Shore Leave: TOS Season 1 Episode 15

Plot Synopsis

We start this episode with Kirk getting a massage from a Yeomen. They quickly reflect on how stressed everyone on board is because of all of the crazy stuff this ship has had to deal with. Everyone could use some shore leave, and we are in luck, they have found an uninhabited planet with earth-like vegetation which is perfect. A few people are sent down first to scout before letting the entire crew down. Bones is in this group and he sees a white rabbit with a pocket watch run by with Alice chasing behind.

Kirk comes down to the planet thinking that this is possibly a joke that Bones is playing on him, but soon he sees man sized rabbit tracks and realizes something really weird is going on. They cancel shore leave for everyone else still on the ship and investigate things further to try to figure out what is really going on. It turns out that things that people have been thinking about (an old friend, a tiger, a flock of birds, a samurai, etc) manifest and interact with them in the natural way.

At some point Spock calls down and says that there is some kind of energy field draining their power, it is interfering with communication somehow. At that time Kirk was talking to what appears to be an old girlfriend. He is clearly very smitten and doesn't want to leave and says that they don't currently have a good enough reason to leave. I must say the whole thing reminded me of an anglerfish, it certainly appears to be a trap of some kind and Kirk is too mesmerized to run away while he still can. Shortly thereafter Spock realizes that they have a short period of time left to act and beamed down while he still could.

Meanwhile Bones is with the Yeoman who had previously conjured up a change of clothes to a medieval princess looking thing. She conjured up a knight that was going to attack them. Bones refused to believe it was real and asserted that it couldn't hurt him, so he got run through and killed (I imagine this could have been a very dramatic scene had I not known he does indeed live on). Kirk and Spock come upon the scene and investigate. It turns out that the knight's armor was just filled up with a dummy, furthermore all of the stuff on the planet (everything they've been conjuring in addition to the plant life and so forth) all have the exact same cellular structure, it's all manufactured somehow.

Shortly thereafter they realize they while they have been talking both the knight and Dr. McCoy's body have disappeared, and then a guy shows up who says he's the caretaker of this planet. Also, McCoy shows up again, he says they have an amazing facility (I guess underground) where he was able to get patched up, and he has apparently figured out the trick to manifesting his fantasy because he came in tow with 2 beautiful women he remembers from some Cabaret. The caretaker says his race has built this planet as an amusement park where your fantasies can come true. You can relive memories or create any situation you want and enjoy yourself.  The people who run this planet didn't realize that the crew didn't know what they were doing. Kirk tries to ask him more details about their race, but he simply says that they aren't ready to know, but invites everyone down to the planet to have a good shore leave. Kirk says that everyone is going to have a great time.

Why the power drain?

My biggest issue with this episode is the power drain. When it was revealed that something was draining their power, interrupting communications and interfering with transporters, it really looked like they were in some kind of a trap. I'm pretty sure that was the whole point of it, provide some tension and try to lead you down the wrong path. This was of course heightened when bones was killed. But it turned out it was just a misunderstanding, but then why the power drain on the ship? It was never explained and doesn't really make a lot of sense. I was thinking that perhaps someone wanted the communication to be cut off, but certainly once they realized something was up and it wasn't fun anymore, they would change their mind, or at least other people there would want to have communication and it would counteract it. It kinda reminds me of the Corbomite maneuver, in trying to throw in a twist they made things not quite make sense.

Which Yeoman?

I really liked Yeoman Janices character, and was alarmed at the beginning when there was a different Yeoman doing what it would seem she should be doing. I checked wikipedia, and it looks like she's off the show, bummer! It seems that the reason she left are not completely clear, wikipedia gives a run down of them.

Budget running low?

As I was watching this episode, I was wondering if their effects budget was running low. There were not really any special effects here, the whole episode was pretty much just them running around some park. I've seen in commentaries of other shows that they sometimes do this to recoup the cost of really expensive episodes. Not that this is a bad thing necessarily, Data's day is one of those episodes, and it is among my favorites. I'm pretty sure the friends episode where no one is ready is one of those as well, and that is also a great episode.

