ISRIERI'S PROFILE

ep43 – "Obsession" (★★★)

Its the attack of the space vampire! Wait, ANOTHER ONE?!

What I said before about Kirk & Commodore Decker being much alike has borne fruit: Here is Kirk's own space whale, that he is determined to exterminate with a vengeance, before more innocents die. Its an interesting episode with a good setup, but I don't have much else to say about it. Its about as average as these episodes get. A new ensign named Garrovik is the guest star who does a decent job. I love when Garrovik karate chops Kirk to try and "save" him from the vampire. All it did was annoy him.

ep44 – "Wolf in the Fold" (★★★)

Oi wait a mi-*spits out popcorn* URRGH! Hold on! *ahem* That guy! This character of Hengist, he's played by John Fiedler! I'd recognize that voice anywhere! I did NOT expect that! I wonder why they cast him? He usually plays such mild-mannered characters.
Hmm.
Hmmmm.
HRRRRRRRRRMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM.

Scotty's been framed! Kirk, Bones, and Mr. Scott make a pit stop at the planet Argelius for some R&R, only for the woman Scotty was with to be brutally murdered! More and more women are killed in Scotty's presence, but only for him to report sudden bouts of amnesia before the murders occur. What could possibly be happening?! Good performance from Scotty: Mr. Doohan has always been excellent in the role but here the horror and injustice of the situation nearly brings him to the verge of tears. However, because the murders took place under Argelian jurisdiction Scotty has to undergo...



This episode is marvelous fun. It goes on tangents, man. A peaceful planet of (according to Bones anyway) hedonistic lovers, foggy nights, brutal murder, sunny palaces, spiritual senances, a computer-run court, and a mad cackling enterprise. This is the sort of thing I was hoping Catspaw would be.

It irritates me that there's a throwaway line of Scotty having an annoyance with women because of one woman who botched something down in engineering, when Scotty's been shown to not have such a distate, and only so there might be SOME cause for doubt when the murderer is demonstrated to also have a hatred of women. Its crap writing. The ending makes up for it, of course.

ep39 – "Metamorphosis" (★★★★)

I like this episode a lot. It made me feel conflicting things.

The crew's been confined to a small planetoid by a strange gaseous alien composed of electrical currents. It brought down their shuttlecraft and is keeping them confined there to try and alleviate the loneliness of the human that lives here with it. Human? And not just any human the famous Zefram Cochrane! What a Zapp Rowsdower name that is.

Cochrane had crashed on the planet over one hundred years ago, and has developed a strange relationship with the being who he calls the Companion. It cares for him, keeping him youthful and well fed, and he has the ability to bond with and telepathically (or rather, empathically) communicate with the cloud. The cloud seems to have some strange need for Cochrane that isn't made clear, until we learn that it seems to have great love and affection for him. The cloud itself seems to have little understanding of it's attraction to him.

Cochrane upon learning this feels disgusted, and I would be too! Before, it was an alien intelligence that was mysterious, but benevolent. In learning that what it felt was love, perhaps even some sexual kind, he feels justified revulsion at being kept and used as the Companion's personal pet. Even if it was genuine love Cochrane himself had no say in the matter and little knowledge of what was going on: He says himself that communicating with the alien exhausts him and despite not thinking much of it before (150 years is a lot of time to take things for granted) the added context to those experiences shakes the trusting relationship between him and the Companion. An entire lifetime is being called into question here. I thought he was well justified to be upset but Kirk & co looked at him like he was making a big deal out of nothing. It loves you! That's a happy thing! Spock calls his attitude "parochial!" Meanwhile I'm sitting here like "WHAT. THE. HELL. GUYS."

The crew has an important passenger. A high-ranking diplomat who contracted a deadly and fast-acting illness who they must treat before she can return to broker a peace agreement between two nations. As her condition worsens and she falls into delirium she finds herself similarly confused as to why Cochrane would reject love so keenly felt. You can easily turn up your nose and chalk this up to 60s syndrome (there's ample evidence) but I prefer to look at it more charitably as it invites a more interesting reading. This is a woman who has found herself cut off from many relationships because of her cold demeanor and the nature of her professional work. She has a successful career but pushes others away from her. She endures loneliness just like Cochrane had been for so much longer. Now that he's discovered those days were not spent in a strange symbiotic captivity, but that there was caring beneath the surface, Nancy finds that a wonderful thing and doesn't see why would he reject it and not rather rejoice that there was someone who cared for him so much? I feel the episode is trying to use Nancy to give the Companion's motives context: This alien doesn't have a body and likely may have some kind of feelings but utterly baffling to us. Maybe it never felt anything until meeting Cochrane and was both delighted and confounded by what took place within it. The Companion's situation also contextualizes Nancy's own struggles. Being on her deathbed and bearing witness to the relationship of the pair, she also is looking at her own life and examining what is important to her.

