Who thought of those pterodactyls? (Star Trek: TAS 1x08-12, 2x04)

[starlady]

I have been watching these with sparrow_hawk (I say this like we didn't have a 12-month break between sessions, but I think we have momentum to finish now). The last two sets of episodes were awesome semi-canonical crack, but we have definitely gotten into the "not bad enough to be awesomely bad semi-serious Trek" doldrums in the middle with these. That said, they are still pretty hilarious. Onward!

Onward to spoilers, that is.

1x08, "The Magicks of Megas-Tu"

Whoever wrote this totally got off on including SAT vocabulary words in the script, starting with the K in "Magicks." Unless that was meant to be a clue to the episode's Puritan Salem denouement? I don't know, really, I don't.

So yes, we started laughing immediately, because the intro has Kirk going on about the Enterprise voyaging to the center of the galaxy, "where matter may still be being created." LOLWHUT cosmology fail! (Also, the center of the galaxy isn't where matter is still being created, it's where Sean Connery God's not! Or something.) So somehow randomly by the power of the fireworks overlay cell our heroes are transported into another universe where magic works; we learn this thanks to a helpful goat-man wearing a beard who shows up on the bridge exclaiming "My human friends!" In the end it turns out (and I called this) that he's Lucifer. Yup, Star Trek ♥s Satan. Before we learn that, though, we have the immortal scene in which Spock draws a pentangle on the Enterprise and does magic, thus cementing the Vulcans = Satan(ists) association in Star Trek henceforth forever and ever amen, to be called on whenever there's a less advanced society that the show needs to make fun of. Ahem. So it turns out that the Megans used to hang out on Earth back in the day being wizards and wise men (yes, men explicitly, le sigh), but then after the Salem witch trials they got frightened and checked out; Lucifer is the only one who still thinks humans might be okay, so naturally the rest of the Megans put the crew of the Enterprise into the stocks in a recreated Salem witch trial, to answer for their species' crimes. Naturally, Spock turns defense lawyer and litigates the day to salvation, but not before Kirk gets into a wizard's duel with the chief Megan. It was funnier than I'm making it sound.

Insta-digression: There are two rules in Star Trek, I find.
1. Choose death! In Trek immortality is never, ever, fun, and anyone who wants it is wrong, wrong, wrong.
2. There's no place like home.


1x09, "Once Upon A Planet"

This is another TOS-tag episode; the Enterprise returns to the shore leave planet, where all is not as it seems, which becomes apparent when the Red Queen's playing cards try to murder Dr. McCoy and the planet's robot-controlling computer kidnaps Uhura, because it thinks she's enslaved to the "sky machine." Uhura gives the computer what-for, naturally, but a rescue party from the Enterprise still has to beam down to find her, which necessitates McCoy giving Spock a mickey so that Spock can be picked up by a triage robot and only Kirk runs fast enough to follow the robot into the tunnels, leaving McCoy and Sulu to be chased by a two-headed dragon. Also, and this is important: NO ONE THOUGHT OF THE PTERODACTYLS. In the end Spock out-logics the computer into being friends with humanity again and McCoy and Sulu have a picnic with the dragon. Yup.


1x10, "Mudd's Passion"

If I had been live-blogging this one it would have been all capslock rage. I hate Harry Mudd with a burning fiery passion. Still has the handlebar mustache, too, btw. Anyway, um, yeah. The Enterprise arrests Mudd for selling fake love potion crystals that turn out to be real, which we learn when Mudd cons Christine Chapel into using them on Spock. sparrow_hawk will have to tell you about most of the middle of the episode, since I spent most of it with a pillow in front of my face saying "OMFG no Chapel no WTF show AUGH" over and over--though Chapel being an idiot about her crush for Spock is interspersed with her being kick-ass. But in the end the love potion crystals save the day when Mudd, Kirk, Spock and Chapel feed them to some rock monsters who clearly got lost on their way to the Dune set, though not before Spock, because of his epic love for Chapel, hugs Kirk. Paging muad'dib! Like I said to were_duck later, influence is swift. Also, for the record, sparrowhawk totally called that the rocks were going to turn into rock creatures. Also, both of us were highly discontented by the fact that when the love potion was aerosolized throughout the ship it only resulted in heterosexual pairings (though watching M'Ress hit on Scotty was pretty awesome. I love M'Ress a lot). But Trek is very much a world without queer people™, blech.


1x11, "The Terratin Incident"

The Enterprise intercepts a coded signal broadcasting the phrase "terratin" on repeat and goes to investigate. When they arrive in-system, the crew start shrinking while the ship stays the same size. Eventually it's revealed that space leprechauns a lost colony of Irish people are to blame. Not too much to say other than that it was fun. Also apparently the medical labs keep gossamer rats and glowing fish. I totally want fic about the adventures of the glowing fish.


