Space Seed

It is my opinion that Star Trek truly hit its stride with this episode. There's a certain effortlessness about the crew's relationship. The familiarity is infectious, and the audience can't help but sense it. It is with this confidence that the episode is able to achieve an even greater balance of plot and theme integration.

The crew encounters a group of genetically enhanced men from Earth's past lead by a tyrant called Khan. The episode's central drama centers around the connection between him and the Enterprise's Historian McGivers. Her obsession with the past is exploited by Khan to take over the ship. The only perceivable failing of this episode is that there is no discernible arc for her character. While in a moment of conscience she helps save Captain Kirk, she still ultimately chooses exile with Khan at the episode's end.

In fact, no part of this episode displays any form of arc, be it character or thematically based. While the content of the theme and conflict displayed may be interesting (it IS interesting: unhealthy ambition for human advancement vs. the natural ambitions of the Enterprise Crew) there is no inherent revelation or shift of development that results in a thematic conclusion. It is simply an acknowledgment of these two party's incompatibility that resolves what's presented as the dramatic conclusion. I can't help but feel that if the resolution came through significant developments of character or theme, the payoff would have been more effective.

Nevertheless, the conflict depicted is iconic and poignant. I take no issue with this. Seeing the Enterprise pitted against such an unhealthy ambition really helps define their mission for the audience. It is always when such extreme opposition is depicted that true colors can be revealed. This episode showcases the prime essence of Trek, even if it is wrapped in an slightly underdeveloped narrative.

A Taste of Armageddon

This is a most ambitious Trek episode.  I'm delighted, because it's just the thing the show needed at this point.  Thankfully the ideological content doesn't edge out the adventure aspect of the show.  It achieves a respectable balance.

Kirk and crew are carrying an Earth ambassador to establish peaceful, diplomatic relations with a planet currently at war.  The kicker: the war is a digital one that's been faught in their cyberspace for more than 500 years.  When the virtual missiles "strike", the effected persons must report to disintegration chambers within 24 hours.  This maintains human casualties, but allows the respective civilizations to be preserved. 

Dramatically, this episode is structured beautifully.  You've got the diplomat who can't see beyond the facade of the war mongers below.  You've got the long-laid and ultimately misguided history of a civilazation just begging to be interveened, and you've got a Captain with a certain affinity for breaking a prime directive that hasn't been mentioned yet.  

When questioned, the representative of this civilization defends their method of conflict by arguing they've done away with the destructive ugliness of war and left only the necessary defining elements that are in line with our barbaric nature.  Kirk replies,     

"Instinct can be fought.  We're human beings with the blood of a million savage years on our hands, but we can stop it.  We can admit that we're killers, but we're not going to kill today.  That's all it takes."

There's that patented Trek optimism, rearing its head again.  It's astonishing to see such a basic yet phenomenally awesome first step towards the maturation of mankind.  To stand over the carnage of our birth and define ourselves against animal beginnings, toward an evolved and tempered existence.  Kirk's monologue encapsulates the basic ideological hope that must be embraced if mankind is to make it to the future depicted in Star Trek.    

We end on a delightful exchange between Kirk and Spock, who is criticizing the riskiness of the Captain's destruction of the war machine:

-"Sometimes a feeling, Mr. Spock, is all we humans have to go on."

-"Captain, you almost make me believe in luck."

-"Why, Mr. Spock, you almost make me believe in miracles."

The Return of the Archons

Many have claimed this an affront to organized religion or religious zealotry, but I'm not convinced. The Enterprise faces a society of people being controlled by a being called Landru. The people go about their lives in complete peace and tranquility, but at the loss of their individuality. They walk around murmuring greetings and well wishes, speaking of the unity of the "body" and the greatness of "Landru."

I believe, however, this religious interpretation falls apart when we learn the true nature of Landru: that he was a man who lived 6,000 years ago and upon his death programmed a machine to help his society maintain peace. In the light of this I think the familiar critique appropriate: be careful what you wish for. The hopes of society for attainment of any pure ideal that does not allow for the free choice of the individual is one that will come at dire costs.

