August 2012
13 posts
7 tags
175. [TOS] Whom Gods Destroy
SCORE: (1/5 stars)
Kirk and Spock beam down with absolutely no backup security to an asylum for the criminally insane. I wish I had something snarky to say about this, but the stupidity of their actions has broken me. Anyway, it turns out that the warden they meet is really the infamous Captain Garth, former Starfleet officer, renowned explorer whose illustrious career was cut a bit short when...
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174. [TOS] Let That Be Your Last Battlefield
SCORE: (1/5 stars)
In what is one of the most iconic cases of heavyhanded and lazy storytelling, Star Trek takes on racism with Halloween face paint. The Enterprise, en route to save space babies from solar polio or some other boring menial task that they’re always doing between episodes, picks up a stolen shuttlecraft piloted by a failed Marcel Marceau impersonator. The man insists he...
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173. [TOS] That Which Survives
SCORE: (2/5 stars)
The Enterprise finds a planet that’s only a few thousand years old, yet has developed an atmosphere and plant life. Before the creationists can rise from their three-hundred-year slumber to claim the site, Kirk takes Sulu, McCoy, and a geologist whose name is not relevant, but for the purposes of this review, he’ll be known as “Mort Deaderson.” As they beam down,...
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172. [TOS] Wink of An Eye
SCORE: (3/5 stars)
Responding to a distress call from an advanced civilization, all the usual suspects (plus a redshirt) beam down to investigate, but they find no evidence of life still on the planet, just a dead city. The redshirt vanishes in a flash, preceded by what sounded like insect buzzing. Surprisingly, we WILL see him again. The away team beams back up, sans the redshirt, but the...
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171. [TOS] Plato's Stepchildren
SCORE: (2/5 stars)
Responding to a distress call for a doctor, the trio beam down to a planet with the decadence and style of Ancient Greece. They call themselves Platonians, because they visited Earth during the time of Plato before moving on to find their own planet. A product of a very long eugenics program, there are 38 of them, and they live for thousands of years with great mental powers,...
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170. [TOS] Day of the Dove
SCORE: (4/5 stars)
The Enterprise responds to a distress call of a Federation colony, and arrives to find absolutely no trace of it on the planet, and the Klingons in orbit. The logical assumption is the Klingons developed a new weapon and used it on the Federation colony, violating the Organian peace treaty. While Kirk and his landing party are on the planet looking for any signs of survivors,...
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169. [TOS] For the World Is Hollow and I Have...
SCORE: (2/5 stars)
The Enterprise shoots down a barrage of sublight missiles intercepting them. They’re of primitive, chemical propulsion design. They trace the missile’s origins to an asteroid. Further examination shows that the asteroid is hollow and serves as a space ship, having internal power and course correction abilities. Spock’s calculations show that it’s due to...
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168. [TOS] The Tholian Web
SCORE: (4/5 stars)
Remember the Enterprise mirror universe two-parter? Where they found a Constitution-class starship from the prime universe named Defiant? Well, here’s how it got there. The Enterprise approaches the last known location of the Defiant and sees it drifting in the distance, fading out of reality. Spock determines that this region of space is in interphase with another...
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167. [TOS] The Empath
SCORE: (3/5 stars)
A star is due to go nova, and the Enterprise is sent to evacuate a small Federation research outpost on one of the planets. But when Kirk, Spock and McCoy beam down to look for the outpost, a solar flare kicks up that could endanger the Enterprise, so Kirk orders the ship to back off for the duration of the solar storm, which Spock estimates will last around three days. The...
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166. [TOS] Is There in Truth No Beauty?
SCORE: (5/5 stars)
After the disaster that was Spock’s Brain to my brain, it was quite refreshing to get this rare jewel in the third season, possibly the best episode of the season. I guess what I’m saying is it might be all downhill from here. The Enterprise is picking up the Medusan ambassador Kollos to transport him to his homeworld. Medusans are non-corporeal beings who are...
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165. [TOS] Spock's Brain
SCORE: (1/5 stars)
In this episode, the writers remove Spock’s brain, and then their own. If I had to pick one episode out of all the original series of Star Trek to be given the proper MST3K/Rifftrax treatment, it would be this one. If you’d like to play along at home, you can make a drinking game out of it. Every time they say “Spock’s brain,” stab yourself in the liver....
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164. [TOS] And the Children Shall Lead
SCORE: (2/5 stars)
Beaming down to a research site to check in on the scientists, the landing party find them all dead. Every adult, dead. Strangely, the children are alive, well, and completely unphased or unaware of the fact that their parents are dead. Oh joy, an episode full of child actors. This’ll go well. (It doesn’t.) The… “talented”… child actors beam up to the...
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163. [TOS] The Enterprise Incident
SCORE: (5/5 stars)
Kirk’s behavior the last few days has been irritable and erratic. He’s made unusual orders and snapped at crewmen for nothing. McCoy wants to give him a psychiatric evaluation, but Kirk’s refused at every point. (It seems like they don’t give the ship’s doctor authority over the captain until the 24th century.) His unpredictability comes to a...
