a commentary track and there are about a million instances of “The producers decided to have [character] do [some weird thing requiring no special effects] because the actors could just pretend it was happening and it was cheap.” “Dagger of the Mind” is all about Invisible Space Powers. The whole thing is space crazy time. But it’s fine, really. It just continues to establish some of the Trek conventions we will get very used to over time. The bigger issue is that this is a mystery episode with no mystery. TOS doesn’t really do the mystery thing well like TNG did. You know the main guy they meet is going to turn out bad, no matter how nice he seems. You know the mysterious machine that has never malfunctioned before is going to malfunction. It’s all good though: where TNG was about ideas, TOS is about execution. Anyway, pretty familiar Trek fare on the dangers of technology. The nice Doctor has a weird machine that could be used for therapy, but he explains that they really don’t use it because his assistant fried his own brain with it, so never mind that, let’s move on with the tour! Of course, Kirk wouldn’t be Kirk if he just let stuff like that slide. So they figure out the danger pretty quick, because the time for talk is through and we’re ready for some action, like climbing through access vents and a whole lot of Space Madness. Listen, if you don’t want to see people go space crazy then this is not the show for you, but “Dagger of the Mind” is a little thick with it. There’s just really a whole lot of ranting (especially from Morgan Woodward, who would come back in ep. 52 to be another crazy guy) here. That aside, there are a lot of good ideas and it’s fairly well-paced. Spock does his first ever Vulcan mind-meld (he doesn’t have the technique down yet). Dr. Noel might be the best female character in the series so far. Don’t worry though, we’ll never see her again and there’s lots more Vacantly Staring Yeoman Rand on tap. Killer Spock line: “Interesting. You Earth People glorified violence for forty centuries. But you imprison those who employ it privately.” Zing, Earth People, zing. Overall: 4 out of 5.

Trek tropes:

• Kirk meets up with an old flame
• Spock displays Vulcan superpower never really seen again
• Invisible Space Powers

10. The Corbomite Maneuver. Certainly the best TV episode ever about a maneuver. But the ceiling has not been set all that high, so if you have other maneuver-based fiction, do not lose hope. Ultimately this episode is just weird. It was only the third one produced so they hadn’t really ironed everything out yet, maybe. Let’s start there. They spend a lot of time establishing some of the routines on the ship – we learn lots about Kirk’s physical health and his dietary needs, for example. This must have been before the producers realized that’s pretty boring. A salad is still a salad, even if you’re eating it in space and Kirk calls them “green leaves.” It’s also a classic Dangerous Encounter in Space episode. This time, they encounter a cube. Yes, a cube. Thought it does rotate and has its own music. (I love how when Spock pipes the video feed of it to Kirk’s quarters, he also gets to hear its music.) Then they destroy it. And a much bigger ship shows up to tell them it was his probe and now he thinks humans are terrible and is going to blow them up. Kirk pulls a brave gambit…a maneuver, if you will…and gets away. And learns the truth behind the aliens’ facade, which is Clint Howard as the creepiest child ever. I kind of felt like most of this show just didn’t really work. They tried to fit in a lot of character moments, but they seemed flat, save for the McCoy-Kirk stuff. The “Lt. Bailey can’t handle this stuff” was a bit of a dead end, to me. All that said, the episode certainly wasn’t boring. The Corbomite Maneuver is actually a pretty clever maneuver. And there’s a lot that’s memorable: the horribly fake-looking alien that we learn actually is horribly fake, Clint Howard’s frightening performance and offering of tranya, and the line, “You have ten Earth Periods, known as minutes…” (“We better make it sound science fictiony! Call them Earth Periods! But so it’s not confusing, note that they mean minutes, and not femtoseconds or decades.”) Killer Spock line: “[Adrenaline] sounds most inconvenient however. I’d consider having it removed.” Overall: 3 out of 5.

Trek tropes:

• Strange probe encountered in space
• Only Kirk can truly make command decisions

11/12. The Menagerie. Since it’s such an unusual entry I’m not really going to provide a full-on review of this one short of saying it might be the best clip show ever. Just a ridiculously clever re-use of the otherwise useless original pilot. It doesn’t actually have the best reputation but I totally dig it. Overall: 5 out of 5.

