Rewatching the Star Trek Movies (1979-1991)

Feature Film o' the Day
Star Trek: The Motion Picture (7 December 1979): Wikipedia-link.

Commentary: I appreciate T.M.P. much more as an adult than I did as a teenager in the Golden Age of Star Trek in the Nineties. It helps that I watched "The Director's Edition," released in 2001. The tone is majestic, which includes the slow-moving visual effects shots of the refit Enterprise, the revised Klingon battlecruisers, & the V'Ger cloud & spacecraft. All of this is very apropos for a major motion picture, & helps to differentiate T.M.P. from the T.O.S. episode, "The Changeling" (season two, episode three), to which its plot is similar.

Rewatching Star Trek (The Original Series, 1966-1969)

Episode o' the Day
"The Cage" (pilot episode; production code: 01; 15 October 1988): Wikipedia-link.

Commentary: "The Cage" was shown to N.B.C. executives in February 1965, many scenes were seen in "The Menagerie" (season one, episodes eleven & twelve) in November 1966, the whole episode was screened in a partially black & white/partially color print at fan conventions through the 1970s & 1980s & was released on V.H.S. & LaserDisc in 1986, & finally the restored full color episode aired on television in October 1988.

"The Cage" is a fantastic episode, a smart story about duty, desire, & reality versus illusion. A wonderful show could have been made about the adventures of Captain Pike & crew, though we are blessed that Star Trek was given a second pilot, "Where No Man Has Gone Before," which was picked up & directly led to The Original Series.

Rewatching Star Trek (The Original Series, 1966-1969)

Episode o' the Day
"Turnabout Intruder" (season three, episode twenty-four; production code: 079; 3 June 1969): Wikipedia-link.

Commentary: "Turnabout Intruder" was originally slated to air on 28 March 1969, just a fortnight after the previous episode, "All Our Yesterdays," but was pre-empted by news coverage of the death of President Eisenhower, earlier that day. I don't know why it didn't air in either April or May.

It's a solid, if not spectacular episode, & deserves little of the scorn that is misguidedly heaped upon it. An old flame of Captain Kirk's, Dr. Janice Lester, uses an ancient alien device to switch consciousnesses with Kirk, trapping Kirk'smind in her body while her mind drives his. William Shatner's performance is excellent, as Lester-in-Kirk's-body has distinctly difference body language & mannerisms than the real Kirk. There's intrigue & courtroom drama as Spock & McCoy first investigate Kirk's bizarre decisions & bouts of temper & Spock is brought up on charges of mutiny. The ending is a bit weak, as the consciousness switch merely wears off, returning Kirk's mind to Kirk's body & Lester's mind to Lester's body. To his credit, Kirk remains magnanimous toward the mad & defeated Dr. Lester.

There's also some cool bits of continuity building in "Turnabout Intruder." In conversation with Spock, Kirk-in-Lester's-body references events in "The Tholian Web" (season three, episode nine) & "The Empath" (season three, episode twelve). When Lester-in-Kirk's-body orders Spock, McCoy, Scotty, & Kirk-in-Lester's-body executed for mutiny, Sulu & Chekov object that the death penalty is forbidden except in the case of "General Order № 4," a mistaken reference to "The Menagerie, Parts I & II" (season one, episodes eleven & twelve), wherein "General Order № 7"—prohibiting contact with planet Talos IV—is said to be the only death-penalty offense left on the Federation's/Starfleet's books.

The third season is the weakest of The Original Series' three, with the first season being the best overall, though many of the most classic episodes are in the second season. This rewatch has been a delight & was long overdue, though it may also have been a tad premature. This year, 2026, is the sixtieth anniversary of Star Trek, which debuted in 1966. My plan to honor the sixtieth anniversary is to rewatch The Original Series, in broadcast order instead of production order, on or about the sixtieth anniversary of each episode's initial airing. This plan, heaven permitting, will begin on 8 September 2026 with "The Man Trap" & conclude on 3 June 2029 with tonight's "Turnabout Intruder."

Live long & prosper.

Rewatching Star Trek (The Original Series, 1966-1969)

Episode o' the Day
"All Our Yesterdays" (season three, episode twenty-three; production code: 078; 14 March 1969): Wikipedia-link.