Getting Kirk to the planet

At the beginning of the episode Kirk was not planning on taking shore leave with everyone else. There was an amusing interaction between him and Spock that convinced him to go. It was one of those things where you knew exactly where it was leading right from the start, but it didn't make it any less great to see play out.

Spock: Captain, there was something I did come to discuss

Kirk: Yes Mr. Spock, what is it?

Spock: I picked this up from Dr. McCoy's log. We have a crew member aboard showing signs of stress and fatigue, reaction time down 9-12%, associational rating norm -3

Kirk: That's much too low a rating

Spock: He's becoming irritable and quarrelsome, yet he refuses to take rest and rehabilitation, now he has that right, but we've found...

Kirk (interrupting): The crewman's right ends where the safety of the ship begins. That man will go to shore on my orders, what's his name?

Spock: James Kirk *smirk* Enjoy yourself captain.

Shore leave for Spock?

Early on in the episode, Spock declares that everyone in the crew needs shore leave, except for him of course. He says

On my planet, to rest is to rest, to cease using energy. To me it is quite illogical to run up and down on green grass using energy instead of saving it.

More ripped shirts

I don't know why this cracks me up so much, but it seems that at every opportunity Shatner rips his shirt and exposes his manly chest.

We also have a ripped shirt from the new Yeoman, and perhaps a continuity error, it seems to me that when she puts her uniform back on later the rip is on the wrong side, unless she put it on backwards or something

Rating

6.5/10

I was debating whether to give it a 6 or a 7 I guess I'll split the difference. It was a bit of fun, and kinda goofy, but it didn't seem terribly well thought out to me, and it lacked a bit of punch I would say.

Intense Debate Comments

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Balance of Terror: TOS Season 1 Episode 14

Plot Synopsis

We start this episode with a wedding on board where Kirk is officiating, but we get interrupted by a distress call of a ship under attack near the Romulan neutral zone. We soon learn that there was a bloody war between humans and Romulans about 100 years ago. They never made proper contact, we don't even know what they look like, but we eventually were able to negotiate a neutral zone. Either side venturing into the neutral zone would be an act of war. The Romulans are supposedly very good tacticians and relish war, so Kirk is reluctant to provoke them. Any act that could be interpreted as aggressive by the Enterprise could give the Romulans an excuse to go to war. Although we are also reminded that this is speculation as our real knowledge of them is limited.

Somehow they get a video feed from the Romulan ship. I wasn't completely clear how this happened, but I think it was from passive scanning, it was supposed to be a video feed from one part of the Romulan ship to another and the Enterprise picked up the signal (please correct me if I'm wrong). It turns out that the Romulans look a lot like Spock! There was one guy on the bridge that was very suspicious of Spock, even accusing him of being a spy under his breath (and later more forcefully I think, damn, I really need to write these the same day I watch the episode). Anyway, Kirk announces that he implicitly trusts Spock to address the potential thoughts everyone is having (or maybe the explicit accusation thrown around). Spock of course isn't phased by this, and uses the information to guess that the Romulans and Vulcans must have a common ancestor and uses the information to guess at their demeanor. Spock says that the Vulcans were very savage before they found logic and is assuming the Romulans have a streak of brutality.

This is also the first time the crew of the Enterprise had ever seen a cloaked ship. Spock mentioned that the Federation had tried this type of thing, but the power requirements made it impossible. He notes that the Romulans must have found a way to get around them, but they know that power will be a limiting factor for the Romulans. 

