April 2012
11 posts
7 tags
118. [TOS] The Menagerie – SHORT REVIEW EDITION
SCORE: (3/5 stars)
[While “The Menagerie” is a two-part episode, it makes heavy use of footage from the original pilot, “The Cage,” and so will be reviewed as a single episode. In addition, as I’ve already reviewed “The Cage,” this will be entirely based on the episode itself and not the plot of the pilot.]
We return to Starbase 11, presumably some months after Kirk’s court...
7 tags
117. [TOS] Court Martial – SHORT REVIEW EDITION
SCORE: (4/5 stars)
The Enterprise is visiting Starbase 11 after suffering damage from an ion storm that left one crewman, records officer Lieutenant Commander Ben Finney, dead. While undergoing repairs, Kirk writes a sworn deposition regarding the incident, but after the daughter of the officer accuses him of murdering her father, and Spock delivers computer data that conflicts with Kirk’s...
7 tags
116. [TOS] Miri – SHORT REVIEW EDITION
SCORE: (3/5 stars)
In accordance with Hodgkin’s Law of Parallel Planetary Development (also known as the Producer’s Law of Not Spending Money We Don’t Have), the Enterprise finds a very familiar planet. Its atmosphere, mass, shape, and terrain all seem to match, shoreline for shoreline, our good old planet Earth. In fact, up to about 300 years ago, the planet seemed to have an...
7 tags
115. [TOS] The Galileo Seven – SHORT REVIEW...
SCORE: (4/5 stars)
Kirk’s dealing with a stuffy bureaucrat who insists on micromanaging every aspect of Kirk’s mission and pulls rank at every opportunity, when they encounter a quasar-like object and Kirk diverts from their vitally important mission of bringing space vaccines to a space planet that has space AIDS. He launches a shuttle to investigate (while Sulu grumbles that they...
7 tags
114. [TOS] The Conscience of the King – SHORT...
SCORE: (2/5 stars)
In an episode that thinks far more highly of itself than it ought, riddled with plot holes for the sake of Shakespearean homage, Kirk is forced to face a demon of his past. Lured three light years off course by an old friend for what he claimed was a new synthetic food, but was just a ruse so Kirk could see an acting troupe, lead by a man named Anton Karidian. Kirk’s...
4 tags
93. [MOV] Galaxy Quest
SCORE: (5/5 stars)
Well, that’s just great. Episode 92 ends with a cliffhanger as Taggart orders the use of the Omega-13… and we have to wait 18 years for a resolution that doesn’t actually come, because when Galaxy Quest finally gets a chance to make a movie, they decide to go all meta and make it a mockumentary about the cast. It kicks off at GalaxyCon 18, where the cast are...
March 2012
13 posts
7 tags
112. [TOS] Dagger of the Mind
SCORE: (4/5 stars)
What should be a routine resupply mission turns out not to be, because if it were, that would be boring and not good television. The Enterprise beams down some supplies to a psychiatric penal colony. McCoy says a cage is still a cage, but Kirk’s of the opinion that the way they are designed now, for rehabilitation rather than punishment, they’re much more like...
7 tags
111. [TOS] What Are Little Girls Made Of? – SHORT...
SCORE: (4/5 stars)
The Enterprise is in orbit around the planet where one Dr. Roger Korby disappeared five years ago. Korby is known as the “Louis Pasteur of archaeological medicine,” studying the medical techniques and advances of ancient civilizations, but perhaps more relevant, he was the fiancé of one Nurse Christine Chapel. When the Enterprise transmits to the surface, they are surprised to...
7 tags
110. [TOS] Balance of Terror
SCORE: (5/5 stars)
Kirk has to delay officiating a wedding in the ship’s chapel. Three outposts along the Neutral Zone have been destroyed and a fourth one reports it’s under attack. The Enterprise arrives at the outpost and manages to contact them briefly before a Romulan Bird-of-prey appears out of nowhere, fires a plasma ball at the outpost, and utterly destroys it. Just as...
7 tags
109. [TOS] Charlie X – SHORT REVIEW EDITION
SCORE: (3/5 stars)
The Enterprise has rendezvoused with the survey ship Antares to pick up an orphaned teenager, Charlie Evans. Charlie was the sole survivor of a ship crash at the age of three, surviving on ship rations, planetary flora, and being educated by the ship’s computer all that time. Having had little to no real interaction with humans before, coupled with being a hormonal...
