Episodes 11 and 12: The Menagerie

I’m fully aware of the fact that it’s been a few months since I last went on adventure on the bridge of the Starship Enterprise. I feel like it would be a cop out to drop a list of excuses to dig my way out of avoiding my “responsibility,” but I’m going to do it anyway. I know exactly why I avoided writing about the next two episodes in the series: I did not want to watch “The Menagerie.”

Not only do these episodes cobble together clips from the discarded pilot, watching them feels like being locked in a chamber where time movies slower. I’m afraid that if I start watching “The Menagerie” again, I’ll walk out of my room and my family will be dead and everyone else will be living on Mars. Although, when you think about it, life in the future might not be but so bad—I bet there would be flying cars, or at least cool future pets like the House Giraffe or the Potbellied Cat. Still, my mother reads this blog and I don’t want her thinking that I would trade her in for a Safari animal that could fit under my desk, so we’ll go with this being a bad thing.

Now, “The Menagerie” has one of the most iconic and regularly referenced characters in the series:


Him again.

Captain Pike may suck, but when he finally decides to sacrifice his body to save some kids I guess he starts to become likable. I don’t see the appeal. I really just think it’s the beeping chair that people like. I mean it’s been in both “Futurama,” and “South Park.” You can’t argue with fan base like that.

To be honest, I watched these two episodes about a year ago, which didn’t help when it came to watching them again. So all summer I haven’t. I’ve done pretty much everything but watch “The Menagerie.” I’ve opted for episodes of “Top Gear,” “Space Ghost Coast 2 Coast,” “Spaced,” “Peep Show,” “The X-Files,” “Mystery Science Theater 3000,” “The Office,” and “Record of Lodoss War” over “The Menagerie.” Hell, yesterday I watched Star Trek Nemesis (we’ll get to my comments on that in a few years). After a while though, I’ve started to feel bad. I’ve been neglecting what I’ve set out to do. So, I buckled down and re-watched both episodes. Like they say: “Shit, or quit riding the goat.”

No wait, “Shit, or....” Whatever.

So here’s what I have to say about “The Menagerie:”

It’s Kirk and Spock watching an episode of “Star Trek.” They seriously sit down in front of a screen and watch the pilot episode supposedly being broadcast by the same telepaths from the pilot. It’s stupid. Fuck you.

Second thing: In the magical la la land of the Star Trek universe, with all of its wondrous technology and amazing medical advances, the best they could come up with for Captain Pike was a beeping wheelchair? Stephen Hawking can wax poetic about theoretical physics with his goddamn cheek, and all Pike gets is one beep for yes, two beeps for no. Go to Hell, “The Menagerie.”

There. I did it.


This is Star Trek

Ugh



UGH



Ahhh, that’s better.



On the next episode...

Roddenberry ditches the whole space idea and makes “Hamlet: The Series”

Episode 10: The Corbomite Maneuver

Despite airing later in the season, episode 10 was the first episode to film with all of the regular characters in place. Production wise, this is Uhura and McCoy's first appearance, and also Sulu's first appearance as helmsman. It also marks the first and only appearance of this guy:

Durheeee

In this episode the Enterprise encounter a strange object floating through space that simply won't leave them alone. To make matters worse, it turns out the object on the screen is, in fact, a Windows 95 screen saver:

Terrified that their systems was working on a 200 year old operating system, Kirk and company blow it right the hell up. Suck on that, Bill Gates.

Unfortunately for them, and expectantly for us, another object that looks like a massive space disco ball appears to terrorize the crew. The ABBA ship locks the Enterprise into a tractor beam and the ship's captain, identifying himself as Balok, threatens to destroy the Enterprise in a big booming alien voice. Disco aliens tend to be touchy, apparently. Balok appears on the viewscreen as a wavy looking rubber alien remniscent of the Wizard, except with much less expression, movement, or any sign of life. Being compassionate, Balok decides to allow the crew ten minutes to pray to whatever deity they may or may not believe in before he blows the ship up while listening to Meco.

After Lieutenant Baily flips out and cries (it's okay Dave, I would cry too), we find out that Kirk is a big fan of World Poker Tour. He doesn't quite pull out the reflective glasses and cowboy hat, but he does bluff his way out of being dead by basically telling Balok that the Enterprise was rubber and that his ship was glue, and if they blow up his ship would too. I came up with that myself, I would make such a kickass Starfleet officer. In essence the episode should have been called "Captain Kirk has Balls the Size of Softballs," or at least "Kirk's Huge Balls Maneuver."