Although they can't see the ship, they can detect some signal from it, Kirk decides to follow it, but instead of plotting an intercept course he matches their movements perfectly so that they will appear as a sensor echo. Given the power requirements of the cloak, they figure that even their sensors will not be at full strength, and won't necessarily want to use up power doing full scans. There is a comet up ahead and Kirk figures that once they go through the tail it will give them a target and they can blow them up. As the Romulan ship goes gets to the comet Kirk runs around to the other side and gets ready to fire. But on the Romulan ship the "sensor echo" goes away. The Romulan commander figures out exactly what happened and changed course to avoid Kirk's assault. We have now seen that both Kirk and this Romulan commander are great tacticians.

There are some pretty interesting skirmishes, but ultimately Kirk wins. With the Romulan ship crippled he hails them and offers assistance. The Romulan acknowledges how similar they are and ponders that in another world they could be friends, but it can't happen here. He sets off his ship's self-destruct so the Enterprise can't take their technology. I guess this makes a lot of sense since they have a (potentially experimental) cloaking device.

Alien Races

We get to meet the Romulans in this episode, pretty cool. I'm not sure how much they had planned on these guys being a recurring enemy or not. Perhaps they had just thought it would be a good one-off enemy and they liked them and used later, or perhaps they had intended from this point to use them long term. Either way, it's neat to see where they started from

Technology

It was also really cool to see the cloaking device make its debut. As I mentioned above, they talked about how it takes a ton of power, which is a limiting factor. Here, the enterprise was able to detect some signal from it, I guess we can chalk that up to it being an early model. My memory is that in TNG a properly working cloaking device will mask all signals. Also, it is established  in this episode that they can't fire while cloaked, it takes too much power and must be turned off to power up weapons. 

Unique and Non-unique

There was a great little speech from Bones about how there are so many people out there like us (hence we are not unique), and yet there is only one exactly like us (hence we are unique). I love stuff like this

In this galaxy, there's a mathematical probability of three million earth type planets. And in all the universe, three million, million galaxies like this. And in all of that, perhaps more, only one of each of us.

Spock Describes the Romulan mindset 

Spock: If the Romulans are an offshoot of my Vulcan blood, and I think this likely, then attack becomes even more imperative

Bones: War is never imperative Mr. Spock

Spock: It is for them Doctor. Vulcan, like Earth, had its aggressive, colonizing period. Savage even by Earth standards. And if the Romulans retained this marshal philosophy, then weakness is something we dare not show

Rating

8.5/10

Intense Debate Comments

I've decided to remove intense debate and go back to the default blogger comments. Of course, ID holds your comment threads hostage so you will stay with it, but luckily I don't have too many. I have taken screenshots and edited them into the bottom of their posts so they won't be lost.

The Conscience of the King: TOS Season 1 Episode 13

Plot Synopsis

The Enterprise is called to a planet by Thomas (an old friend of Kirk's) who says he found a new way to make synthetic food. It turns out that he had just wanted to get Kirk there so he could see the lead actor in a play which is being put on by a travelling group of actors. Thomas thinks it is someone from their past, Kodos the executioner. He was originally thought that he had died 20 years ago, but the body was never found. Thomas is pretty sure that it is his, but he wants Kirk's opinion too. Kirk compares the two pictures, he seems thinks it is him, but he's not totally sure and he doesn't want to wrongly accuse somebody of something so terrible. It also turns out that the actor has no history before Kodos supposedly died, and it matches up almost to the day.

Thomas winds up killed, and Kirk arranges to take the acting company onto the Enterprise rather than having them use their normal transportation. It turns out that there are only 9 people who could identify Kodos, and all but 2 are dead, both are on the Enterprise, one is Kirk and the other is some low level officer. Someone tries to kill the low level officer with poison but he pulls through. It's not completely clear that it is attempted murder, it could have been an accident because of the type of poison used (it was lubricant they use in engineering or something, it could have reasonably been accidentally dropped in his drink), but that seems pretty unlikely. And of course the viewers know it was attempted murder

Eventually Kirk actually decides to confront Kodos and they have an interesting back and forth. Kirk has his read a sentence and they can analyze if it is really him. They can't get a complete answer, but it certainly seems like it is him. Later on, the crewman who is recovering overhears that the actor might be Kodos and he heads over to the play to kill Kodos as revenge, but Kirk is able to stop him but they make enough noise that the actors realize what is going on and there is a confrontation. It turns out that Kodos' daughter has been killing the other witnesses, Kodos is completely distraught over this. She did it to protect him, but he didn't want any more bloodshed in his name. Finally, she tries to kill Kirk and Kodos jumps in front of Kirk and takes this hit.