The civilization we see depicted in this episode plays more as a warning for those who are proponents of such extreme ideals (potentially religion, but not specifically). I feel that this message may be a bit muddled in its final presentation, and an exploration of further themes or drama may have been wise. You see, nothing particularly dramatic or interesting develops of our characters or the guest cast introduced. The entire payoff of the show banks on the stressfulness of the issue at hand.

I will admit being quite amused at McCoy's trance when he is "absorbed" into the control of Landru. I can't for the life of me figure out if this amusement was intentional or not. Either way, the episode flirts with interesting ideas, but never puts our characters at enough risk or ties them to the outcome with enough sincerity to warrant severe reaction or dedicated interest.

Tomorrow is Yesterday

Audiences often find themselves confused with time-travel stories, even when they are done well.

This episode handles the subject so poorly that there's no way even the most astute viewer could reconcile its content.

The Enterprise is accidentally sling-shot back through time due to some sort of encounter with a "black star", which we never see. They encounter a 1960s jet pilot who causes a tough situation for the crew: beam him back to the planet, and risk altering history with knowledge of the future, or keep him and risk changing it due to his absence. It's a paper-thin dilemma that offers no character insight, world building, or considerable dramatic payoff.

I almost wonder of the episode was reverse engineered to allow Kirk to get into hand-to-hand combat with military personnel. The fight itself is fairly well done, but the context is so lacking that you feel guilty for enjoying it.

I'd like to try to explain the ending, but I can't. Somehow, they are able to beam the pilot back into the place he was initially abducted. It's so poorly done in both setup and execution, that I can't tell you if the pilot is supposed to remember the Enterprise, or has his memory inexplicably wiped. It really is an amazingly terrible resolution. It's giving no consequence to the ongoing development of our characters, and no immediate intrigue to at least satisfy your dramatic apatite.

Let us hope that the handling of accidental-time-travel-by-way-of-spacial-anomaly is superior when used in the new film, which is now only a few weeks away. Apologies for my lack of adherence to the initial schedule, whereby all three seasons would have been analyzed by the time of the film's release.

The Alternative Factor

If this was anyone's first episode of Star Trek, I wouldn't blame them for never wanting to watch it again. There's no sugar-coating: this is a terrible episode.

Any hope of continuing Trek's penchant for taking possibly terrible/cheesy/not compelling concepts and elevating them beyond their obvious potential is thrown completely out the window. I'm pretty confident that this is worst possible telling of the concept at hand. Just what is the concept at hand? Ship encounters a man trapped between universes. If his two selves meet (matter and anti-matter) both universes will cease to exist.

Rather than just deal with the conceptual ramifications of the subject matter, the stakes are raised in an arbitrary and unsupported way. Regardless of the scientific accuracy of the setup (which must be wonky at best) it is so poorly set-up and so sloppily executed that the unbelievable stakes carry no weight. The story points on which the drama rests are treated with no consideration as to how it is revealed to the audience. And the drama is pretty meager in the first place.

It's unfortunate to see such ineffective tactics used to heighten suspense, when the show has so readily proved it's ability to raise them legitimately and most invisibly.

Any character bits to save the episode? No. Any exciting action or suspenseful sequences to wash out the bad taste? No. Are the performances at least acceptable? No! This is a perfect counter-point for my belief that Shatner is at his best when the dialogue is already great on the page ... he takes the text and just knocks it out of the park. Here? It's just maddeningly, atrociously not up to the standard this show has set for itself.

Arena

The Holy Trinity returns! The McCoy/Spock/Kirk relationship is back in full force, and it's evident right from this episode's teaser.

"Doctor, you are a sensualist."
"You bet your pointed ears I am."

The Enterprise crew beams down to Cestus III for a peaceful meeting with a Starfleet commodore, only to find the planet under attack. It's a thrilling opening, really allowing the tactical expertise of our characters flourish in a high risk situation. You really feel the effectiveness of their years serving together, seeing them react in the line of fire.

The faceless enemy is clever to the point of shocking. They are able to hack the energy in Spock's tricorder device, which he then lobs across the trench back at them as it explodes.