Trek tropes:

• Enemy allowed easy access to highly sensitive area of the ship
• In the future, computers are magic, but still make teletype sounds

13. The Conscience of the King. Another really good one. TOS season one is SO MUCH BETTER than season three. Man. Even the worst episode of these four is better than almost everything in that miserable final season. “The Conscience of the King” is a terrifically written and acted bit of Shakespeare homage. It got a little heavy-handed with the Shakespeare at the end just to remind us all that it was being really, really literary, but that can be forgiven with the more reasonable application everywhere else. Star Trek VI definitely owes some of itself to this one. I’ll be lazy and not bother developing any kind of theme for this one. Instead I’ll just point out some highlights:

• The Star Trek lounge music playing during the party season. It’s the Trek them, just lounged up. Awesome. I’ll also note that this is the second episode of the last three that I’d love to link to a clip of the music but the only Trek allowed on YouTube, apparently, is some annoying guy narrating short versions of the episodes.
• The first really top-notch Spock/McCoy “Humans rule/Vulcans drool” scene.
• Extremely Proud of His Irish Heritage Lt. Riley in an extremely rare secondary character re-appearance. Then he dies.
• The never-used-again call for “Double Red Alert”. OMG DANGER!!!!

Killer Spock line: None, but highly enjoyable facial expressions as he overhears Kirk hitting on Lenore. Overall: 5 out of 5.

Trek tropes:

• In the future, computers are magic, but still make teletype sounds
• Kirk hits it off with alien babe (let’s take a moment to clarify this doesn’t mean a woman of some weird gross space race, it just means, some girl who isn’t a part of the crew)
• We make fun of the Irish because we love those drunken rabblerousers
• Enemy allowed easy access to highly sensitive area of the ship

5. The Enemy Within. This is: the one where a transporter malfunction splits Kirk into Good Kirk and Evil Kirk. Generally it’s a winner but two things in particular about this episode mark Trek’s age. (I mean, there’s a lot about every episode that’s dated, but most of that stuff I’m fine with.) The first and foremost is pacing. Most every episode suffers from slow pacing, at least measured in 2012 TV time, when we simply expect quick pacing and multi-threaded storylines. Trek usually has one storyline and takes its time with it. Not to mention that that shows have a 50-minute running time, and us modern kids are conditioned to like 45 minutes max. I knew I was in trouble with this one when they knew that there was a good an evil Kirk running around at we were only 12 minutes in. “What are they going to DO for the next 38 minutes?” I thought. Turns out, about 20 minutes’ worth of stuff. It’s one thing to be slow, it’s another when it doesn’t even service the story. There was a serious time crisis going down with dudes freezing on a planet’s surface but they kept having measured conversations about how they might resolve it at some point. Sulu was had to be furious if he ever read the ship’s logs later on. Moving on, the second sign of age is something that’s cropped up in a few other episodes, namely “The Deadly Years” (the one where they all get old), the absolute respect of Captain Kirk’s authority. Sure, he’s the Captain and you’re supposed to obey him at all times, even if his motivations don’t immediately make sense. But another thing the modern era has ruined in us kids is such an absolute respect. Way fewer of us ever served in the armed forces, and we’ve all seen way too many movies about corrupt authority or mutinies. It doesn’t make any sense to me that Kirk would remain in charge when he’s clearly enfeebled or split into two separate humans, one of which is evil. But the clear message is that even then, crossing the line of thinking he’s incapable of command is forbidden and rather scandalous. “The Deadly Years” wasted a huge chunk of time holding a hearing about it. They don’t spend that kind of time here, but there are still a lot of wasted words spent trying to get everyone to feel that maybe, you know, it’s OK if Kirk steps down for a little while during the time when his brain doesn’t work. Maybe another sign of age here, though again it’s just sort of the way TV was I guess, is that it’s yet another episode with kinda OK sexual harassment. This is, what, the third episode out of five so far where Yeoman Rand is relentlessly harangued? Evil Kirk is responsible this time around, assaulting her in her own quarters. She fights him off but is obviously rattled by it, of course. Only the show has no idea how to resolve things. Maybe a conversation between Rand and Kirk where she makes it clear it was very upsetting and she knows it wasn’t really Kirk, but all the same, if he could steer clear for a while, that would be polite. No, we don’t get that. Instead we get a weird line from Spock after all is settled: “The imposter had some very interesting qualities, wouldn’t you say, Yeoman?” What? Is this conversation? Is this even legal? Is he suggesting that Kirk’s crazed animal-man side is something girls should dig? That line is baffling. (Memory Alpha has a bit about how the actress who played Rand agrees.) Killer Spock line:”If I seem insensitive to what you’re going through, understand, it’s the way I am.” Overall: obviously some flaws but a solid story that covers a lot of ground. 4 out of 5.

