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Wolf In The Fold

Despite his trial on Argelius, can the Chief Engineer ever get off Scot-free?

:lol: My second-favorite episode, and I love it all the more because the vast majority of fans don't rank it highly, so I feel more of a personal connection to it than even to my favorite, "The Doomsday Machine." Star Trek as murder mystery? Kirk and Spock versus Jack the Ripper, revealed to be a space-faring demon? Liberal doses of Scotty? McCoy *and* Spock written well? The amazing dialogue in the briefing room scene? Genuinely scary moments? Yeah, sign me up. And I am aware of unfortunate sexist elements and Takei's OTP goofy "sedated" acting.
 
Don't even get me started on 1960s psychology.
What? Whenever a woman causes an accident that makes a man get hit on the head, the man develops an irrational hatred of all women as a result. That's just science.

Plus women get frightened more easily than men. I don't make the rules. ;)
 
What? Whenever a woman causes an accident that makes a man get hit on the head, the man develops an irrational hatred of all women as a result. That's just science.
He can also forget it via hysterical amnesia, too. (Yep, that's a psychological condition. ;))
KIRK: But that blow on the head. It could put all his previous behaviour patterns into the junk heap.
MCCOY: Of course, there's another possibility.
KIRK: Explain.
MCCOY: Hysterical amnesia. When a man feels guilty about something, something too terrible to remember, he blots it out of his conscious memory.
Plus women get frightened more easily than men. I don't make the rules. ;)
Slight correction, it's not frightened, rather women are more easily and more deeply terrified and horrified. Our diagnosis must be precise. :vulcan:
SPOCK: And I suspect preys on women because women are more easily and more deeply terrified, generating more sheer horror than the male of the species.
 
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It's an amusing episode. I think Sulu getting the happy shot isn't really too hammy, it's fun. The ending skit is also great fun; more to support my reading of Spock as gay when he doesn't care to go to the cafe where women are so-. Scotty and McCoy instead jumping to alertness right away is another funny side of it :)

I and a friend were coming up with the worst ways prequels could overexplain everything in original Trek and came up with a story where we see Scotty become a misogynist due to some woman crewmate's mistake.
 
If one can stomach the flagrant, asinine sexism attributed Scotty out of nowhere - and as a crux to the plot, no less - and if one can forgive the one-time wonder of the "psychotricorder", then there are some great scenes to this episode. (I rate it 6.5/10. Could have been a 9 with ease if it weren't for how narrow the episode defines things...)

John Fiedler more than nails it as Heingist, especially once taken over by the Redjak entity. His performance alone makes this episode a must-see.

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(his impending victim is allowed to be corpsing; Dr McCoy gave everyone a dose of happy meds and they're all giggling. She's actually pretty great in this scene. You also have to be over 18 to see it, even though it's nothing near TVMA or anything. )

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Fiedler had a field day saying "No!" in this clip.

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Here's Scotty pulling a Chekov, only swapping the "Russia" shtick with "Scotland"... even Kirk is either jealous and/or boozed up, given how he responds to Scotty to go off and have fun getting off (zoiks!) - followed by McCoy's most cringiest line that has ever cringed a cringe, ever. Yeah, being over 18 probably helps...


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The original edit to the Pi scene. They toned it down in a rewrite...
 
if one can forgive the one-time wonder of the "psychotricorder"

The script never quite gets around to telling us so, but I think this was a stalling tactic by Kirk while he tried to figure out what was going on. I think he was both playing for time *and* hoping that the tricorder results would show something anomalous enough to fend off the Argelian authorities. (And indeed - he was right! The results would have done.)
 
more to support my reading of Spock as gay when he doesn't care to go to the cafe where women are so-.
I think we're going to need more than that. I think the Occam's Razor answer is that Spock is a logical Vulcan who doesn't share the human male's need to go ogle and pick up women in bars. There are real-life heterosexual men who don't feel the need to go ogle and pick up women in bars.

At any rate, T'Pring, Leila, and Droxine would surely be surprised to learn of Spock's gayness.
 
I think the Occam's Razor answer is that Spock is a logical Vulcan who doesn't share the human male's need to go ogle and pick up women in bars.

Not only that, but in the scene - which is very funny - all Spock does is raise an eyebrow at Kirk's invite, with nothing said. For all we know he was seriously considering it, for the anthropological value alone. Heck, a Vulcan might make for a quite . . . logical . . . wingperson.
 
Not only that, but in the scene - which is very funny - all Spock does is raise an eyebrow at Kirk's invite, with nothing said. For all we know he was seriously considering it, for the anthropological value alone. Heck, a Vulcan might make for a quite . . . logical . . . wingperson.
Excuse me, madam, but do you realize that the odds of you not having a good time with my friend are 88,447 to 1?
 
I think we're going to need more than that. I think the Occam's Razor answer is that Spock is a logical Vulcan who doesn't share the human male's need to go ogle and pick up women in bars. There are real-life heterosexual men who don't feel the need to go ogle and pick up women in bars.

At any rate, T'Pring, Leila, and Droxine would surely be surprised to learn of Spock's gayness.

Left out Zarabeth... she'd be heavily stunned.

Put Kirk's offer to Spock in contemporary terms:

"Hey Keith, wanna go to the nudie bar and get some lap dances and whores after work?"
"Uhhhh no, Fred, I think I'll pass."

Keith's desire to not get the clap isn't conclusive....
 
Bit amusing, though not unexpected, that my comment about a reading of Spock as gay is being rebuked like this. :P I'm not saying it's canon, just that as a gay person it's easy to relate to his struggle and read into it in a way familiar to myself. I know people of other marginalised positions, like mixed-race people, jewish people, people on the autism spectrum and probably many more relate to Spock as a character and see themselves in him and his position as something of an outcast. I think it speaks to the strength of the character and how he can be so important to so many, and that's lovely.
But if wanted, I could make a thread of my reasons why I read Spock as gay!
 
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