Commentary: "All Our Yesterdays" presents a unique take on time travel, one not repeated through the rest of the Star Trek franchise. The sun around which the M-class planet Sarpeidon orbits is about to go nova, which will destroy Sarpeidon. Sarpeidon lacks space travel; so, the humanoids there have escaped into their own planet's past using a time machine called the atavachron. "All Our Yesterdays" makes the claim that time travelers have to be biologically "prepared" to exist in another time period, a preparation not necessary in any other Star Trek story, plenty of which feature accidental time travel for which there was no preparation (e.g., "Tomorrow Is Yesterday" [season one, episode nineteen]). As a result of this modification, no Sarpeidonian can return to her original time frame; she would perish during the transition.

Additionally, time travelers are mysteriously conformed to the period to which they have traveled: Mr. Spock, five thouand years in the past in Sarpeidon's ice age, begins to revert to the violent emotionalism of pre-logical Vulcans, such as existed five thousand years ago, before Surak, before logic. This phenomenon is not observed in any other Star Trek time-travel story. It's an interesting reversal, Spock acting emotionally while McCoy embodies dispassionate reason, the mechanism by which that reversal is effected just doesn't make sense.

No mention is made of the potential for the insertion of millions of Sarpeidonians into Sarpeidon's history via the atavachron to alter that history in such a way, or in thousands or millions of ways, that the atavachron might never be invented, a common concern in other Star Trek time-travel stories (the aforementioned "Tomorrow Is Yesterday," or "The City on the Edge of Forever" [season one, episode twenty-eight]). In each of those episodes, the actions of a single individual out of his own time & the resulting presence or absence of a single individual from the subjective past has the potential to alter the whole of Earth's history. With millions of persons seeded throughout Sarpeidon's history, it is almost impossible to image that they wouldn't alter their own planet's history, very well significantly enough to prevent the atavachron's existance & thus create a temporal paradox. Not discussed at all.

Lastly, Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, & Dr. McCoy beam into Sarpeidon's library & encounter the planet's last lingering denizen, the librarian, Mr. Atoz. Mr. Atoz presumes the trio—even the Vulcan Spock—are Sarpeidonians who have tarried & not yet selected to where in the past they wish the atavachron to transport them. Kirk, Spock, & McCoy never introduce themselves, never explain who they are to Atoz. It's very much out of character for our heroes.

Rewatching Star Trek (The Original Series, 1966-1969)

Episode o' the Day
"The Savage Curtain" (season three, episode twenty-two; production code: 077; 7 March 1969): Wikipedia-link.

Commentary: The Excalbians, who threaten the entire crew of the Enterprise with imminant death in an matter-antimatter explosion, are not just evil, they are also stupid. They pit Kirk & Spock, along with Excalbians disguised as Abraham Lincoln & Surak of Vulcan, in gladitorial combat against Excalbians disguised as four historical villains, to determine which philosophy, "goor or evil," is stronger. Yet when the good side prevails through principled self-sacrifice & the evil side reveals itself to be selfish & cowardly, the Excalbians conclude that there is no difference because both sides engaged in the gladitorial conbat that the Excalbians themselves had arranged. Yes, this trainwreck of an episode is really that dumb.

Many people have created in their minds an idealized version of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry. Star Trek was almost cancelled after its second season, & was only saved by a fan-led letter-writing campaign. The show returned with a reduced budget, & Roddenberry resigned. Fred Freiberger was brought in as producer & many Trekkies blame him for the third-season's uneven episodes & overall decline in quality. But Roddenberry is hardly blameless: Roddenberry wrote the story & co-wrote the teleplay for "The Savage Curtain," one of the worst episodes of the entire series.

Rewatching Star Trek (The Original Series, 1966-1969)

Episode o' the Day
"Requiem for Methuselah" (season three, episode nineteen; production code: 076; 14 February 1969): Wikipedia-link.

Commentary: The big problem with so many of these third-season episodes is that they have an interesting ideas—a seemingly immortal human who has been some of Mankind's greatest geniuses! The perfect (android) woman!—surrounded by not nearly enough plot. They're dull & boring, instead of compelling & confronting as are the best first- & second-season episodes.

Rewatching Star Trek (The Original Series, 1966-1969)

Episode o' the Day
"The Way to Eden" (season three, episode twenty; production code: 075; 21 February 1969): Wikipedia-link.