After being Balok bails and drags the Enterprise along with him, Kirk manages to break free by having the entire crew shake and run around the set as if the ship were moving. After breaking away, the Enterprise picks up a distress signal from Balok's ship claiming that his life support had depleted. Kirk then has his Star Trek Captain moment of sympathy when he orders an away team to transport onto the alien ship in order to save Balok. Kirk being Kirk, opts to go on the away team and chooses McCoy and Lieutenant Baily. Guess who isn't coming home?

When the away team transports aboard the untastefully decorated ship, they discover that the alien they were talking to before was just a puppet (Nooo.), and ten round the corner to discover...

God. Fucking. Damn it.

Of course it was a super-smart space baby. Of course it would be. Why wouldn't it be a super-smart space baby? Shit.

As the episode ended I started wonder what could have become of the kid who played Balok, thinking I would look it up on imdb later to find out that he was never in anything else, became addicted to coke, has three kids and lives in Tulsa but still shows up to the occasional convention to sign pictures of himself from when he was seven.

Wait a second, Clint Howard?! Ron Howard's brother? Get the fucking fuck out of here. Well I guess it's nice to see that Balok went on to have a career of being in his brother's movies as the weird looking guy. That and he was in Ice Cream Man.

And Silent Night Deadly Night 4.

This is Star Trek.
Kirk's work out on the wall Stair-master.

TECHNOLOGY

Gyee...
On the next episode...

Ohhh no. Nononononononono.

Episode 09: Dagger of the Mind

It’s funny how things can connect in life.

When I was in high school my city had a program called Mayor Youth Day where teens from local schools got to follow around city officials for a day on the job. I knew people who got to sit in the city treasurer’s office, who rode around on the back of a fire truck, one girl even got to fire a police officer’s gun. But being generally unfortunate, none of my friends got to do anything even close to as exciting as sitting in a city treasurer’s office. My friend Michael received probably the worst position of the day; for that day, he acted as the assistant to the city’s planetarium director.

Michael being Michael, the boy actually felt somewhat excited by this so he donned his best bow-tie and took his 17 year old self to city hall, happily telling people that he would be tending to the school children coming to see him for the day. But I think that it had mostly to do with the fact that a then fairly recent episode of “South Park” covered what fun could be had on a trip to the planetarium.

In the episode, the boys visit the Tantalus V Observatory and meet Dr. Adams—a scientist with a rather bizarre bone disease that cripples his ability to pronounce the “T” in the word planetarium (Plane-arium). Once inside, the boys meet Dr. Adams’ peculiar assistants whose empty expression and robotic claims of “I love my work” immediately throw them off. When Dr. Adams turns on the machine, he shows the boys various constellations like The Big Dipper, Roger Ebert, and the two stars that depict the Crusades lulling the children into a bored stupor. Then Dr. Adams activates his machines and begins implanting thoughts into their minds insisting that they love the planetarium and thinking otherwise will cause them enormous pain.

Where am I going with this? Well, I basically just described “Dagger of the Mind” and this season 2 episode of South Park riffs on it down to Mr. Mackay performing a guidance counselor mind meld on one of the planetarium’s escaped assistants. Even the logo on Dr. Adams’ jacket matches the one in South Park. Bunch of nerds run that show I tell you.

Aside from being the influence for a South Park episode, “Dagger of the Mind” also manages to milk a more bombastic performance out of Dr. (NAME) than Shatner ever could. It would seem that NAME comes from the prestigious Clammy Skinned, Goofy Face Shouty School of Acting:

But watching this series just goes to show you how everything can just connect sometimes. Had it not been for Star Trek, then my friend Michael would have never enjoyed Mayor’s Youth Day that day. Then again, he may have anyway—the Chesapeake City Planetarium does have a life sized R2D2 in the lobby.

This is Star Trek.

That can't be regulation attire. It just can't. If she showed up to my high school wearing that she would be sent home for improper attire.

The Captain's Log is apparently a vintage 60s tape recorder.

One bit of technology they managed to predict: Text messaging!