Booze

There's a funny conversation between McCoy and Spock. 

McCoy: Would you care for a drink Mr. Spock?

Spock: My father's race was spared the dubious benefits of alcohol

McCoy: Oh, now I know why they were conquered

In addition to simply being an amusing conversation, we learn that Vulcan was conquered at some point.

Crime and Punishment

There was a really great scene with McCoy, Spock and Kirk. Spock and McCoy are confronting Kirk about why he brought Kodos on board and why he hasn't accused him yet.

Spock: Almost certainly an attempt will be made on your life, why do you invite death

Kirk: I'm not, I'm interested in Justice.

McCoy: Are you? Are you sure it's not vengeance?

Kirk: No, I'm not sure, I wish I was.

...(skip a few lines)...

McCoy: What if you do decide he's Kodos? What then? Carry his head through the corridors? That won't bring back the dead Jim

Kirk: No, but they may rest easier.

This scene was fantastic, and I thought it brought a few things into focus. Why hasn't Kirk just accused the guy? There certainly seems to be plenty of evidence. Kirk says he's not sure, he needs more to know that this guy is actually Kodos. But why? It seems that Kirk might not turn him over to the courts for normal prosecution, perhaps he is going to take matters into his own hands. If that's the case he will need a crazy amount of evidence, he certainly doesn't want to kill an innocent person. If he's certain it's Kodos perhaps he will take the vengeance route rather than justice. And best of all, when he's confronted with this he admits that it is a possibility and he's not even sure what he will do. That last line seemed to be him justifying to himself that vengeance is a reasonable path.

Sheer Brutality or Tough Leadership?

Another very interesting thing that was brought up in this episode is what Kodos did twenty years ago. It seems that he was the leader of a colony and their food supply was nearly gone. They had 8000 people, but only enough food to feed 4000 of them before their resupply would get there. He decided to kill half of the people so the other half would live. Tragically, the resupply ships arrived ahead of schedule and the deaths were completely unnecessary. It would seem that he is a brutal monster.

But is it that simple? Suppose the supply ships had not been early. In that case, the 4000 people would have survived and the other 4000 who were killed would have died a painless death. If Kodos had not acted all 8000 people would have died a slow painful death. Without the surprising rescue, what he did would be brutal for sure, and yet necessary for the safety of the maximum number of people possible. (note: this is a little hard to say for sure with food, but I've seen this story play out with oxygen elsewhere, it's a bit more clear cut then, but the moral difficulty is the same) Not that what he did was necessarily the best solution, but to do nothing and let everyone die is obviously not the best answer either.

Of course, we also have the way he enacted this plan. There was some reference to the fact that he used some form of Eugenics. Kodos personally decided who lived and died. Certainly there are certain things you need to be careful of in such a plan, you need to make sure you keep enough people alive with all of the skills necessary to run the colony, but having one guy just pick and choose is obviously a problem.

Future Technology From the Past

One final thing I want to add here, there was a scene where they were comparing the voice output of the actor with the old voice output from Kodos, it was of course two big pieces of paper and they were checking the differences. I just love to see old visions of the future.

Rating

8/10

Intense Debate Comments

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The Menagerie: TOS Season 1 Episode 11 & 12

Plot Synopsis

This is certainly an interesting episode, the original pilot "the cage" was only shown to the television executives. They wanted to repackage that episode and deliver it to the public, so they combined it with another story and made it a two-parter. According to the wikipedia page, with all of their special effects they were having trouble getting things done on time, so this not only kept them from wasting the footage of the original pilot, but it also gave them some breathing room.