Commentary: Dirty space hippies! The plot of "The Way to Eden" was reused twenty years later for the feature film Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (9 June 1989). Why this weak episode was chosen is anyone's guess. The differences are that "The Way to Eden's" Dr. Sevrin is genuinely malevolent whereas The Final Frontier's Sybok ultimately redeems himself, & Dr. Sevrin & his space hippies are searching for the mythical planet Eden (a non-technological utopia) wheras Sybok & his followers are searching for the mythical planet Ska Ka Ree (home of "God").

Rewatching Star Trek (The Original Series, 1966-1969)

Episode o' the Day
"The Cloud Minders" (season three, episode twenty-one; production code: 074; 28 February 1969): Wikipedia-link.

Commentary: "The Cloud Minders" is a solid if unspectacular episode. The class warfare story is interesting enough, as is Mr. Spock's infatuation with the beautiful Droxine, but what's really intersting about "The Cloud Minders" is what is says about the Federation. When all is said & done, we really know quite little about the functioning of the United Federation of Planets, the interstellar government Starfleet serves.

At the beginning of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Bajor has petitioned for membership in the Federation, but has been deemed not yet ready, which is unsurprising & understandable given the long, brutal occupation by the Cardassian Union. Prior to the discovery of the Bajoran Wormhole, Commander Benjamin Sisko's primary mission at Starbase Deep Space 9 is to get Bajor ready to join the Federation. Ardana, the planet visited in "The Cloud Minders," is clearly stated to be a member of the Federation, yet their society is highly stratified & unjust, with a leisure class living in the floating city of Stratos served by an underclass called "Troglytes" (from troglodytes, cave-dwellers) who perform all the manual labor, mining Ardana's precious zenite ore. Stratos city officials practice torture against members of a Troglyte resistance called the "Disruptors." How was Ardana ever judged ready to join the Federation?

In Star Trek: Lower Decks, which is my opinion is canonically dubious (I would accept is as canon, as long as all the live-action Kurtzman Trek is denounced as non-canonical), planets are offered membership in the Federation upon first contact. The crew of the U.S.S. Cerritos specialize in "second contact," taking care of the paperwork & setting up communications for newly inducted Federation members. That seems like the only way Ardana could have slipped through the cracks, unless the rules were bent by Federation bureaucrats &/or Starfleet admirals who decided to look the other way in order to obtain Ardana's rich zenite deposits. But it is hard to square that willy-nilly approach with Bajor's long, laborious road to Federation membership (which is finally offered in the fifth season, though declined on Sisko's advice as the Emissary, to protect Bajor during the looming Dominion War).

Rewatching Star Trek (The Original Series, 1966-1969)

Episode o' the Day
"The Lights of Zetar" (season three, episode eighteen; production code: 073; 31 January 1969): Wikipedia-link.

Commentary: Scotty falls in love with a library scientist, but she's never mentioned again.

Fun fact: "The Lights of Zetar" was co-written by Shari Lewis (1933-1998), the ventriloquist & puppeteer who created Lamb Chop.

Rewatching Star Trek (The Original Series, 1966-1969)

Episode o' the Day
"The Mark of Gideon" (season three, episode sixteen; production code: 072; 17 January 1969): Wikipedia-link.

Commentary: "The Mark of Gideon" is a dumb overpopulation story, dumb because the Gideons' plan (Gideonites'?) is needlessly complex. Supposedly, the planet is so overpopulated that no one is every alone, yet they were able to construct an exact, multi-story replica of the Enterprise & keep everyone else out of it so that a kidnapped Captain Kirk & the seductress Odona can be alone together? They rendered Kirk unconscious & stole some of his blood, which contains a disease that will be used to reintroduce death into Gideon's population; the Enterprise replica is completely unnecessary, as is Odona feigning ignorance. (She repeatedly claims she's not from Gideon, but doesn't know what her supposed planet is called. I call shenanigans!)

The best part of the episode is the surprising anti-contraception, anti-abortion message. Kirk suggests sterilization & contraception to limit the grow of Gideon's population. Hodin, the Gideon ambasador, says that their regenerative biology will reject any attempt at sterilization (but somehow won't be able to overcome the space menigitis?) & that their culture will not accept any form of contraception: Life is too precious to them to contracept. It'san anti-sterilization & anti-contraception message, but not a pro-life message, since the whole plan is to use Odona to inspire other Gideonites to volunteer to die of the space meingitis. There are other planet, you know? You guys could colonize other planets. Or buy disintegration chambers from Eminiar VII ("A Taste of Armageddon," season one episode twenty-three), they aren't using them anymore.