7 tags
108. [TOS] The Naked Time – SHORT REVIEW EDITION
SCORE: (4/5 stars)
In orbit around the dying planet Psi 2000, Spock and Ensign Soondead beam down to a frozen research station in fate-tempting red environment suits. The scientists on the surface appear to have killed themselves to death in a bizarre murder-suicide ritual which involves fully clothed ice showers and expressing your feelings. Well, that environmental suit really comes in handy...
7 tags
107. [TOS] The Man Trap – SHORT REVIEW EDITION
SCORE: (5/5 stars)
In the historic first episode of Star Trek ever broadcast, McCoy goes down to planet M113 to perform a routine physical on the archaeologists below. But for him, it’s more than that, because the wife of the main archaeologist is an old flame, and to his surprise, she hasn’t aged a day in 25 years—to his eyes, anyway. Kirk sees a much older Nancy, with grey in her...
7 tags
106. [TOS] The Enemy Within
SCORE: (4/5 stars)
In the spirit of embracing my inner Trek, and to honor this classic episode, I have placed myself in a malfunctioning transporter to split myself into two halves, the good and the evil half, to review this episode. For a visual shorthand, the evil side has agreed to use italics. I agree to nothing! I’m ChronoTrek! He’s the impostor! Nobody’s the impostor,...
7 tags
105. [TOS] Mudd's Women
SCORE: (1/5 stars)
After NBC rejected the original pilot, “The Cage,” as being too cerebral and not enough action, Gene and company looked through their starting scripts to find one that would suit as the second pilot. It came down to this episode, the season 2 episode “The Omega Glory,” and the one they eventually went with. I must say I’m grateful they stuck with “Where No Man Has Gone...
7 tags
104. [TOS] The Corbomite Maneuver
SCORE: (5/5 stars)
The Enterprise is off Enterprising about in the cosmos when they encounter a multi-colored cube shaped object. (Apparently the Borg assimilated a clown college.) All attempts to evade or deflect the approaching object prove futile, to the emotional dismay of one Lieutenant Bailey, the recently promoted navigator after the loss of Gary Mitchell. Seems he’s a little wet...
7 tags
103. [TOS] Where No Man Has Gone Before
SCORE: (4/5 stars)
And we roll into the second pilot of Star Trek. That’s right, The Original Series had two pilot episodes. It’s still largely feature incomplete, lacking many of the major characters that we’ll become familiar with as the series goes on. McCoy, Uhura and Rand are absent. Uniform colors aren’t quite fleshed out yet—Spock and Scotty wear gold and there are...
7 tags
102. [TOS] The Cage
SCORE: (5/5 stars)
Take a time-warp one hundred years to the twenty-third century. A far cry from the metal bulkheads and cramped quarters of the NX-class, we find ourselves on the NCC-1701 Constitution-class Enterprise. But we’re not quite in familiar territory yet; Kirk won’t take command of the ship for another 11 years. No, we’re treated to an earlier captain, one...
6 tags
101. [ENT] Season 4 Review
SCORE: (3.45/5 stars)
It’s interesting, now that I’ve reviewed four seasons worth of series, how much the fraction after the three matters in the season’s score, as every season’s score has been three point something. The overall feel of a season can be hard to encapsulate simply by taking the average score of its constituent parts. In any series, you’ll often have...
6 tags
100. [ENT] Terra Prime – SHORT REVIEW EDITION
SCORE: (4/5 stars)
Robocop issues his directives: all aliens must evacuate Earth in 24 hours, or he will use his space laser to blow stuff up, specifically Starfleet Headquarters. Enterprise prepares to fire upon the mining facility, but they’ve wired their warp reactor up so that any shot will set it to blow, which would destroy half the Martian colony. Even with that risk, Robocop is not...
February 2012
12 posts
6 tags
99. [ENT] Demons – SHORT REVIEW EDITION
SCORE: (4/5 stars)
The Scooby gang have been recalled to Sunnydale by the Mayor to witness his attempts to ascend to snakehood by forging an interstellar alliance with various races in the quadrant, while Robocop is growing a human/Vulcan hybrid on the Moon. While I unscramble my franchises and their shared actors, please read on! Peace talks have opened up on Earth and Enterprise has been...
