Star Trek Retrospective: Episode 62 Day of the Dove
This is one of my favorite episodes from season 3. As a kid I just liked all the violence. The Klingon commander was pretty awesome, and had one of my favorite quotes from all of Star Trek:
Kirk: Go to the devil!
Commander Kang: We have no devil, Kirk. But we understand the habits of yours. I shall torture you to death one by one until your noble captain cries enough. Who will be first?
Spoken with the perfect amount of menace. I also love any episode where Spock has to use logic and propose hypothesis. (I couldn’t find a good image of Kang in the Star Trek T-Shirts, but I did find Kor).
It’s also funny how your perceptions change over time. As a kid and young adult I never really had much of a problem with the interaction between Chekov and Mara, but now as an adult and much more open minded and sensitive individual (yes I am, dammit! Shut up!) I now realize it was pretty much the first part of a rape and find it seriously disturbing. Of course Chekov was under the influence of an alien creature, but still. Not something I’m happy to see one of my childhood heroes doing.
I’d also like it noted that even as a kid I noticed that the mysterious “Security Alert” button that Kirk touched on his communicator was in fact just him tapping the side of the device. I love Star Trek but am not blind to it’s stupidities.
Dave
Star Trek Retrospective: Episode 64 The Tholian Web
Writing these Star Trek retrospectives has a kind of fun Christmas element to them. You see I am a huge Star Trek nerd but not so huge that I have all the episode numbers memorized. I have a general idea which episode was in which season (or at least a 1 in 3 chance of guessing right) but whenever I start one of these I begin by typing “Star Trek Retrospective: Episode XX…” and then look up on Wikipedia I’m supposed to be doing. This is where the Xmas present part come in. Will this one be that massive Lego set I have been begging my parents for all year (Balance of Terror, Amok Time, Charlie X) or will it be a coupon for a free firehose colonoscopy (Spock Brain, And the Children Shall Lead, Assignment Earth) that my doctor is giving me to celebrate my Irritable Bowel Syndrome? (The image I got from our Star Trek T-shirt collection. Apparently there is a whole list of t shirts with episodes on them. Who knew?)
The point is even though firmly ensconced in Season 3 this episode is definitely on the Lego side of the Christmas spectrum. Not the Millennium Falcon set but maybe one of the better Harry Potter ones (I know, I know. Mixed genres. Shoot me). The whole concept of the Tholian Web is super cool, plus the whole cross dimensional concept rules. Also if you have ever wondered what Shattner would look like doing Mime in an astronauts outfit (and really, which of us hasn’t laid awake at night wondering that?) this episode will let you rest easy.
In spite of the fact that he managed to spend most of the episode as a ghost Kirk still managed to ham it up with a prerecorded message to Spock and McCoy and that is one of the reasons all true Trek fans love him. Sorry, there is nothing wrong with Picard. He is easily the second best captain in Star Trek history (as long as you manage to avoid watching Generations).
Dave
Star Trek Retrospective: Episode 65 Plato’s Stepchildren
“This shield will come in handy when my phaser is fully charged in public, if you know what I mean.”
This one made number 6 on my list of 10 worst TOS episodes and for good reason. Sure, it had the very first televised interracial kiss but except for that the story was kind of crap. Also the kiss was Kirk and as much a fan as I am of him I can’t help but think that was just grabbing the low hanging fruit. If they really wanted to blow some minds they should have had him kiss Spock.
Here’s the biggest thing that bugs me about that story. McCoy figures out that kironide gave the Platonians their telekinetic powers and Kirk has himself and Spock injected with it. They are able to defeat Parmen and the others and then…forget about the kironide deal? No mention of it was made in the next episode. Wouldn’t that be a discovery worthy of a little more research? Or perhaps strip mine the planet down to the core to collect every gram of kironide and create a legion of super TK guys to give the enemies of the Federation what for? Did the kironide wear off by the time Kirk got sped up in A Wink of an Eye or did he and Spock just think it not sportsmanlike to use? Sorry but it really bugged me.
Also while it is amusing and funny to hear Shatner sing/speak Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds there is no way Spock should ever comprimise his dignity by singing. Most of the things that bug me in Star Trek start when they make Spock act completely out of his established (and very cool) character. Yes I’m looking at you, JJ Abrams.
The image, by the way, comes from the many TOS Star Trek T-shirts in our collection. Did Kirk, McCoy, and Spock keep their gifts?
Dave
Star Trek Retrospective: Episode 71 The Mark of Gideon
You know as I get into each episode in depth I’m coming to realize how much misogyny was flowing off the screen. I can saw that TNG forward Star Trek was a major contributor to gender equality and women’s liberation, but in TOS it seems every non crewman female is a liar or has some secret agenda.