1x12, "The Time Trap"

The Enterprise gets mouse-trapped in the Delta Tirangle and is swept into a pocket universe called Elysia along with the ILS Klothos, commanded by their old nemesis Kor. Elysia is run as a peaceful society by an Orion woman, a telepath woman and a Vulcan, and let me tell you, the Orion woman was pretty cool. But Kirk and Kor are unable to accept that the time-slowing effect of the pocket universe means they'll have to stay in Elysia forever, so they decide to work together to get out, which nearly backfires when Kor, with the help of one of his female crew members (female Klingons FTW!), tries to betray Kirk and company. If it was a time trap, I really wanted there to be ships from the future stuck in it as well, but no such luck; the series is too busy establishing Trek's new designs for Klingon battleships and the symbol of the Klingon Empire. Priorities, I suppose. Also, I was really reminded of that one episode of DS9 where the Defiant gets stuck in a planetary time-loop and the current crew meet their descendants from two hundred years later and then!Odo winds up sending the ship back, erasing the time loop and killing said descendants, because Kira died of the injuries she sustained when the ship made planetfall. There's no place like home.


2x04, "Albatross"

We watched this one because based on the title we were hoping it contained the big evil eagle were_duck told me about, but no dice. Instead we got something that reminded me a little bit of Serenity in that Kirk and company have to go back to a plague-devastated planet that really looks like where the Reavers came from in order to save McCoy from an alien kangaroo court claiming he started the plague by spearheading a vaccination program on the planet 19 years earlier. How old is McCoy, for god's sake, seriously!? I think he has a time-turner. It turns out that it was the space aurora that caused the plague victims to turn blue and then green. If you've ever wondered what the crew would look like if they were all Bolians or Orions, this is the episode to watch; your question will be answered. Also, the aliens in this episode get major points for not being overawed by the Federation. 

Comments

[recessional]

But Trek is very much a world without queer people™, blech.

I have forgotten most of the novel, because it was not really memorable, but there was a Section 13 book written by one of the original writers for TOS, all about the ensign who gets killed in First Contact, who was queer and in a relationship.

And I only remember it because the author wrote either a foreword or an afterword (can't remember which) wherein he talked about how impossible it was to get a job for an openly gay writer (which he was) at that time, in television, and how Rodenberry hired him and went to bat for him, because he was always first on the firing list for obvious reasons.

Which does nothing for my "where the fuck are the queer people NOW?!" for the newer shows, but for TOS it's always on my mind.

[starlady]

That's not David Gerrold, is it? Who wrote "Tribbles"? I know that he is gay and had a contentious relationship with Roddenberry et al. (he eventually wrote an sf trilogy thinly transformed from some of his unbought Trek scripts), though by the time they aired the DS9 Tribbles episode he and the Trek team were on a good enough footing that he has a cameo as an ensign.

The TOS and early TNG sets in particular seem to have been fairly awful behind the scenes--the actress who played Janice Rand left because she was sexually assaulted by someone on set and the producers did nothing about it; Gates McFadden left TNG because she was being harassed by someone on set and the producers wouldn't address it, and she only returned when her harasser had left.

But yeah, why the hell it took Trek so long to show a queer relationship onscreen--and I don't think it was a coincidence that it was DS9 that did it, and Terry Farrell also was apparently hugely uncomfortable with the whole thing--and why that DS9 episode is essentially it, still, are just unconscionable. Though going back and rewatching TOS and TAS, it's clear that the whole Trek spirit is thinly disguised fairly high humanism, which explains kind of a lot, though does not excuse it.

[outou]

Spock draws a pentangle on the Enterprise and does magic.

McCoy and Sulu have a picnic with the dragon.

...the love potion crystals save the day when Mudd, Kirk, Spock and Chapel feed them to some rock monsters who clearly got lost on their way to the Dune set.

It turns out that it was the space aurora that caused the plague victims to turn blue and then green.

I...what? Is most of Star Trek like this?

[starlady]

Um...kind of. TOS in particular can be pretty ludicrous, and TAS was conceived as years 4 and 5 of the 5-year mission begun in TOS, so it's not too much different from TOS. It gets better as the franchise goes along--though the science and tech in particular stay less than well thought-out; on TNG they would literally write "[tech]" in the scripts and have a science consultant go through and insert a science-y sounding word in the brackets.

But seriously, these episodes are actually fairly sense-making; the ones I watched before this were way more cracktastic.

ETA: And on the third hand, this vid.