We start the episode with the enterprise coming to a starbase, which is apparently an unscheduled visit. Kirk insists that they were called there and the guy in charge of the starbase insists that it didn't happen. Kirk says the only possibility is that Spock lies, which is impossible since he's Vulcan. Of course, he's half human, but that part of him is repressed so it still seems impossible. We soon find out that indeed Spock is behind all of this as he sneaks around and uses recordings of various voices to take control of the Enterprise.

The reasons for doing this are not immediately clear, but we do know that it has something to do with Captain Pike and the forbidden planet Talos 4. Breaking the quarantine is the only thing left that still holds the death penalty. Captain Pike was seriously injured in an accident, he was saving children from a fire, or building collapse, or...something, I forget. The point is, he helped a bunch of people but got really hurt in the process. He is confined to a wheelchair and can only communicate through beeps (one for yes, two for no) but his mind works perfectly.

Shortly after Spock has taken the Enterprise and is en route to Talos 4, Kirk figures out what is going on and follows in a shuttle, he won't be able to catch up, but once he runs out of fuel and is stuck Spock goes back to pick him up and submits for a court marshal. But he has the computer set to autopilot to go to Talos 4, and he somehow tied the engines in with life-support so it can't be canceled. We proceed with the trial in which Spock shows evidence which basically consists of showing The Cage interspersed with scenes of the trial. 

The rest of it was pretty much the same except for the ending. In the Cage, when they let the Enterprise crew go and the girl stayed, a copy of Pike was left there for her to love. In this episode, they seemed to just let the Enterprise crew go and she stayed there, apparently alone. Then they cut back to the ship and Pike was sent down the the planet to be with the Talosians who could give him the illusion of having a body, and effectively escape the confines of his broken body. Then they cut to the same scene with Pike and the girl. I like this ending much better, as the illusion of Pike staying behind always made me a bit uncomfortable.

Characters

Spock: This may or may not be the first time we've seen this, but they talked about how Vulcan's can't lie and therefore Spock shouldn't be able to, but he might be able to break this as he's half human. (Episodes 4 and 5 mentioned that he was half human, but I don't think it has mentioned that Vulcans can't lie yet)

Enterprise: Again, not exactly a character, but learning things about the ship sort of fits in the same category. We learn that the events of The Cage happened 13 years ago, but the opening credits say the ship is on a 5 year mission. I never really thought about it before, but I guess the ship had been around longer in the past, and it is just embarking on this particular 5 year mission recently. I had always assumed that the 5 year mission started when the Enterprise was first built, apparently not.

Rating

8/10

Intense Debate Comments

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The Corbomite Maneuver: TOS Season 1 Episode 10

Plot Synopsis

The Enterprise is once again farther out than anyone ever has been before. They were soon blocked by a cube in space. As they tried to move away from it, the cube compensated and stayed in their way. It was also emitting some kind of radiation so they needed to get away from it. When the situation began, Kirk was getting his quarterly physical, so he didn't see the red alert right away. This was great for two reasons, first, it was an excuse to have Kirk with his shirt off again, and two, it allowed Bones to deliver the line "What am I, a doctor or a moon shuttle conductor?" Great stuff

Kirk gets to the bridge and asks for an update. Spock says they are caught in fly-paper, an apt analogy. Given that communications are not being returned they have a few options. They can sit and wait for whoever put them in that trap, but they throw out that idea as it just shows weakness. This leaves them the options of destroying the cube or trying to get away from it. They decide to first try to get away, but it matches their every move and the radiation gets worse so they are forced to eventually destroy it. Kirk is not deterred and continues moving forward. 

