Chimerical · Logic

The so-far-this-summer unparallelled ass-whoopery of the new Star Trek film (seriously it's the best Trek movie since Wrath of Khan and anyone who says differently sucks Tellarite cock by choice!) has put me on an insane TOS kick of late. Fortunately between swashbuckler332's giving me his VHS copies of the series and the HD episodes available on Hulu and YouTube I've been wallowing in a mud bath of geekery the likes of which I've not indulged in in quite some time.

As a result I've re-discovered some episodes which, at least in my experience, tend to get lost in amongst the more famous episodes but which are fantastic in their own right. As many of you have no doubt guessed by this ludicrously long wind up, I intend to use my LJ, at this juncture, as a forum to spout off about said episodes. Don't say you weren't warned.

In no particular order...

1.) Friday's Child: While it's understandable that when compared to other Klingon-heavy Trek episodes like Errand of Mercy or Day of the Dove, Friday's Child is easily overlooked, upon re-watching it recently I found that it's actually a pretty solid episode.

For starters the Capellans are actually a pretty nifty species as far as Trek races that are essentially human beings with strange clothes who live on planets that are apparently comprised entirely of foam rubber rocks go. While visually unimaginative I found it interesting that what they attempted to do with the Capellans was something that they often tried to do on TNG but with, in my opinion, less success. The Capellans aren't bad people per se, they just happen to be a pain-in-the-balls to deal with due to their violent tendancies and their extremely rigid and tabboo heavy culture.

The episode also features arguably the least effectual Klingon bad guy of all time which I love. While Klingon society was not as fleshed out on TOS as it would later become in the films and on TNG I think that Kras actually dovetails nicely into what we later learn of Klingons. You get the distinct impression that though he is clearly a complete fuck-up he still has a job which means that he is very likely some aristocrat's kid who gets hopefully cushy jobs for the Empire that he, in theory, can't fuck up that bad.

Also, McCoy teaches us all that in the wilds of outer space sometimes a good doctor needs to keep his pimp hand strong and that in some instances bitch-slapping a patient is completely therapeutically indicated!!!!

2.)Shore Leave: It's one of the lightest episodes of this or any other Trek series, it just happens to be a hell of a lot of fun as most good lighter-fare Star Trek episodes should be. The level of whimsey in the episode makes for fantastic escapism but the apparent (albiet illusory) lethality of the planet in question keeps the episode from becomming overly saccharine or slow.

It also adhered to one of my favorite traditions in TOS that got somewhat lost on TNG (not to say they never did it, just not as ofen)that of never actually naming and or fully explaining the aliens involved. I think that because TNG made Q a recurring villain/pain-in-the-lobes they tended to shy away from having Picard's Enterprise bump into too many uber-powerful neigh-unto-gods type aliens. Obviously, otherwise Q would have no punch when he turned up. In TOS those sorts of aliens were considerably more commonplace and I liked the fact that periodically they'd just bump into a species that was bazillions of years more advanced and powerful than they were and they'd just have to accept it. Shore Leave is particularly fun in that regard because once they realize what's going on, dealing with the godlike beings consists of hanging out in their psychadellic romper room and having a good time. Also Bones gets the girl and how the hell often did that happen?

3.) Bread and Circuses:Okay though I'm fully able to admit that the premise that the episode is based upon (namely the notion of parallel development of cultures on different worlds) is, statistically speaking, a pile of dingo's kidneys I have to confess that episodes like this are what initially got me into Star Trek when I was a wee-nipper. Despite the rather improbable nature of it, the idea of 2 cultures that have never met developing along the exact same lines is still pretty cool. Also, let's face it, if you're going to pick an ancient culture to run with you could do a hell of a lot worse than Rome.