Why is the planet called Gideon? What are the odds of an alien world having the same name as an Old Testment personage?

Fun fact: "The Mark of Gideon" was co-written by Stanley Adams (1917-1977), who played Cyrano Jones in "The Trouble with Tribbles" (season two, episode fifteen).

Rewatching Star Trek (The Original Series, 1966-1969)

Episode o' the Day
"Whom Gods Destroy" (season three, episode fourteen; production code: 071; 3 January 1969): Wikipedia-link.

Commentary: "Whom Gods Destroy" is a solid, though unspectacular episode, which makes it a treat amidst the slog of the third season. The madness of former Fleet Captain Garth, who now styles himself, "Lord Garth, Master of the Universe," mkes him erratic, but not irrational: Garth does not murder Captain Kirk because he needs Kirk alive to tell him the countersign necessary to order Scotty to active the transporter. The only element I found unconvincing was the powerful explosive Garth has devised, which he uses to murder his paramour, Marta, an Orion female (played by Yvonne Craig, Batgirl on Batman); Garth's escape from his cell using his shapeshifting powers makes sense, but where inside a maximum security asylum for the criminally insane would be get the materials to make a high explosive?

The setting inside an asylum for the criminally insane draws comparisons to the other Original Series episode set inside an asylum for the criminally insane, "Dagger of the Mind" (season one, episode nine). It's unfortunate "Whom Gods Destroy" is set on the planet Elba II, instead of "Dagger of the Mind's" planet Tantalus V; it would have been a neat bit of continuity to return to Tantalus V two years after the Enterprise crew exposed the corruption of the director, Dr. Tristan Adams.

Rewatching Star Trek (The Original Series, 1966-1969)

Episode o' the Day
"Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" (season three, episode fifteen; production code: 070; 10 January 1969): Wikipedia-link.

Commentary: "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" is a very ham-fisted, heavy-handed story about bigotry & hatred, not even redeemed by a brilliant performance from the great Frank Gorshin as Commissioner Bele. But the worst offense of the episode is Captain Kirk letting Bele & his enemy, Lokai, have the run of the ship even after they have manifested extraordinary powers & used those powers against the Enterprise. They aren't even confined to quarters, much less thrown into the brig. Absolutely unconscionable!

Still, "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" is far superior to its Star Trek: Enterprise remake from almost precisely thirty-five years later, "Chosen Realm" (season three, episode twelve; 14 January 2004), which is a very ham-fisted, heavy-handed story about religious fanaticism instead of racial fanaticism.

Rewatching Star Trek (The Original Series, 1966-1969)

Episode o' the Day
"That Which Survives" (season three, episode seventeen; production code: 069; 24 January 1969): Wikipedia-link.

Commentary: "That Which Survives" is an O.K. episode, though Captain Kirk & company complain repeatedly about the impossibility of the small planet they are visiting—it's too young to have the atmosphere & vegatation that it does—but it takes them far too long even to speculate that it might be a constructed planet, which it turns out to be. Both Kirk & Spock are incongruously short-tempered & sharo-tongued throughout, & Spock once again demonstrates his unsuitability for command, despite his towering intellect.

Doctor M'Benga returns, another physician aboard the Enterprise, having debuted in "A Private Little War" (season two, episode nineteen). M'Benga also mentions a Doctor Sanchez, who is conducting an autopsy on a slain crewman. It is unclear is Sanchez is specifically the ship's pathologist.

Rewatching Star Trek (The Original Series, 1966-1969)

Episode o' the Day
"Wink of an Eye" (season three, episode eleven; production code: 068; 29 November 1968): Wikipedia-link.

Commentary: Ugh.

Rewatching Star Trek (The Original Series, 1966-1969)

Episode o' the Day
"Plato's Stepchildren" (season three, episode ten; production code: 067; 22 November 1968): Wikipedia-link.

Commentary: The good thing about this episode is the Enterprise crew's steadfast resolve to stand up to the alien bullies. The bad thing is the complete refusal to engage with Platonic philosophy; the aliens call themselves Platonians, but aside froma vaguely Hellenic aesthetic to the set & prop design & Greek-sounding names. Greek mythology was integral to the plot of "Who Mourns for Adonais?" (season two, episode two), as was Roman culture to "Bread and Circuses" (season two, episode twenty-five), but Greek philosophy is only window dressing for "Plato's Stepchildren," which was disappointing.