After a bit of time goes by, another ship shows up, a gigantic sphere. It gets them in a tractor beam and scans their ship. It is quickly apparent that it is far superior to the Enterprise, it gives them "ten Earth time periods, known as minutes" to get their affairs in order and then it is going to destroy them. Spock compares their situation to a game of chess and they are definitely losing. Kirk instead compares it to a game of poker and performs a pretty epic bluff. He says that starfleet ships all have a secret material in their hull call Corbomite, any attacking ship will get their weapons bounced back to them. No ship has ever been destroyed, instead the attacker always loses. The big ship decides against destroying the enterprise and instead is going to tow them...somewhere, with a smaller ship.

They figure that the small ship must have limited power and the tractor beam must use up a lot of that power, so they slowly turn their engines on to work against the tow and to drain power from the small ship. At some point the little ship is incapacitated and the Enterprise gets away. They are all set to run off, but they realize the little ship is sending out a distress signal and the big ship is too far away to receive it. Some people still want to run away, but Kirk points out that finding new life is their mission, and they beam over to the little ship. It turns out that this whole thing was a test by an alien (who looks like a little kid) to see how they would react. The scan suggested they would pass the test, but those records can be manipulated, he couldn't know until he really did it. Everyone had a good laugh

Does it make sense?

I really like the idea of this episode. A stronger being pretending to be weaker and seeing how we react. It goes a long way to see someone's true nature when they think they have the upper hand. How do they treat people who are in a position of weakness. Of course they will treat you well if they think you can squish them, but if the tables are turned will they squish you or treat you fairly? But I have a few problems with their execution here.

1. The cube. Their initial contact with these people did not leave them with choices. It didn't let them retreat, it refused to communicate, and it almost killed them with radiation forcing them to destroy it. I suppose there was some aspect of a test here that they kept moving forward after they destroyed the cube, but it seems like with that framework much more could have been done. (the cube could have let them retreat, or there could have been a simple message transmitted that would test them in some way.

2. The sphere. What exactly was the test that was being conducted when the enormous sphere was going to kill them all in 10 minutes? Again, he wasn't letting them get away, and the communication was minimal. Presumably Kirk would have failed the test if he had fired on the sphere, but when the timer was almost gone what other choice would he have?

3. The bluff. Did the alien really fall for the bluff, or was that all part of the plan?

It seems to me the ending of "I was testing you" was just added at the end because they didn't know how else to end it. Kind of a bummer and I really was digging the episode up until that point.

Rating

7/10

Other than the lame twist ending, I thought it was a pretty good episode

Intense Debate Comments

I've decided to remove intense debate and go back to the default blogger comments. Of course, ID holds your comment threads hostage so you will stay with it, but luckily I don't have too many. I have taken screenshots and edited them into the bottom of their posts so they won't be lost.

Dagger of the Mind: TOS Season 1 Episode 9

Plot Synopsis

Right at the start there is a bit of tension between Bones and Kirk as they have different opinions about prison in general. Kirk says he has been very impressed with the new type of prisons "they're more like resort colonies now". Bones responds that "A cage is a cage". Kirk says that Bones is behind the times, but he was having none of it. A little bit later on in the episode Spock has an amusing comment "Interesting, your people glorified organized violence for 40 centuries, but you imprison those who employ it privately". Anyway, they had to beam down some supplies to the penal colony and they brought back some mysterious classified box of stuff that they weren't supposed to look at. But it turned out that a prisoner (Gelder) had snuck aboard in the box and he soon he knocked out the transporter operator and stole his clothing.