When you think about it the villains in Star Trek can be broken into two types. The first is the overtly evil and powerful ones. 
These are inevitably male and include Khan, Apollo, Gary Mitchell, Bele, Colonel Green, Parmen, Proconsul Claudius Marcus, and Commander Kor (Bele image courtesy of the Star Trek T Shirt category). The second is the sneak, subversive villain and those almost all are female. Janice Lester, Mira, Deela, Dr. Miranda Jones, Kara, and Leila Kalomi are good examples of this. They are also the villains most likely to change allegiance once faced with the sexual magnetism of Kirk.
The only exceptions I can think of are Mudd, who is a sneaky, conniving man (and also the only male Trek character to wear an earring) and Elaan of Troyius. In both cases the antagonist seems to have exhibited the strength or deviousness normally reserved for the opposite gender (of course Elaan was essentially sold into marriage in what today might be seen as human trafficking).
I don’t know what point I am really making. This episode bugged me. The population of the planet lives for centuries and suffers from massive overpopulation. Have they never heard of condoms? How about if they can build a replica of the Enterprise can’t they use that ship to find other worlds to colonize? This is one of those situations where you have a hard time imagining a technologically advanced society not being able to come up with a solution. I know there were religious and medical considerations mentioned, but if you are packed ass to elbow with billions of other people I think in time that might erode your belief that birth control is a bad thing.
Not a top show and fairly typical of the half assed writing that season 3 seemed to suffer from. Still better than some but not one that I would seek out and specifically watch unless I were watching the whole series sequencially.
Dave
Star Trek Retrospective: Episode 72 That Which Survives
Lessons can be learned from this episode about not trusting beautiful women who want to touch you for no apparent reason. Of course, I think I would be willing to risk death if a beautiful woman wanted to touch me for any reason up to and including felonious assault so I don’t know if that lesson sank home. However, if you were of a misogynistic nature you would be right at home with this episode and would probably have been a red shirt who survived, unlike poor Wyatt, D’Amato, and Watkins.
Ironically Sulu managed to survive his death touch indicating he might have some immunity to her powers. Given that George Takei is more or less immune to all the female blandishments I guess it makes sense (for the record I am a huge George Takei fan. You should friend him on Facebook. Also if you haven’t had the chance listen to him on the Howard Stern Show. He is awesome). For those of us into women our sex drive could literally be the death of us.
I think this episode used some cool low tech filming techniques to not only show up the three of the hotty (played by the stunning Lee Meriwether (Catwoman from the TV Batman series)) but the two dimensional line transporter was pretty cool too. They didn’t have the massive special effects resources we enjoy today but they did what they could.
By the way I just spent a lot of time looking at Losira images. Good God was she hot. I did a post about why Star Trek women were so stunning a while ago. Lee definitely was on there. Love her costume too (that’s a hint if any hot women are interested in stalking me at the next Star Trek convention in Las Vegas). Not sure if why the felt the need to cover her belly button though. Seems like an odd issue to have. I don’t have any Star Trek t-shirts with Lee on them, but this image is a perfect example of why Star Trek was such a force in the advancement of women’s liberation (It’s OK if McCoy treats these women as objects. You see they were androids and therefore technically were objects. It’s mixed messaged I grew up with like these that made me the well balanced individual you see before you now.)
Star Trek Retrospective: Episode 74 Requiem for Methuselah
Now we are getting into some quality Star Trek. Interesting story, nice twist, and a girl so unbelievably hot she will make your eyes bleed (in a good way). The girl is played by Louise Sorel. She never did an amazing single role but has had a considerable filmography, doing Broadway, soaps, and a ton of prime time appearances.
The image is one of the many episode shirts from the Star Trek T-Shirt collection.
This is another episode that had less of an impact on me as a kid. I only saw it a couple times and the story was a little more complicated. I remember being kind of confused as a kid and the names bandied about like Da Vinci and Brahms had less of an impact on me than if Flint had said he was also Buck Rodgers or B.A. Baracas. However, upon rewatching it as an adult (technically) I realize it was a pretty damned good story. The idea that one man could play so many roles over so long was intriguing, as was the concept of him having such an impact on our culture. The clues Spock picked up on that led them to understand who he was were very cool, and M4 was pretty epic, although clearly a remake of Nomad from the Changeling (also redone as V’ger from Star Trek: the Motion Picture, only with more punch). However, Season 3 was all about cannibalizing the previous seasons so I won’t hold that against it.