Trek tropes:

• Shatner Showcase
• Enemy allowed easy access to highly sensitive area of the ship
• Highly experimental plan with low probability of success somehow works anyway

6. Mudd’s Women. Well, that last episode had some sexist overtones, hopefully this next one will have a more progressive attitude…aw, hell. TOS, for all your progressive views on race and multiculturalism and peace, you just really don’t know what to do with yourself in the realm of sexual equality. Sure, women can have real jobs on starships (not captain though!) if they’re into that sort of thing but otherwise they’re pretty cool with being sold as wives to miners on desolate wasteland planets. Somehow this episode has a pretty positive reputation, but I didn’t like it much. There’s one good sci-fi idea of a youth-preserving drug, but the direction they take it is very odd, and mostly I see this one as wasted potential. It should be kind of funny, but it isn’t. It should be kind of character-driven surrounding Mudd and the women, but it isn’t that either. Mudd is memorable but feels like he should be more of a lovable rapscallion (a la Cyrano Jones from “The Trouble With Tribbles”) but instead he’s just kind of a sleazebag. I think this is one that people can remember like The One Where They All Get Old or The One Where They Are 1920s Chicago Gangsters, where the fact that it’s memorable must mean it’s good, but that’s really not the case. I do like one bit of trivia about it–it was one of the very first episodes produced and was under consideration as the “second” pilot. But NBC postponed airing it because they were concerned about its central theme of (per Memory Alpha and Inside Star Trek) “selling women throughout the galaxy” and the guest stars being “an intergalactic pimp” and “three space hookers”. But by the sixth episode I guess that was fine. Killer Spock line: “I’m happy the affair is over. A most annoying emotional episode.” Overall: 2 out of 5.

Trek tropes:

• Kirk hits it off with alien babe
• “Doctor” McCoy admits he has no idea how Vulcan physiology works
• Lighthearted banter to close episode

7. What are Little Girls Made Of? Watching the third season before this one again gets weird because I’ve seen the main theme presented here before in “Requiem for Methuselah,” only it actually came much later in the series. I thought it was more or less fresh then, and stale now, but I’m backwards. I’m not really worried about spoilers here, so to get it out in the open, there’s a genius whose secret (!!!) is that all his companions are robots he built. Though it is handled differently. In “Methuselah” it’s a big reveal that the cute companion girl is a robot – only after Kirk is in love with her! Oh no! No man should be in love with a machine! Here, we learn what’s up really early on so Kirk can rhapsodize about human superiority over machines, etc., and then he smooches on the robot girl anyway retroactively undercutting every theme and plot point of both episodes. Well anyway, I liked “Methuselah” and I liked this episode. Both are fertile ground for Trek’s overarching theme of humans being totally the best life ever. This one had some extra humor, good pacing, and generally a well-told story, thought it had its wacky moments. For example, of all the sci-fi ways to make android copies of humans, surely having the human lay on a spinning table until the android is generated is the oddest. Maybe, like, angular momentum distills out one’s genetics, if it’s done right, or something. I also liked how the way to distinguish which of the Kirk copies was the real one was for the android girl to offer him a kiss. When turned down, she instantly knows she’s talking to a lifeless android (Real Kirk never turns down a kiss) and vaporizes it. I’ll note there was one major flaw in the whole scheme. Korby loves his whole android-building scheme because he claims you become immortal. Duplication isn’t immortality, guy. That’s great for my duplicate if it lives on forever, but it’s not like that does anything for me. A guy who was clever enough to make clones using a giant merry-go-round never thought of this? Killer Spock line: “Frankly I was rather dismayed by your use of the term ‘half-breed,’ Captain. You must admit it was an unsophisticated expression.” Overall: 4 out of 5.

