Warp Speed Factor 15, GO!: 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: