Star Trek TOS Re-Watch

The MacGuffin to end all MacGuffins.

 

A MacGuffin is something that drives the story, but it makes no difference what it is. It can be a statue of a black bird, a secret formula for rocket fuel, or the recipe for the world's best egg salad. The duplicate Earth in "Miri" was actually irrelevant to the story. It was just a gimmick.

 

Star Trek was still new when they made Miri, and their best chance at loyal viewers was to draw in fans of The Twilight Zone. The duplicate Earth announced that this space show was TZ-compatible.

First season episodes that would fit right into the TZ universe, requiring slight adjustments at most:
The Cage
WNMHGB
The Enemy Within
The Man Trap
Charlie X
What are Little Girls Made Of?
Miri
Shore Leave
The Squire of Gothos
The Alternative Factor
Tomorrow is Yesterday
The Return of the Archons
A Taste of Armageddon

 

And there's that too!

It had clouds, right?

I know you love this episode, Zap, but that's a stretch worthy of Reed Richards.

Even a gimmick to get people teased needs a story basis to make it worthy. They just used "another Earth" to reasonably use the backlot. I don't think anyone was thinking of a Rod Serling type twist - which ol' Rod saved for his finales, not his teasers.

 

The “another Earth” gimmick was a heavy-handed way of saying this situation could also happen here.

 

To fix that, perhaps McCoy has had prior experience with seeing crew depart for domestic bliss and non-Starfleet service. It may be a 23rd century/Starfleet/space travel phenomenon not necessarily limited to women in those days. The constantly on the move travelling career person, longing to settle somewhere solid and secure and get back to a more stable, fulfilling life.

Of course, perhaps a cynical McCoy's applying his general experience with women to Scotty's situation - every time a real special girl comes along, invariably it seems she leaves for greener pastures with someone else.

 

I can buy the second one. Scotty's luck with women was not so good.

 

I mean, none of the TOS era characters get good luck with romance.

 

My rewatches of this show died off many years ago. Honestly, with so much content these days who has time to rewatch something that was watched over and over again for a few decades.

Once or twice a year an anniversary gets me in the mood.

With Discovery producing some of the best first contact episodes in the franchise's history, I went back a few months ago and watched Devil in the Dark.

Two things things pop in to mind after not seeing the episode for maybe 8-9 years.

It generally holds up. Kirk is willing to go along with the miners at first. It's to the credit of Gene Coon that Kirk's training would eventually overcome any bias and he'd stop to have a think. The solution is something everyone can relate to(we all have a mom). This is about as alien as TOS could get at the time.

The second thing is how backwards these Federation miners are. Sure they're angry but don't they have a geologist that could have told them something was off with these smooth nodules?

This might be an example of a Starship crew just being inherently "superior" to new experiences, but these Federation citizens left a bad taste in my mouth.

As a story though, this has to be a 10 out of 10.

 

"The Changeling" by John Meredyth Lucas

Well, I see where the idea for TMP came from!

Enterprise investigates a distress call and finds that 4 billion people are just... gone. They are then attacked by an object that nearly destroys them - until Kirk sends out a message. Eventually, the object is brought aboard and identifies itself as Nomad and refers to Kirk as "the Creator."

Spock identifies it as a 21st century Earth probe created by Dr. Roykirk. Its mission was to explore the galaxy and seek out new life. Now, it's mission is to seek out perfect life and "sterilize" imperfect life. It hears Uhura singing over the intercom and traces the sound to the bridge. It asks Uhura to "think about music" while probing her mind, which erases her memory. In trying to stop Nomad, Scotty is killed.

Nomad offers to "repair" Scotty and brings him back to life. It cannot "repair" Uhura, so the medical staff, determining no brain damage, starts to re-educate her. Nichelle does a nice job in this scene.

Spock does a mind meld with Nomad - and has a tough time breaking out of it. He learns that Nomad was damaged in a meteor strike and wandered through space, eventually meeting up with an alien probe with the mission of collecting and sterilizing soil samples. The 2 probes merged, changing their mission and gaining a ton of power.

Nomad attempts to make the warp engines more efficient, nearly destroying the ship. Nomad kills a total of 4 redshirts in its refusal to stay where Kirk tells it to. Kirk, frustrated, tells Nomad that its Creator is a biological organism. It heads to sickbay where it reads Kirk's records, confirming that. Nomad expresses a desire to return to its launch point, so all of Earth is now in danger. Nomad then goes to engineering and shuts down life support.

Let me steal from Wikipedia here: When Nomad declares that its directive to sterilize imperfections allows no exceptions, Kirk points out that Nomad itself is imperfect, since it has mistaken Captain Kirk for its true creator Jackson Roykirk. He then claims that Nomad has committed two other errors, by not discovering its own mistake, and by not sterilizing itself as imperfect. Nomad begins to analyze the implications of Kirk's claims, a process that causes noticeable stress to its systems. Kirk and Spock carry Nomad in a rush to the transporter room and, with a final command from Kirk to "exercise your prime function", beam it into deep space. Seconds after transport, an explosion is detected near the Enterprise and Nomad is no more.

This is the 2nd episode where Kirk talks a computer into destroying itself.

A pretty good episode, but the joke at the end lands a little oddly considering all the deaths Nomad caused.

 

Deaths are only important if its a main character or affects a main character (See Conscience of the King or The Immunity Factor).

 

IIRC, this, The Immunity Syndrome, and The Doomsday Machine are all close if not consecutive. The Federation was having a rough year with planet killers.

 

This one was ep 3, Doomsday Machine is 6, and Immunity syndrome is 18. Definitely a rough year!

 

"Mirror, Mirror" by Jerome Bixby

Ah, the episode which spawned... 11(!) subsequent episodes. The whole Mirror Universe.

Kirk is negotiating for dilithium with the Halkans, who are extreme pacifists and do not wish their resources used for anything violent. When beaming back to the Enterprise during an ion storm, Kirk, McCoy, Scotty, and Uhura find themselves in new clothing and see Spock with a beard and mustache.

Discussing in private, they speculate (correctly) that they've switched places with versions of themselves in a parallel universe. Instead of the Federation, there is the Terran Empire. Everyone carries sidearms and daggers. There are security staff all over the place. There are "agonizers" for punishment. And promotion is by assassination.

Kirk is supposed to destroy the Halkans. He gives them a 12 hour reprieve, which Spock reports to Starfleet. Kirk is then attacked by Chekov and some henchmen, one of whom turns and saves Kirk. Chekov is placed in an agony booth for punishment. They start figuring out a way to get home.

Wondering about their counterparts, we switch to our Spock putting them in the brig. He apparently figured out they weren't his people pretty quickly.

Kirk finds Marlena, "the captain's woman", in his quarters. Their relationship has apparently not been great recently. She shows him the Tantalus Field, an alien device alt-Kirk uses to disappear his enemies.

Alt-Spock has been ordered to kill Kirk if he doesn't destroy the Halkans soon, but can't resist warning him. Our folks start to put their plan in place, including a great scene of Uhura messing with Sulu (who is Security Chief) to distract him. Everyone meets up at sickbay, but Alt-Spock is there looking for answers and a fight ensues, during which he is injured and McCoy insists on treating him. Sulu comes in with 3 redshirts, planning to make it look like Spock and Kirk killed each other, but Marlena intervenes, getting rid of the redshirts, and Kirk takes down Sulu. Kirk, Scotty, and Uhura head for the transporter room, leaving McCoy to treat Spock.

When Spock wakes, he forces a mind meld on McCoy to find out what the hell is going on. Meanwhile, Marlena is in the transporter room, wanting to go away with them. She points a phaser at Kirk, but Uhura disarms her. Then Spock arrives with McCoy. He's ready to send them home so he can get his captain back. Kirk tries to persuade Spock to overthrow the Empire and tells him about the Tantalus Field.

Our landing party goes home and our Spock is waiting for them. Later, banter ensues, including some pointed sarcasm from Spock. Kirk is startled by our universe's Marlena, coming up with a report to be signed. As the camera pulls back, we see him approaching her to talk to her.

There's a reason they keep going back to the MU. This is a really terrific episode. Everyone brings their A game, especially Shatner, Nichols, Nimoy, Takei, and ridiculously gorgeous guest Barbara Luna. Nichelle was also in incredible shape at this time, as shown by the midriff-baring outfit. I love the over-the-knee boots.

 

It's striking that The Original Series never went back. They had some pure gold there. It must have been a whole different mindset, whether due to the era, or these producers. Nowadays, when something works, you flog it.

DS9 had a big, varied catalog of great episodes, but I strongly felt that for Star Trek: Enterprise, their Mirror episode was by far the best thing they ever did. It wasn't even close. I even think ENT would have run a full seven years if they had set the entire series, from the first moment to the last, in the MU. We never needed to meet the "good" crew.

 

IDW did a TNG visit to the Mirrorverse that was really good fun even if half the characters ended up dead. It was fun to see Mirror Barclay and Inquisitor Troi.

 

We need to determine the REAL reason Marlena let mirror-Sulu live, other than his semi-regular status.

 

Competition will do that.

Now, you work for me.

 

My wife's anaysis of Uhura's abs in Mirror Mirror is, "Oh, she sucking it in."
Barbara Luna is in my top three fravorite Trek women (with Sherry Jackson and Leslie Parrish). She is very beautiful, but I hated the up-do when she showed up at the end. Some 60s hair is nice, some looks nuts.
Doug Drexler and Luna are good friends to this day, and he often posts pix of them and other Trek cast and crew (like Michael Forrest and John eaves) hanging out on his FB page.

 

I respectfully disagree.