That said, the episode's depiction of a Roman Empire that had never fallen and which had survived into the equivilant of Earth's 20th Century is really what makes the episode stand out in my mind. It was one of the best explorations of the similarities between American culture post WWII and Roman culture that I've ever seen done and, for Star Trek it was actually pretty understated. You had cars named after gods, televised gladiatorial games and a recent upsurge in slave revolts but barring that this world was nearly indistinguishable from 1960s Earth and that, in my opinion was one of the episode's greatest strengths.

This one also has a really fun bad guy. Claudius Maximus is one of the only low-tech villains that really gives the ever-so-advanced 23rd Century Enterprise crew a real headache just by virtue of the fact that he's a ruthless and clever bastard. Whether in the ancient world or the 1960s you don't become a Roman Preconsul without being sneaky and Machiavellian.

While yes the Jesus stuff is obnoxious it does only come in at the very end of an otherwise very fun episode which if you haven't watched in a while you should.

4.) Obsession: "And in his defense he's pulled back on the retard thing and now the audience can connect."- K. Lazarus

Given William Shatner's personal personality/ego quirks there really aren't alot of episodes where you get to see Kirk be vulnerable or anything other than the uber-hero-captain. Obsession is one of those rare ones. The basic premise of the episode is Kirk running into a vampiric cloudlike entity that he encountered once before earlier in his career. Honestly I like this episode more for what you don't see than what you do. While Kirk really does begin to lose it and go a little Ahab in his quest to destroy the bloodsucking creature, given the fact that it was William Shatner, his performance is (for him) remarkably understated. Especially when you compare it to episodes like The Enemy Within or The Enterprise Incident (although in the latter he's only feigning crazy) his acting is almost...decent. You also get a rare opportunity to see Kirk admit that he's wrong when he tells Ensign Garrovick that shooting the alien would have made not a single whit of difference and that he shouldn't beat himself up for hesitating on the trigger.

Bones points out that Kirk sees alot of himself in young Garrovick and that he's being too hard on the boy and for once, Kirk actually listens and does the right thing. There's also a very nice scene where Spock attempts to do Kirk's job for him earlier in the episode and attempts to talk to Garrovick but his own shortcomings when it comes to dealing with the foolish emotions of humans cause him to have an interesting empathic failure with the distraught ensign.

5.) Dagger of the Mind: Now there may be some crazy talk here about my loving this episode simply because it focuses on an evil psychologist doing naughty things with crazy people and...ahem...well that's just silly.

In fact I love this episode for a couple of different reasons. First of all it's another episode where we see Kirk's more vulnerable side. His womanizing bites him squarely on the ass in this one (and we also get to see the most Axis II medical officer in the history of Starfleet. I'm sorry but even though she feels bad about it later, Dr. Helen Noel is batshit crazy and that's what makes her an amazing bit character.) Secondly, the Neural Neutralizer which is Dr. Adams' "rehabilitation" device which causes the bullshit to ensue in the episode, is pretty well written. It's also a very Federation type idea which has gone horribly wrong because of the fact that it's got a crazy man at the helm. Call me strange but I always enjoy seeing the Federation occasionally be too much of a Utopia for its own good. Kirk's reaction to Bones' concern about what might be really going on at the Tantalus Penal Colony is a perfect reflection of this. "I've been to those penal colonies, Bones. They're more like resorts for sick minds now." and Bones' response that "A cage is a cage." is just classic McCoy.

Another reason that I love Dagger of the Mind is because it's one of the creepier episodes of any of the Trek series. There's something horribly spooky going on in virtually every scene and as a result it makes for a much taughter episode than alot of particularly early Trek. Even Spock's Mind-Meld with the tortured Dr. VanGelder (The 1st appearance of the Mind-Meld in the series) is a much creepier and organic process than the more sterile "My thoughts to your thoughts" bit that the Meld would eventually evolve into. Actually the Mind-Meld in this episode is my favorite depiction of that procedure of all. It's considerably more intimate and visceral which makes the fact that it is something that Vulcans don't like sharing with outsiders make alot more sense.

So yes. if you've not seen these episodes or haven't seen them in awhile you might want to check them out or rediscover them.