Welcome to this week’s Trekabout, where we give you a master course in Christian theology. In the beginning (“The Apple”), God was there with some guys and gals, and then Satan (Kirk) came and gave them the knowledge of good and evil (sex). Skip ahead a while (“The Doomsday Machine”) and God (Starfleet) sends his Son (Commodore Decker) to atone for the sins of the world. Plus! Shut up, Chekov.
An evil mass-murdering robot? Why, it must be time for “The Changeling”, which tries to answer the question “what would happen if a robot could feel sad?” and kind of succeeds. “Mirror, Mirror” tries to answer the question “what if the Federation were the kind of organization that built mass-murdering robots?” and also kind of succeeds. Also! A bonus discussion about Deep Space Nine.
We made it! Welcome to season two of The Original Series. “Amok Time” is among the series’ best, what with all the soup-throwing, bell-playing, and Kirk-dying insanity, while “Who Mourns for Adonais” is among the series’ middling episodes, but we get a lot of mileage out of both of them. Richard thinks Sulu is sleeping with Chekov, Eric thinks Richard should shut up already, and they both think that “Who Mourns for Adonais” is, like, super sexist. Also! Richard misuses the Guardian of Forever.
Well, we’ve done it–we’ve reached the end of the first season of The Original Series. While “Operation–Annihilate!” has a pleasingly campy title, the episode doesn’t really add up to much–unlike our long discussion of television theory. It’s so long, in fact, that we pushed “Amok Time” to next week. Sorry, loyal listener–we’ll never lie to you again. Well, no, we will– but we’ll make sure it’s not as easily found out. Plus! Richard cries.
Boy, we really wish there was an alternative to “The Alternative Factor”, because it’s almost unwatchable and we’re sorry we have to put you, our loyal listeners, through it. If it’s any consolation, the other episode this week, “The City on the Edge of Forever”, is as great as the The Original Series ever got. There’s no more uneven pairing of episodes in Trek history, so we’ve got that going for us, at any rate. Also! Richard wants your phone number, Joan Collins.
Hey, remember “The Man Trap”? Well, we have a good version of that episode this week, with “The Devil in the Dark”. Hey, remember “Arena”? Well, we have a not-quite-as-good version of that episode this week, with “Errand of Mercy”. Hey, remember how The Original Series liked to recycle plots? Plus! Gene L. Coon is dead.
You know, Richard is weird. When war is maintained artificially, as in “A Taste of Armageddon”, he’s all for it, but when happiness is artificially created and maintained, as in “This Side of Paradise”, he’s all for that, too. It’s a good thing Eric is here to temper that insanity with a long monologue about Vulcan society. Plus! A bonus discussion about Gene Roddenberry’s cheating ways.
“The Return of the Archons” is a lot like Richard’s Saturday nights: an explosion of violence and sex culminating in frustration and computer problems. “Space Seed” is a lot like Eric’s Saturday nights: quiet, but with an undercurrent of forceful evil. Eventually they both end, though, just like these episodes. Good thing they’re both pretty good, right?
This week, we spend a lot of time talking about Starfleet uniforms, the operating agency of the Enterprise (is it Starfleet or UESPA? Questions!), and when exactly Star Trek is supposed to be set. I mean, do you really expect us to spend time discussing the plot details of “Tomorrow Is Yesterday” and “Court Martial”? How silly of you. Go make chairs.
So here’s the thing: Richard Goodness thinks that “The Squire of Gothos” is the opposite of “The Corbomite Maneuver”. It doesn’t mean he doesn’t like the episode, though, as evidenced by his love of Uhura playing the harpsichord. At least we think it’s a harpsichord. Kirk probably wishes he had a harpsichord to beat the Gorn captain to death with in “Arena”, but he has to settle for fashioning a cannon out of spare parts provided to him by yet another race of All Powerful Space Dicks. Plus! Richard doesn’t like CGI.