He's Dead Jim:
1 Fried Security Guard
Dr. Adams' brain blanked out by his own machine

Total Star Trek Death Toll: 60
... and 5 Androids. I still am not sure if they count or not.

On the Next Episode...

The crew of the Enterprise can't get rid of their Windows screen saver.

Episode 07: What Are Little Girls Made Of?

Now I know I’ve only seen seven episodes of Star Trek so far, and I don’t want to be pessimistic about the whole thing, but it seems that story ideas are already running just a little bit thin. But just stop me when this concept sounds familiar: An insane scientist creates a duplicate android Captain Kirk. Sound familiar? It should, because they used it two episodes ago.

Of course there’s enough elementary difference here to keep viewers on their toes, but Goddamn, do I really need another episode with Shatner acting with himself already? I wonder if he had it in his contract that he needed to act against himself at least twice every ten episodes. I also wonder if his contract stipulates that he will always have at least one romantic scene whenever there is a remotely attractive girl involved. I don’t remember anyone else getting this much action in Star Trek, but it seems that some strangely dressed alien tries to jump his bones at least once per episode.

In this case the lady in question is an android with what I would call a rather unfortunate fashion sense.

Meet Andrea. Since Andrea is an android she has no emotions, and apparently a complete lack of shame as well. Dr. Korby created Andrea and a handful of other androids while marooned in the caves of a remote ice planet, and feels that he’s solved this whole “mortality issue” that seems to plague us organic beings. The androids look flawlessly human (unless you shoot them, of course ), and in fact Kirk’s reaction to finding out that Andrea is a machine can only be read as “Can you… have sex with an android?” As it turns out, the answer is no.

The episode takes on the issue of whether or not a sentient machine can be considered alive, but is rather poorly handled when compared to something like 2001 or even the TNG episode "The Measure of a Man." Although, I will admit that those titles have significantly less skin and don’t have a scene as well crafted as the one where Kirk tries to convince Andrea that she has emotions by forcing himself on her, which ultimately just feels like a disturbing scene of molestation. Whatever gets the job done, I suppose.

The ingenious way in which Kirk foils the construction of his doppelganger works out beautifully in an odd sort of way. While strapped to the mad doctor’s wheelie-go-round-replicator-of-death, Kirk influences his clone’s mind by shouting insulting bigoted epithets about Spock—successfully creating a perfect clone that also happens to be a giant racist douchebag. So keep this scene in mind if you ever find yourself being replicated, and remember to think nasty racism thoughts about your best friend—unless of course you actually are a racist, it wouldn’t really work if that were the case.

The design of the caves in this episode is probably the best set design I’ve seen so far in this series, and it manages to accurately re-create the dark, yet mystical atmosphere given off by real caves. The designers capture this majesty by making every stalactite and stalagmite look like a giant, pink, throbbing penis. I don’t know about you, but apparently I’m not the only person that thinks caves are funny because penis shaped rocks are everywhere. I’m not just making this up, see for yourself:

Heh heh heh.

This is Star Trek:

whoawhoaWHOAWHOAWHOAWHOA

*sigh*

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

He’s Dead Jim:
2 Security guards killed in the caves
5 androids. Do.. wait do androids count?

Total Star Trek Death Toll: 58, or 63, I haven't decided yet.

On the Next Episode...

We find out just what the fuck Infra-sensory drugs do.

Episode 06: Mudd's Women

When the crew of the Enterprise discovers an unidentified space craft about to be destroyed in an asteroid field, the crew pursues the vessel to the point that engines of both ships overheat and shut down. As they protect the ship from destruction, Kirk and crew manage to beam aboard the ships captain who reluctantly allows the remainder of his crew to beam aboard as well:

Fucking score.

I don’t know if it was Mötley Crüe, Jay Z, or British power group Sailor who said it best, but this episode is all about Girls, Girls, Girls and just how horny a crew (a co-ed one at that) can get when exploring the deepest reaches of space. Judging by the male crew’s reaction to the girls, tacky glittered evening wear and a high hem line may be a more magnificent sight than anything that exploring the cosmos has to offer. After all, when you’re in Starfleet you can see nebulas form like clouds in the night, or can witness a bright yellow star engulf an entire solar system every day. None of that stirring, awe-inspiring cosmic bullshit measures up to anything when compared to a set of legs from here to Little Rock. This is doubly so when the popular trend in hairstyles for girls on your crew involves basket weaving, and the closest thing to an attractive female you’ve seen in weeks was three feet tall and had hooves.