Dr. Adams (the guy in charge of the penal colony) tells them that Gelder was very intelligent and dangerous. Which set up an expectation for me that they would have a lot of trouble catching him, but he pretty much went right to Kirk and requested asylum. They knocked him out and took him to sickbay, and intended to return him to the penal colony but Bones thought that something was up and insisted that he keep Gelder aboard to study him. He quickly discovered that Gelder seemed to have fragments of memories, but there was a lot of missing information. He also discovered that Gelder had been a doctor. Something is definitely amiss! When they arrived back at the penal colony Bones remained on board to continue studying Gelder, so he sent Dr. Noel along with Kirk to go down to the planet to check things out. Hilariously, Kirk had previously hit on Dr. Noel at a Christmas party and was annoyed that Bones had sent her. He said she had better be the best choice for the job

When they get down to the planet they meet Dr. Adams and a number of other people who seem to be working for him. Everyone except for Dr. Adams has a blank look on their faces, it seems very strange indeed. Dr. Noel for some reason is very invested in Dr. Adams, because she seems blind to all of the strange stuff that they are seeing. Kirk is asking a lot of questions, and focuses on a strange looking machine which includes a prisoner sitting in a chair getting his mind manipulated. Kirk thinks Adams is being evasive, so he comes back later to investigate with Dr. Noel. He sits in the chair and she uses the machine to implant memories into his mind. She starts making him feel hungry, and then tries something a bit more difficult, she makes him remember that Christmas party with him taking her back to his quarters.

Adams catches them and takes over the controls. We see his real methods as he turns the intensity of the machine up and tells him that if he remembers what really happened here he would be consumed with great pain. Luckily, Dr. Noel was able to get away. In the meantime Spock does a mind meld (the first ever!) with Gelder to find out the horrible things that Adams has been doing. Being afraid of what is happening on the planet with the captain, he prepares to beam down but can't get through while the shields are up. Luckily, on the planet Dr. Noel is turning off the power. In addition to allowing Spock a chance to get down to the planet, it saves Kirk from the chair. Kirk then kicks Adam's ass and he winds up in the room by himself. When the power comes back on Adams is hit with the full force of the machine. His mind is emptied, but there is no one there to fill the void. This kills him. We get another very nice "he's dead captain" from Bones.

Bones says that it is hard to believe that he would be killed from this machine, Kirk responds "not when you've sat in that room"

Characters

Spock: We learn about the mind meld. It's pretty cool to see the first instance of something that wound up being so iconic. As the writing in these seems to be pretty "seat of their pants", I imagine it was just thrown in without much thought for the convenience of this episode and it just became a mainstay later.

Kirk: The scene where Kirk first realizes that Dr. Noel was going to accompany him was pretty amusing. He seems like a ladies man as he has clearly at least flirted with her in the past, but he is also somewhat embarrassed by her being there.

Bones: Dr. McCoy was the first to think that something was up with Dr. Adams, and he stuck to his guns even when everyone else seemed to think he was wrong. It was really great to see him stand up to the challenge.

First time

In addition to the mind meld which I mentioned above, they mentioned that they can not beam through shields. It makes me wonder if the very idea of beaming produces some clear writing problems and they decided to make the rule that they can't beam through shields to set limits to transporting.

Themes

Obviously the big theme of this episode was prison. Bones was against the very idea of prison, no matter how nice things are. Kirk was more focused on the fact that the prisons are very nice and not the cages the we all imagine as a typical prison. I think Kirk was more focused on the practical implications (we need to do something with criminals) while Bones was being more idealistic.

Rating

8/10

Very enjoyable, and I love that I got to see the first instance of a few things that became prominent later in the Star Trek universe.

Intense Debate Comments

I've decided to remove intense debate and go back to the default blogger comments. Of course, ID holds your comment threads hostage so you will stay with it, but luckily I don't have too many. I have taken screenshots and edited them into the bottom of their posts so they won't be lost.

Miri: TOS Season 1 Episode 8

Sorry for the late update. Lately I have been busier during the first half of the week than the last half, so I'm going to start pushing these posts live on Sunday instead of Wednesday.

Plot Synopsis

The episode opens with the enterprise getting an "Earth style" distress signal, but there are no colonies or vessels out this far. They get to the planet and the topography is exactly like Earth (it shows Africa and North America). Kirk says "Not our Earth, another Earth. It seems impossible, but there it is." It seems like a really weird choice to me. Why not just say it is a planet with an Earth-like atmosphere? Unless I missed it, they never explained why this planet is so much like Earth. For practical reasons, aliens basically look like humans and it's no big deal, why not just do the same thing and say this planet looks like Earth?

