Star Trek Retrospective: Episode 41 The Deadly Years
I’m kind of middle of the line on this one. Not bad, not great. I really liked the Corbomite bluff and it’s always fun to see Checkov used extensively, but the whole Commodore Stocker thing always bugged the hell out of me.
You see, in Balance of Terror it was established that not violating the Neutral Zone was worth any price up to and including the destruction of the ship, but Commodore Stocker, while a base commander with no deep space training, doesn’t seem to be capable of reading regulations and orders or even understanding that his need to shave a few hours off his trip to Starbase 10 could very well commit the Federation to war with the Romulan Empire. I know he was supposed to be a pompous jerk, but this is just annoyingly dumb.
It was also established earlier that the Romulans were pretty much looking for an excuse to go to war. Just because they failed to destroy the Enterprise doesn’t mean that the Praetor and Tal Shiar didn’t at least consider the whole deal an excuse to open a can of whoop ass. It certainly would have warranted a little more concern on the part of Kirk, Spock, and Stocker towards the end of the episode. It just might have behooved the Federation to send some kind of “Sorry our guys are idiots” message or at least a Pick Me Up Bouquet.
Like I said not one of their best. It does seem like whenever something bad or painful but not deadly has to happen to a crewman Chekov is the go to guy. 
Also if you are an advocate of senior rights this one will probably not sit well with you. Even the title “The Deadly Years” could be seen as painfully insensitive. Whatever happened to “the Golden Years”? If someone ever told my mother she was enjoying her Deadly Years I’d koon-ut-kal-if-fee his ass so hard his own parents would feel it. Lord knows I have enough frustrated libido to give me the focus. Feel the bite of my lirpa!
All that being said the squirrel nuts image comes to us from the funny t shirt category. I never said I was sensetive enough to get out of being strangled with an Ahn’woon.
“the Infamous” Dave Inman
Leave a Comment
You must be logged in to post a comment.