Trek tropes:

• Anonymous redshirt killed
• Kirk hits it off with alien babe
• Computers can be buggered by logical traps
• The indomitable human spirit conquers all

8. Miri. I’m not really calling some of the common setups in Trek “tropes.” Even though they probably are. Here we have feral space kids. The last one we had androids. I think they’re more like themes, though. Especially in the sixties, maybe. Everyone was scared about creeping technology and the crazy younger generation. (Not like today! Those fears are totally in the past now!) And AGAIN, a recycled plot from the third season emerges. “Miri” parallels “And the Children Shall Lead.” This time I think the original is much better, as does most of the internet, I think. Though still, the whole idea of crazy space kids is never all that good. At least this time they have a leader in swell character actor Michael J. Pollard, and a pretty well-developed character in Miri. The show is very effective an conveying the crew’s frustration in trying to solve a medical mystery, under deadline, while also having to babysit. It really actually works quite well, and succeeds where ATCSL fails. I can’t find the exact quote or information anymore, but I recall from when I watched ATCSL that third-season producer Fred Freiberger thought his kid episode was good and “Miri” was terrible, and it gave me something to think about as I watched the two seasons. I’ve already ripped on Fred enough in third-season reviews, but man was he wrong, and man did he make some lousy Trek. Killer Spock line: “It could be a beakerful of death.” Overall: 4 out of 5.

Trek tropes:

• Anonymous redshirt killed No wait! They didn’t die! These were the luckiest redshirts ever, they avoided disease and killer children for weeks
• Badger alien until you get what you want

I last reviewed Trek in the summer and took a long break after season 3 broke my spirits. The third season of Trek is something that people really shouldn’t watch. Normal persons would not like it. Nerdy persons will be disappointed, and will question their faith in things nerdy. I know I did. I watched Friday Night Lights and Star Trek season 3 at the same time and there was no question which I was enjoying more. But we’re back ’round to season one and redemption. My friends, redemption.

1. The Man Trap. I watched a lot of Trek growing up. And in my twenties and thirties I’ve periodically rediscovered the show, getting really excited and watching like four episodes before the feeling wore off and I forgot about it again. But the point is I’ve seen most or all of them by now, only sometimes it’s been a year, or twenty years, since my last viewing of a particular episode. When I was watching “The Man Trap” I had the distinct feeling I’d seen one where an alien looks like different people to different members of the crew. But it was probably, in fact, this episode. Or maybe it wasn’t, because if Trek has no qualms about recycling its plots. Anyway, like a lot of original Trek, it starts out with a really promising premise but just kind of ends up being a lot of running around and time fill. Though a marked improvement from what I’d grown accustomed to with Season 3 is that the characters are still being thoughtfully developed, so there’s some nice time devoted to getting to know them. Though this unfortunately includes a lot of Yeoman Rand, whose lone character trait is that she is supposed to be cute (and has an elaborate hairstyle modeled after a big woven basket). I don’t know how long she’s featured on the show but I know we’ll be glad when she’s gone. Killer Spock line: I have to confess it’s now been a month or so since I watched the show and I didn’t write anything down, so I’ll steal one from Memory Alpha: “Fortunately, my ancestors spawned in another ocean than yours did. My blood cells are quite different.” Overall: a decent episode though clearly a purposefully neutral start to the series. 3 out of 5.

Trek tropes:

• Anonymous redshirt killed. Actually lots of them. It was a tough episode on the ol’ redshirts.

2. Charlie X. Usually I watch these shows in a basement, where all good Trek watching is done in the world. But this episode was watched on a laptop with headphones. It might have contributed to my enjoyment of it. I remember it being sort of a weird episode, but it’s actually quite good. The ship takes aboard a suspiciously nice teenager named Charlie, and then weird things start going down. Of course Charlie is responsible, and eventually they figure out that he’s pretty much a space god or something and can imagine whatever he wants to happen to make it so. Downside is that means he can just vaporize people who tick him off. The production is really well done here, and quite tense. Kirk knows he has a huge disadvantage and really can’t stop Charlie in any way, except for the simple fact that Charlie respects him as a sort of father figure. So he has a manage a really fine line of being stern and compelling Charlie to not, you know, kill anyone else, but not without getting him all surly and teen-agey. Definitely works better than the show’s other attempts and scary godlike children. Killer Spock line: “Your illogical approach to chess does have its advantages.” Overall: good sci-fi and suspenseful. 4 out of 5.

Trek tropes:

• Badger alien until you get what you want
• Only Kirk can truly make command decisions
• Invisible Space Powers

3. Where No Man Has Gone Before. A weird one and kind of hard to review. It was the first episode produced after the pilot and there are characters and protocols we see only in this episode, and the pacing is really uneven. Also I watched it months ago at this point and took no notes. I’ll call it 3 out of 5 and move on because I can’t wait to get to the next one.