They beam down to the planet and realize the similarities to Earth continue, Kirk estimates that it is equivalent to approximately early 1900's Earth, Spock says he thinks it looks more like the 1960s, except the level of general decay suggests that there have been about 300 years of natural deterioration of anything human made. Again, to suggest that this is happening in this alternate Earth's equivalent decade as when they are filming seems like a peculiar choice. Especially with the decay it could have been any time. Perhaps they are trying to shine a light on the fact that everything looks like Earth and this is just a smirk at the audience.

Anyway, it appears that the planet is deserted, Spock points out that the distress signal is likely automated, but it is too soon to know for sure that there are no people remaining. As they are looking through a pile of junk Bones moves a tricycle and a somewhat disfigured guy runs out of a nearby building. He complains that it is broken and they say they will fix it, then he dies. 

They then search for additional people and come across Miri hiding in a closet. She is very afraid at first, but they eventually convince her that they are not going to hurt her. We soon learn that all of the grown ups (grups) got sick and died, and it seems they went somewhat insane and violent in the end (which is why Miri was so afraid of them at first). It turns out that 300 years ago the people of this planet were creating viruses intended to prolong life, it worked on children (making them age about a month  for every 100 years of real time passing) but it killed any adult. It is guessed that some hormone change in puberty is what makes the virus act differently in adults. Unfortunately, the away team is infected

The away team determines that they have about 7 days to find a cure, so they set up a lab and Bones and Spock work together finding a cure. In addition to the work they were doing on the planet, people on the enterprise were using the computer to help them solve the puzzle, but the kids on the planet distracted them and stole their communicators. Why would they do this? Miri's jealousy! She was very taken by Kirk, and he somewhat took advantage of this to get information from her. But when Janice showed some affection for Kirk, Miri riled up the kids and while they were taking Janice captive they also stole the communicators. All because Kirk was toying with the emotions of a young girl.

What he was saying made this scene creepy

While Kirk is rescuing Janice and convincing the kids that they will eventually grow up and die from the disease as well, Spock and Bones continue working on the cure. They have something that seems like it will work, but without the computer they can't know for sure. Spock says that it could be a vaccine or "death in a beaker". Bones figured they will die anyway if they don't take it so they might as well give it a shot (I'm with him). He takes the medicine and the scabs simply disappear before our eyes. A very star trek style effect, but really stupid looking in this case. Why not peel off the scab to show healthy skin underneath, having them disappear is just silly.

Anyway, now they have cured the disease and are free to beam back up to the enterprise. The episode ends on an amusing little interaction, Janice tells Kirk that Miri really loved him. Kirk responds that he never gets involved with older women.

Unnecessary Shirt Ripping

I don't know why this cracks me up so much, but Kirk's shirt get ripped again in a way that didn't seem necessary at all.

Episode Themes

Insufficient information: I really like the dilemma near the end where they potentially have a cure, but they don't know if it is instead deadly. Logically it is easy, you either take the medicine and potentially die, or don't take the medicine and surely die. But that doesn't mean it would be easy to up-end that thing.

Dangerous Technological Advancement: Obviously the people of this planet tried to extend their lives with Technology and they wound up dying because of it. This is a theme I typically enjoy.

Characters

We see more Spock and McCoy sniping at each other, but it has definitely turned into friendly banter rather than what appeared to be disdain the first time this came up. When they first were discovering that they were infected with the disease they discovered that Spock was immune, the following conversation took place

Kirk: Why is Spock immune?
Bones: They must not have an appetite for green blood.
Spock: Being a red blooded human has obvious disadvantages

Janice says she's always trying to get Kirk to look at her legs. She is distraught that he legs are now covered in scabs. This incident is what sets Miri off.

Rating

8/10

Overall I quite enjoyed this episode