Once Kirk is able to use their universal translator to speak with the Companion and help it understand the situation, the Companion merges with Nancy saving her life in the only way it had the power to do. The two merging seem to create a new being with all the memories and experiences of the other, and in so doing the Companion gains new context for all the years they've lived in, just as Cochrane had. I think this is beautiful: Its an episode about understanding and human fulfillment. How mutual understanding between two foreign mindsets opens the potential to gain much more than that in the process.

Parochial : adjective
1) Relating to a church parish
2) Having a limited or narrow outlook or scope; provincial

ep40 – "Journey to Babel" (★★★★★)

Ahhhh I get it. Babel. A neutral planet where multiple foreign diplomats meet. Gotcha gotcha.

I've outlined in the OP that 5 stars is "Riveting" and here is an episode that deserves the adjective. I love the central conceit here. Again that axiom rears it's ugly head: The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. I presume that's a vulcan sentiment. Well I've seen enough to know that it just isn't that simple. Even if the practical thing, the realistic thing, is to let Spock's father Sarek die, isn't Sarek's live worth saving? If there's even the smallest possibility, doesn't Spock owe him that chance? Sarek would argue his life isn't worth it and obviously so, but he's a vulcan he would say that wouldn't he? Most importantly, how does he know?

The hardest decisions to make are the ones which all seem like the morally right choice. The vulcan philosophy seems to be tailored to get rid of these ethical questions by answering them analytically but in reality they're just ignoring them – they still must be faced. Its popular to say these questions regarding the value of life are unanswerable questions but they have answers. We just desperately don't want to be wrong.

"Perhaps you should abandon logic. Focus instead on motivations: On passion, and gain. Those are reasons for murder." spoken like a true Andorian I suppose. Also spoken like someone who committed no murders. I heard that and I said "Either they had nothing to do with this plot, or they're some right clever bastards." The diplomatic incidents and plot to cause a civil conflict was a good B plot, but was ultimately the backdrop against the true dilemma: Your father's life, or the well-being of millions? Your personal love, or your duty? Is it right to sacrifice for the good of all even if the sacrifice itself is unjust? I think like everything else in life context is everything. Bless Kirk & McCoy. They were the true heroes this time.

This episode contains one of the greatest smash cuts of all time: We go from McCoy, Spock, and Spock's mother making the difficult decision to perform a risky operation on Sarek, then WHAM Kirk's fighting a blue alien with a knife! Kirk performs a pretty stylish jumpick at a wall. Totally missed the Andorian – he was already on the ground before he leapt. Showed that wall what-for though! Ah Kirk, never change.

author=kentona
I think I will use my 8yo's game pitch he just told me this morning.

Oh my god I feel so old. Or rather, they grow up so fast!

ep35 – "The Apple" (★★★)

"A Garden of Eden.... with landmines." well that about sums it all up.

I've mentioned before my favorite star trek stories are those of political intrigue, or interesting what-ifs that allow the actors to showcase their talents or develop the characters further. This isn't that; its what would be a prime directive episode in TNG but of course this is TOS. Prime Directive?! What kind of communist propaganda is that?!?

Kirk & co beam down to a planet with teeming flora & universal weather patterns. Almost seems too good to be true. The inhabitants live in simple huts and appear to be hunter-gatherers, but nonetheless welcome the away team without any bothersome questions like "Who are you?" The village has no children, and the people don't seem to understand the concept of love as mating is forbidden by their deity Vaal (sidenote: any deity powered by AA batteries is probably a bad guy).

"You are welcome. Our homes are open to you." The natives start making flower bracelets for everyone.
"Erhh thank you... It uh, does something for you, Mr. Spock?" asks Kirk.
"Indeed it does, Captain. It makes me uncomfortable." Good on ya, Mr. Spock.

I do like the dialogue between McCoy & Spock as they observe the natives making offerings to Vaal. Spock highlights it as a textbook example of reciprocity, the people offer food to the god and the god makes living easy. McCoy's not having any of that: He sees this society as people living in chains as a hopelessly static existence. Spock's quick to point out that humans are always pretty quick to ascribe their own human values to non-human cultures, and that you have to look at any new alien encounters through it's own lens: Their society may not have changed in thousands of years but that's probably because what they're doing works just fine for them. This invites an interesting debate – maybe we ought not be meddling with cultures that we don't entirely understand for this very dissonance in history and values.

....Wait, there IS a prime directive? Spock just calls it the "noninterference directive" but... No no nope nuh-uh I don't buy it. There's no way they have one of those. Strike that from the record.

ep36 – "The Doomsday Machine" (★★★★★)

There's a moment here that I thought I saw, and would have been amazing were it true: When the vulnerable enterprise is attacked and the crew goes flying, I thought Decker made a move for the helm controls: Even as distraught as he was, still trying desperately to command the situation. That didn't actually happen he just got tossed like everybody else. Missed opportunity!