I think this opening sequence alone births the Star Trek phenomenon known as the Red-shirt, or a character of no consequence often used as cannon fodder. These character generally have very generic names, and are the only unrecognizable character in a landing party. These characters are usually doomed.

The Crew leaves the largely destroyed planet to follow the fleeing, and still unseen, aggressor. There's a fantastic scene between Spock and Kirk in the captain's quarters, in which Spock seems subtly disturbed by the captain's haste with which he decides to strike the enemy vessel. Kirk believes that letting the attack go unpunished would be detrimental, where as Spock holds that attack would do nothing to improve the conflict.

The Enterprise is intercepted by a superior race of beings that has decided to intervene and settle the dispute by taking Captain Kirk and the Captain of the Gorn ship, and plopping them down on a barren planet to duke it out. This contest is ironically placed, as they say, "in the interest of peace." This is the second episode in a row that Kirk is torn directly from the bridge of his ship.

What follows in a absolutely terrible fight between captain Kirk and a lizard man. I don't know how else to put it, as it really is a tremendous bummer. I don't even chalk it up to being dated ... I can't imagine anyone being fully pleased by this encounter, especially seeing as the opening battle was so viscerally exciting. Kirk makes a cannon, MacGuyver style, out of the surrounding materials. Yep.

Thankfully, this fight only serves as a stage for Kirk to develop his character. Whereas he was trigger happy to attack the Gorn initially, he decides finally that he will not kill him, proving that humans can be merciful. This impresses the advanced mediator, who spares Kirk's life.

"You are still half savage, but there is hope."

There's a bit of a twist revealed in regards to the Gorn's motivations. The Cestus III outpost was considered by the Gorn to be an invasion of their space, and was defending himself. The episode attempts to ask us how this effects the moral decision of fighting the Gorn. Unfortunately, the specifics of this moral quandary are never revealed, and therefore never satisfied. Makes me wonder why it was mentioned in the first place.

This is a fun episode with a bit of focus on the decision making of Captain Kirk. His development isn't nearly as eloquent or profound as in previous episodes, nor is it as offensively neglected as it will be in episodes to come.

The Squire of Gothos

Two campy episodes in a row! Thank god they weren't aired in this order.

This episode bears the same exact story as Charlie X: an alien with a toddler mentality has great power which he uses to torment the crew of the Enterprise, before being chastised by the fortunate appearance of his ethereal parents. The central alien this time around, rather than being an angsty teen, is a foppish man who has been studying medieval earth.

While Charlie X may be the superior execution of the concept, I cannot deny the charm of this episode. The alien the crew falls victim to, Trelane, is fantastically interesting with the lethal games he subjects them to.

We begin with the disappearance of Captain Kirk and Sulu from the bridge. They follow the mysterious whodunit down to the planet's surface, where they encounter their host: the harpsichord-playing dandy, ex-General (now Squire) Trelane. His castle dwelling houses a perfect visual indication of the character's flagrant conceit: a large mirror, which reveals itself to be the mechanical source of his power.

This is, however, a footnote subservient to the great flamboyance of Trelane, which is the true iconography of his character. He dances with the women, makes racially questionable comments to Uhura, and challenges Kirk to a duel. Strike that, multiple duels.

The madness rises to a crescendo as Trelane chases the Enterprise with his entire planet of Gothos. Yes, you read that correctly. He chases them with a planet. I'm not sure there's much more I can say, after that.

Like Shore Leave, it is a great bit of fun without any thematic or conceptual ambition. Others have postulated this episode to be a meditation on power, reflected in Kirk's reaction to Trelane. I do, however, find this analysis unfounded, and almost entirely unsupported by the content of this episode. I also generally find the choice to invoke the word "meditation", or its equivalent, to be a precursor to a loose interpretation that reads more into the work than can be supported.

There are a great many playful turns of phrase in the dialogue that echo the lofty character of Oscar Wilde. This mentality is opposed by Spock, who retorts, "I object to you. I object to intellect without discipline. I object to power without constructive purpose." This is more telling of Spock's character than it is of any authorial depiction of theme.

This episode is, as Trelane would say, "Absolutely smashing!"