4. The Naked Time. Actually features no “naked time.” Though it’s not far off: it IS the one with Sulu’s famous crazed shirtless fencing spree around the Enterprise. That’s probably a good metaphor for it, in general. It’s insane and ludicrous but thoroughly entertaining. It’s a classic that shows the blueprint of what TOS would strive for throughout its run. Starting with the standard Trek plot. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: people beam down to a strange planet, and pick up some weird space disease, and pretty soon the whole crew’s got it and everyone acts crazy for a while. It’s even sillier here. Everyone on the planet is dead for unknown reasons and the landing party guy is apparently so unfazed by it that he doesn’t think twice about taking off his glove to scratch his nose and touch stuff around the base before putting it back on. They even make a show of decontaminating him when he gets back, though there is a stab at explanation for why that fails. When things start getting weird Spock theorizes it could be a new form of space madness (and as much as I loved THAT, it STILL wasn’t my favorite of the show) and later spouts another good line about how instruments can only scan for what they are designed to scan for (i.e., no as-yet-undiscovered space madnesses). We then have the standard Trek Act II of Sixties TV-Style Madness as everyone on the ship gets crazy while Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and Scotty stay normal and start to grasp the fix they’ve gotten into. Then, the standard Trek Act III of Glory as everything works out against all odds on account of either Kirk’s overwhelming charisma or some longshot science thing. And there’s even a doozy of a bonus here: they accidentally discover time travel!

No, really. All events considered, for all the Federation’s storied successes and history, they’d have to regard the incidents that took place on the Enterprise on Stardates 1704.2-.4 as a shamefully embarrassing example of failure to follow protocol, right up until the crew made one of the most amazing fortuitous discoveries in the history of civilization. Some Admiral somewhere had to have reviewed Kirk’s logs and thought someone was playing a joke on him as he tried to comprehend the chain of events that led to the Enterprise, again, accidentally discovering time travel. Because they do! Let’s review the ridiculous coincidences and breakdowns of Federation protocol:

1. Despite overwhelming evidence of contagious disease, member of landing party removes glove, immediately contracts new form of space madness.
2. Decontamination protocols fail to detect bug, so no one bothers to report crewman’s insane ranting. Majority of crew soon succumbs to disease.
3. One infected crew member infiltrates engineering, and despite being untrained as an engineer and suffering from space madness, manages to lock out all personnel and disable all ship systems.
4. Chief Engineer can only regain access by painstakingly cutting through an extraordinarily delicate circuit system with a phaser.
5. By this time, orbit and planetary conditions have deteriorated to the point that warp drive must be engaged immediately, but the engines require a 30-minute restart time, well past the point when the ship will be destroyed in the planetary atmosphere. Chief Engineer reports that they can attempt an experimental mix of matter and antimatter to cold-start the engines but there is only a 1-in-10,000 chance of success (the other 9,999 times, they can expect to be obliterated).
6. Captain and Engineer need Science Officer’s help finding the right formula, only they can’t immediately locate him. He is eventually found crying to himself in Briefing Room 2, as a result of space madness. Note that the Science Officer is a Vulcan. Science Officer pulls himself together enough in just a few minutes to develop an experimental antimatter formula to cold-start warp engines utilizing an obscure, untested theory of the relationship between antimatter and time.
7. Formula applied and engines engaged, the Enterprise escapes. They realize they are traveling backwards in time, though. Note that time travel has the side effect of producing a somewhat irritating noise.

Based on later Treks, Federation brass evidently decide not to change anything and to continue let crazy stuff go down going forward. We see this throughout the series. Engineering never becomes difficult to access. Diseases will continue to be brought aboard. I guess the goal is scientific discovery, and if that’s what it takes, so be it. Killer Spock line: “Take D’Artagnan here to sickbay.” Overall: Ridiculous Trek at its best. The only answer is 5 out of 5.

Trek tropes:

• Only Kirk can truly make command decisions
• We make fun of the Irish because we love those drunken rabblerousers
• “Doctor” McCoy admits he has no idea how Vulcan physiology works
• Invisible Space Powers
• Enemy allowed easy access to highly sensitive area of the ship
• Highly experimental plan with low probability of success somehow works anyway