Speaking of recycling from earlier seasons, if you watch the original showing the image of Flints home is pretty clearly the painting they did for Rigel IV from the Cage. I guess the budget was running a little thin at that point. They were probably digging through the props warehouse looking for anything they could use on the cheap. When they remastered this one they changed the image to a much more impressive mansion. Not sure if I like that or not. I find most of the remastering changes both annoying and unnecessary. Part of the appeal is the cheapness of the effects. You wouldn’t go to a live play and bitch because there is no lens flare, would you? If you are only watching Star Trek for the special effects stop reading my blog, J.J. Abrams.
Dave
Star Trek Retrospective: Episode 77 The Savage Curtain
Yes I’m back on this. I can’t start a project and let it fail after only completing 2/79 parts. It would be much more my style to have it fail after completing 76/79 parts. Also I personally own so many Star Trek t shirts that every morning as I get dressed I feel guilty for letting this series fall by the wayside and I have enough guilt for actual bad things in my life.
So the Savage Curtain. If there were one item to epitomize what was wrong with Season 3 it would have to be Abe Lincoln in space (yes, the suicide planet, hippies in space, and telekinetic Greeks all have their place but this one is at the top. For the record Spocks Brain was at the end of Season 2). Honestly, how does having Kirk and Spock dream up good guys and bad guys and get into a fist fight with them tell the turd monsters (sorry, the Excalbians)? What if Kirk had slipped on a rock and broke his skull open, leaving the Excalbians understanding of good and evil to a minor twist of fate?
(Honestly I don’t think good and evil are that hard to understand. I have an understanding and am happy to have chosen ev…I mean good!)
For that matter, who appointed Kirk and Spock as the universal representatives of good? Wasn’t it established in The Enemy Within that Kirk is comprised of both good and evil parts? I’d say a laundry list of intergalactic booty calls and half breed alien bastard children might have a thing of two to say about him from a moral perspective. Didn’t he let a super hot innocent girl walk in front of a truck in order to save his future? What about the other future full of people that he just destroyed? And Spock would let 1,000,000 people die if it meant saving 1,000,001 people. Not a lot of morality in that equation.
Finally, the real problem with this episode is they were really running out of ideas and opted to just remake Arena without the Gorn. I’m not saying I hate this episode. Only that the signs that the series was running out of steam were pretty strong. I sometimes wish for a fourth season but really when you think about it this shows the trend. Who knows what bad ideas would have arisen in season 4? A racist cartoon rabbit that talks with a lisp? Kirk being replaced by a captain with no hair? A complete reboot where the entire universe gets more stupid and Star Wars-y with no nod towards Gene Roddenberry’s vision? No, in those halcyon days such things were decades in the future.
Dave
Girl Rising Movie Review
An important lesson is learned about always watching a trailer before seeing a film.
Not to say this film was bad. Just that I walked in expecting to see a chick flick with lots of people coming to terms with stuff and instead got a documentary designed to make me feel guilty for living in a 1st world country and for being a man.
As an extremely regular movie goer I have memberships to pretty much every theater reward program out there. Typically this gets me cheap popcorn and the occasional free movie ticket but a couple weeks ago it spat out a free pass to see this movie. I am if nothing else cheap, and giving me a free pass to a new screening is akin to waving the red flag in front of the bull (although I will admit on the rare occasion that I see a film for free or early I tend to start of more kindly disposed to the film (to any Hollywood marketing firms out there that was a less than subtle hint)).
Girl Rising is a documentary about the importance of educating girls and young women in third world hell holes. As a marketing tool I will have to say it is shockingly effective as I am now an advocate for this. No joke I am going to try to scrape together a few ducats and send it to the charity behind this thing (and if you knew how I live you would understand what that means. My life savings is in t-shirts right now and my business is not exactly capable of doing more that buying me the occassional quesadilla from Burrito Ole’.) Showing real people in real situations is always more impactful than all the fake tears and stuntmen Hollywood can through at us, and when those real people are cute little girls from across the globe it will pull at your heartstrings with monster truck force.
During the course of this film I felt a wide gamut of emotions. I felt fear for a couple of the girls who were honestly in danger, rage and helplessness in the face of others who were raped or sold (if you don’t feel an urge to punch the first six men you come across after listening to a 12 year old Egyptian girl talk about being raped and then married off a year later you are not human. Feel free to leave the planet by the quickest method available), and happiness and exaltation for the girls who managed to succeed and excel through education. 
I have spent most of my life pretending to be Spock emotionally (DJ Spock image courtesy of the Star Trek T Shirt category) but this film blasted through my defenses like a bullet train through a paper towel fence.