Needless to say, the male population of the Enterprise becomes hopelessly and eerily entranced by their new passengers. By far the best reaction of the crew comes from Dr. McCoy, who slaps on such a creepy face of wanton desire each time he’s around any of the women it’s pathetic. The man goes right past simple romantic infatuation or even pathetic lustful longing and goes straight into leering, hair smelling territory.

A face like that doesn't even convey lust so much as a desire to rape, eat, and make a lampshade out of someone. If I looked at anyone the way McCoy fawns for those girls I would have a restraining order slapped on me within seconds. A passing policeman would arrest me on the street and be given a medal of valor for it. The images running behind that man’s eyes are nothing short of vomit inducing. I don’t see how he managed to get a medical license with a response like that.

Of course McCoy's perverse reaction isn't all his fault since the ship's captain, Harcourt Fenton Mudd, has been drugging the girls with beauty pills with the intent of selling them off to rich wifeless space barons. It seems that the blackmarket trade of human trafficking and forcing women into loveless marriages still hasn't been resolved in the next two hundred years, which I suppose is good news for the GNP of Slovenia. The sad part here isn't that Kirk has a problem with selling off wives so much as how shocked everyone is at just how goddamn ugly they are without their beauty pills.

Blegh!

It all works out for everyone in the end though. Mudd goes to prison, the Enterprise fixes their ship, and the girls live a life without beauty married into a lonely life of servitude on a desolate mining planet. But at least they find out that the beauty is within!

This is Star Trek.

Harcourt Fenton Mudd, Austrailian Irish Leprechaun Hunter Gypsy... in space.

In the future, playing cards are round.

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

He's Dead Jim:

Death Toll: 0

Total Star Trek Death Toll: 56

On the next episode...

Old people kiss. EWWWW

Episode 05: The Enemy Within

I'd like to present a case of animal cruelty against the crew of the USS Enterprise for their treatment of this unfortunate looking creature:

The subject is a space dog, a creature that is apparently a cross between a border terrier and every member of Ratt. After discovering the creature, who from now on we will call Rikki Rockett, the crew takes him into captivity and beams him aboard for no apparent reason. Seems likely that Kirk just wants to put its pink horned head on his wall.

As soon as they bring Rikki onto the ship the abuse of the animal begins as a fault in the transporter rips the poor creature's psyche asunder and its body manifests into both good and evil halves. Slow to catch on as usual, the crew puts the creatures in Scotty's care only to have the callous Scotsman lock the delirious puppy in a box causing it to go wild from fear. He didn't even supply the dog with its requisite daily dose of "Sister Christian." Unbelievable.

The only time the animal receives any attention from the crew is when they need a clue regarding their own seemingly more important dilemma. The fact that the Captain split into good and evil versions of himself, with the evil version walking about the ship, drinking brandy, and attempting to rape Yeoman Rand, while the good version cowers on the bridge and whines, apparently is more important than the well being of their pet.

In order to solve their own predicament, Spock, Kirk, and McCoy begin experimenting on Rikki which culminates when they place both halves of the creature on the same transporter pad, send their scrambled atoms into space, and then re-assemble them. The experiement does manage to realign the dog, however it also succeeds in killing it. Smooth.

RIP Rikki Rockett--Hair Metal Space Dog, Episode 05-Episode 05.

Seriously though, besides putting this poor terrier in a ridiculous costume, this episode is full of amazing Shatner camp as the man freaks out and throws a tantrum at least every other scene. It's truly remarkable.

One scene in particular stands out as the best Shatner moment well, ever. I can't even think of a way to properly convey the magic that takes place in the scene, and I feel that I can only do it justice by just showing you.

I'm Kirk. I'M KIRK. I'MMMMMM KIIIIRRRRRRRKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK

It is so. So incredibly awesome.

This is Star Trek

CHUG CHUG CHUG CHUG CHUG CHUG CHUG CHUG CHUG CHUG

The plot of at least 60% of Star Trek fan fiction, the remaining 40% is McCoy/Spock based... ewww.
What the fuck, really?

He's Dead Jim:

Death Toll: 1

1 Dead Pink Space Dog.

Total Star Trek Death Toll: 56

On the next episode...

Bananas... in... spaaaaccceeeee