This was incredible! Damn we've already got a contender. A planet killing machine from another galaxy (I'm gonna call it the space whale) has been blowing up entire solar systems. The enterprise runs across the derelict of the Constellation with the entire crew disappeared save for the utterly spent Commodore Decker. It isn't long before the whale returns and threatens to destroy the enterprise on its unrelenting genocidal warpath.

The commodore comes off as though he's supposed to be the villain of the episode because he wrenches command of the enterprise from Spock in order to combat the whale, but I don't see it that way at all. In fact all of these authority figures I've sympathized with to some degree. Its not like they're wrong its that they're blinded BY their authority. Authority = Responsibility, and responsibility is a heavy burden. Decker lost his entire crew to the whale, and what's more he lost them after desperately trying to save them by beaming them down to the only planet he could. Only for all 400 to be turned to dust. For Decker it must feel as though he personally executed them. He's visibly distraught and wracked with guilt, and although his take-over of the enterprise was wrong I don't think of him as the bad guy. The show likes to poke fun at Spock for his reliance on logic and overly analytical nature, while praising humanity's foibles and irrationality as some of the largest sources of it's strength. Other times it champions logic over emotion and the perils of intuition. There's a push and pull that goes both ways and this episode is an excellent example of both in conflict, highlighted when Spock tries to talk Decker down.

"Its heading for the Rigel colony! Millions of people will die, it must be destroyed!"
"You tried to destroy it once, Commodore. The result was a wrecked ship and a dead crew."
"........."

The beat of silence between the two hangs there for a good three or four seconds.

Spock is of course correct – the commodore's place now is in sickbay, and they can do nothing to overpower the space whale alone. Decker is being pushed by his guilt and sense of responsibility to exert his authority to try and DO something; rectify his mistake. Save the lives he could not before despite the impossibility. However by flaunting the commodore's failure in his face Spock eliminated any chance at getting Decker to back down. Truly Kirk & Decker are much alike. Its a complex dynamic; just great stuff. Balance of Terror wishes it was this good.

A small detail I didn't notice until now: The typical starfleet uniform has the classic insignia of the stylized starship, but on Decker's uniform, it appears to be something else. What's up with that?

ep31 – "Amok Time" (★★★★)

Chekov's first appearance! I was wondering when he was gonna show up. They also added some vocals to the title theme which I don't like.

So here's another one of those episodes that's been completely ingrained in pop culture and I can see why: Its a good blend of character drama and complete hokey-ness. Spock's been getting emotional and is clearly distressed about something, but he's mum on the subject. Once Kirk & McCoy find out its because the Vulcan mating season is approaching, they speed Spock off to Vulcan so that he can proceed with his long-arranged marriage to the vulcan T'pring. Ancient Vulcan traditions happen, and Kirk is forced to duel with Spock.

The fight itself is glorious cheese, and if you go look it up right now its impossible to take seriously but again I have to give star trek credit where it's due: They appropriately use the episode runtime to build up significant tension and drama surrounding Spock's mysterious emotional outbursts. Its genuinely shocking to see him chuck a bowl against a wall. There is real drama in the fight if you're willing to chuck your chips in the pile.

Because the status quo must be maintained, T'pring turned out to be a shrewd, calculating manipulator that's as cold as ice... but she's also a vulcan so it makes sense. Spock ain't even mad that he's been used (again, vulcan) but you can tell the senselessness of the whole thing got under his skin. I hope Mr. Nimoy had a good time with this one!

ep32 – "Who Mourns for Adonais?" (★★)

Pretty stupid episode right here, but I like stupid sometimes! The gods of Greece, the Olympians? They were space aliens all along??!?! Why naturally, what else could they have been?

Old Star Trek is pretty fond of their preachy omnipotent cosmic space beings. Such appearances usually coincide with the lesser episodes but nevertheless I tried my best to take this one in stride. I abandoned that once I realized Apollo had no nipples: They must have painted over them because it was too lewd. There's not really a whole lot to say about this one: Chekov got a couple of good quips in and Uhura got to be the hero and fix up the busted communications array but that's about it. You know how this episode is gonna go; safe to skip unless you're in the mood for a laugh.

Apollo was waiting for humanity on Olympus for 5000 years to create starships and come find his home, so that he could drag them down off their ship and 'reward' them by re-installing them into a facsimile of Greek culture? From 5000 years ago. Like, in the episode all the other gods left – its just Apollo that remains on the planet. Even the plot knows this is dumb.

It was hard to rate this. My attention wavered off about halfway through which is one star territory but I wasn't shifting in my seat wanting it to be over either.