The overriding message is that educating girls in Third World countries is an extremely powerful tool for helping not only the girls themselves but the world in general. Educating girls will grossly benefit the countries GNP, cut down immensely on rape, human trafficking, death from childbirth, overpopulation, and reduce the spread of HIV and AIDS. This is all in addition to the massive personal benefit to the girls in question. It shows this presenting short vignettes about 9 different girls from 9 different countries. Some of them are stories of girls finding an education in spite of the cultural and economic issues facing them. These are the happy stories. Others are about girls who can’t get an education due (and in some cases it is illegal for them to do so) and the horrible things that happen or face them because of that. Each vignette is followed by very interesting statistics on how education can benefit these girls.
I was going to give a quick rundown on each of the girls but halfway through it decided one sentence descriptions does not do them the justice the deserve. I will just say it’s worth your time to see each one, even if some of them will have you clawing your own face off in frustration.
I am not going to bother with my usual stars/black holes rating system. I called this blog a review for lack of a more descriptive term but this film can’t be reviewed by normal means. It is not a traditional film. Is it powerful? Yes. Will you want to do something at the end of it? Yes. Will you feel good afterward? Depends on which story you want to focus on, but knowing that for every positive one there are probably thousands of negative ones probably not. Not all movies are about feeling good.
The part of this film that I had the hardest time was waiting for the denouement. As a patron of the Hollywood movie set I spent most of the movie waiting for Jason Stratham to break in with a sub machine gun and rescue each of them but you know what? That sort of hero doesn’t exist in real life. The actual heroes are regular people like you and me who take a stand and do what is within our means. I don’t usually do this sort of thing but I invite each one of you to visit Girl Rising, the website of the organization that put this film together, and do whatever you can to help. If you have money send money. If you don’t then try to watch the film or social media the crap out of them. Facebook, Twitter, whatever it is you kids are doing these days to get the word out. I am not much of a social activist and I hate this Jerry’s Kid’s style telethon BS intensely but if you saw this film you would understand why I now care (and if you know me you know how little I care about almost anything). Please do what you can.
I always say thanks for reading at the end of my blogs, but this time really thank you for reading. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. Comments on this cause or movie can be put here and off topic questions or suggestions can be emailed to [email protected]. Thank you again.
Dave
More reasons why Episode 57 The Enterprise Incident belongs in my top 10 Worst Star Trek episodes list.
Back in November I did my Top 10 Worst TOS episodes list to complement my 10 Best list. I received a number of comments with people either agreeing or disagreeing, which as a Star Trek fan I am always glad to see and debate. My number 4 was the Enterprise Incident and to my surprise I had one reader take issue with that.
To be fair to the reader he wasn’t so much endorsing the Enterprise Incident as questioning why I would list the Alternative Factor as a better episode. At the time I had mentioned my liking of Lazarus and anti-Lazarus fighting forever in the corridor between universes.
I have been watching the whole series over again while working on a new Warhammer army (and if any of you are Warhammer players you can expect to see it at the Alamo GT in Nov.). When I watched the Alternative Factor I realized that the reader who commented on it had some very valid points. It really was full of massive plot holes and dumb science. However, last night I watched the Enterprise Incident and that has firmly cemented it’s position in my list.
At this point I am ready to forgive the episode for the Romulans all speaking perfect English since, as another reader pointed out, pretty much every race in Star Trek speaks flawless English (even though Spock comments on how unusual it is for the aliens to speak English in Bread and Circuses). My original point about crew members of the Romulan star ship not recognizing a fellow shipmate still stands. The thing is after watching it again I have a ton of new reasons why this episodes sucks.
First of all, I’m going to give massive hell to the props department for being to lazy or cheap to make up two more Romulan Bird of Prey models, forcing them to use the Klingon ships they happened to have lying around. The excuse they gave was cursory at best, and just made them look dumb. Also as a kid I had a Romulan ship model that I liked a lot.
Second, Kirks plan was to get surrounded and captured by the Romulans??? Wasn’t it established in Balance of Terror that no contact had ever been established directly with the Romulans and then later in the Deadly Years that Romulans never take prisoners? What if the Romulan commander had opted to just obliterate the Enterprise and then sift through the wreckage for anything useful? If a ship came into my territory in a suicidal manner I would have to assume they had some massive technological advantage and nuke it at range. Also what is the deal with the Romulan commander offering amnesty for the crew as they were simply following Kirk’s orders? Doesn’t sound much like Romulans to me.
Third, Kirk has Spock induce a death-like trance so good it fools the Romulan doctors. They send his body back to the Enterprise. If you follow the history of Romulan/Federation contacts this really is the first time humans and Romulans have met face to face. What if the Romulan commander had opted to put Kirks body through a thorough post mortem in hopes of learning some natural weakness and sent his remains back to the Enterprise in a bucket? Sounds like what they would do, and is definitely what I would do in their place.