I would have preferred a resolution wherein our heroes figured out how to strip the lazy, arrogant, sadistic aliens of their telekinetic powers & left them to scrap out a living on their isolated planet by their own labors, instead of Kirk overpowering the alien leader using Kirk's own newly acquired telekinetic powers.

Rewatching Star Trek (The Original Series, 1966-1969)

Episode o' the Day
"Day of the Dove" (season three, episode seven; production code: 066; 1 November 1968): Wikipedia-link.

Commentary: Could have been a much stronger episode. I'm glad Kang (played by Michael Ansara) returned for an episode of Deep Space Nine ("Blood Oath," season two, episode nineteen), but not glad Kang returned for an episode of Voyager ("Flashback," season three, episode two), that series's thirtieth anniversary of Star Trek episode. "Flashback" is emblematic of Voyager, being dull & utterly forgettable compared to Deep Space Nine's magnificent thirtieth anniversary episode, "Trials and Tribble-ations" (season five, episode six).

Rewatching Star Trek (The Original Series, 1966-1969)

Episode o' the Day
"For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky" (season three, episode eight; production code: 065; 8 November 1968): Wikipedia-link.

Commentary: Prior to this rewatch, I recalled the plots of many of these episodes only vaguely. With a few notable exceptions, third-season episodes do not spring readily to mind when the desire to enjoy an episode of The Original Series arises. "For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky" is better than I remember it being; at least, there was the seed of a good episode there, even if it was lost in execution. "For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky" should have been an interesting story about a generation starship, but instead it's boilerplate about primitives worshipping a computer as a god (see also: "Return of the Archons" [season one, episode twenty-one] & "The Apple" [season two, episode five]) with a melodramatic subplot about McCoy experiencing a terminal medical diagnosis & falling in love with—& marrying!—the alien culture's high priestess. Captain Kirk also married an alien culture's high priestess just a few episodes earlier, in "The Paradise Syndrome" (season three, episode three), but she is killed,leaving him a widower; McCoy simply abandons his wife once her culture's medical knowledge cures his otherwise uncurable disease. Not a good look.

Rewatching Star Trek (The Original Series, 1966-1969)

Episodes o' the Day
"In a Mirror, Darkly" (season four, episodes eighteen & nineteen; production codes: 418 & 419; 22 April 2005 & 29 April 2005): Wikipedia-link.

Commentary: We take a slight detour from our rewatch of The Original Series with the Enterprise duology, "In a Mirror, Darkly," which is, almost four decades later, a direct sequel to "The Tholian Web." In "The Tholian Web," the U.S.S. Defiant NCC-1764, a sister ship to the Enterprise NCC-1701, is lost in a dimensional interphase. "In a Mirror, Darkly" reveals that the alternate dimension to which the Defiant disappeared is the Mirror Universe, & not only was the Defiant displaced dimensionally, but also temporally, traveling back from the 2260s to the 2150s.

"In a Mirror, Darkly" holds the distinction of being the only episodes set entirely in the Mirror Universe, with no living beings phasing between the universes, only the Defiant. The producers went so far as to give these two episodes an alternate opening title sequence. Brilliant!

Rewatching Star Trek (The Original Series, 1966-1969)

Episode o' the Day
"The Tholian Web" (season three, episode nine; production code: 064; 15 November 1968): Wikipedia-link.

Commentary: "The Tholian Web" is a classic, one of the best episodes of the series. This episode has it all: a mystery in space, a memorable alien antagonist (the Tholians were referenced in dialogue a few times during the T.N.G.-era, but not seen on screen again until Star Trek: Enterprise, yet the visual of the Tholian web remains iconic), & possibly the most intense conflict between Spock & McCoy in The Original Series.

The final joke of the episode—in which Spock & McCoy pretend not to have watched Captain Kirk's video will during the time when they believed that captain had been lost in space, even though watching Kirk's exhortation had been vital in convincing them to stop quarreling & work together—is unfortunate, & uncuts the episode. This is not the only time a serious episode has been undercut by the obligatory final joke, one of The Original Series's worst tendencies, which developed during the second season.

Rewatching Star Trek (The Original Series, 1966-1969)

Episode o' the Day
"The Empath" (season three, episode twelve; production code: 063; 6 December 1968): Wikipedia-link.

Commentary: The Vians are vile & despicably self-righteous.