Vulcan death grip??? How dumb do you have to be to fall for that?
Finally, Kirk manages to bluff and karate chop his way to the cloaking device. He steals it and transports back to the Enterprise (by the way, don’t transporters have a hard time going through active deflector shields? Hasn’t that been established in like 100,000 episodes?). Kirk gives Scotty 15 minutes to hook it up to the ship to get them out of there. The Romulan commander finds out almost immediately and does…nothing? What if she had called the Enterprise and said something like “You have stolen our cloaking device. I will give you 30 seconds to transport it back to our ship. For every second you are late, I will kill you. Oh, by the way I’m going to execute Spock too.” That’s 15 minutes of waiting for the Enterprise to escape. Also, Kirk was betting a lot on Scotty being able to hook it up to the ship. What if the Romulans were using DC and all the Enterprise outlets were AC? Also, at the start of this fiasco he didn’t know that the Romulans didn’t have a way of defeating their own cloak. Not exactly a calculated risk
Oh, yeah. They also manage to transport Spock back on board at the last second (deflector shields again).
Oh, well. Even a bad Star Trek episode is better than watching the Kardashians bimbo their way across LA. The Romulan logo shirt is from the Star Trek t-shirt category by the way.
Thanks for reading. I saw Cold Light of Day yesterday and should have written it up today, but that movie has caused an advanced state of apathy in me. I’ll write it up tomorrow. Also I’m kind of fired up about Star Trek right now. I’m grinding through the horrible 3rd season and feel the need for an outlet and you, my beloved readers, are it. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu (act now to be my 167th follower!). If you have a comment on this episode or my issues with it feel free to post here. Any off topic questions or suggests email me at [email protected]. Talk to you soon.
Dave
Some thoughts on the City on the Edge of Forever
I have been watching all the old TOS episodes while working on a new Warhammer army and the other night had the privilege of watching this one again. I have been rather put upon by this experience in seeing old episodes that I thought were at least OK and realizing with my more mature eye and a couple years of movie critic work that some of them aren’t quite as awesome as I remember them to be.
This one, however, is every bit as amazing as it was the first time I saw it and then some. I made this my number 6 on my top 10 best TOS episode list and honestly after seeing it again would bump it up a few slots. The story itself is wonderfully inventive and complex, but more importantly it is one of the greatest episodes for delving into Kirks mind and sense of duty. He has to make one of the worst decisions ever but does what his duty requires rather than what his heart wants.
I read a while ago that there is a theory in the Trek universe that the reason Kirk is such a man whore in all the remaining episodes is his one true love will always be Edith Keeler. While watching this episode I payed particular attention to his actions and I would have to say I agree. This is one of the few times he uses the L word and really seems to mean it. However, I have my doubts that the writers of the series really put that much thought or planning into it. That being said I note that Kirk manages to avoid romantic entanglements with alien women for 16 full episodes until the Gamemasters of Triskelion, so maybe there is some merit to that theory. I would like to think so.
The thing that struck me the hardest while rewatching the City was how absolutely stunning Joan Crawford was as Edith Keeler. I have never been a big fan of hers, but seeing her with her sophisticated accent makes me want to find a time portal back to 1967 to meet her. Star Trek never hesitated to hire the hottest women in this or the next universe, and they really struck gold with this casting. I remember liking her as a kid, but now as an adult I am totally captivated.
The City on the Edge of Forever is understandably one of the most critically acclaimed episodes, and won the Hugo for Best Dramatic Presentation in 1968. The story was originally written by Harlan Ellison, a science fiction writer who bitched heavily about the major rewrites that happened to his story. Apparently he originally had some kind of drug ring on board the Enterprise causing madness which Roddenberry wisely refused. However, he got the writing credit and in 2009 sued for royalties from the episode, which sounds a lot like having your cake and wanting to eat it too. A settlement of some kind was reached.
Anyway, if you are new to Star Trek and think a few of the first episodes are kind of dumb I think it OK to skip ahead to this one and have your concept of space drama re-imagined. The image I got from the Star Trek T-Shirt category. It was one of the most popular sellers at the recent Star Trek Convention with good reason.
Warhammer this weekend, so I don’t know if I will see a lot. There is a new Jet Li movie I am excited about so maybe I will find the time for that. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. Post any thoughts on this episode here. If you have off topic questions or comments feel free to email me at [email protected]. Thanks for reading. Talk to you soon.
Amazing Dave
