The Star Trek TOS Project – Week 14 ( star trek original series )

An on-going series of Star Trek Original Series episode reviews

Hi!  I’m Sue.  My most exciting moment at NYCC this past weekend was when I got to meet the Grover, and I am an Anomaly.

I’m beginning to realize just how much I’ve overscheduled myself through mid-November.  Perhaps I’ll need to take a day off work soon to sit down and really take a good size chunk out of this final season.  But for now, only three more star trek original series episodes this week…

3×05  Is there in Truth No Beauty?
Summary:  The Enterprise is tasked with transporting Dr. Miranda Jones, a human telepath well-versed in Vulcan meditation techniques, and a Medusan ambassador – the Medusans being a highly intelligent race, but so “ugly” that to look upon them would drive a human to madness.  Also on board is Larry Marvik, one of the ship’s designers, who is in love with Dr. Jones and will do anything to prevent her from going with the Medusans.
Thoughts:  First of all, “Medusans”?  They really couldn’t come up with a better name for an alien race that humans can’t look at?  Okay, there’s some good stuff in this – the concept of the IDIC, the discussion of the nature of beauty, etc.  And I was actually quite surprised by the revelation that Dr. Jones is blind (which makes total sense, really) and her sensory web dress thing was pretty cool.  But the men on the ship just can’t seem to get over the fact that she’s not into them, which just becomes tiresome.  The “galactic barrier” doesn’t seem to be an issues in this episode.  And, although Miranda rails against it at the end, the constant impressions that “beauty” or “ugliness” is somehow objective or quantifiable was getting on my nerves.

3×06  Spectre of the Gun
Summary:  Once again, Kirk ignores a warning to “go away” from an alien race.  Instead, he beams down with a landing party down to the Melkotian planet and are met by an alien telling them that they must face the consequences of their trespassing.  Which is apparently dying in a shoot-out at the OK Corral.
Thoughts:  So, if the Melkotians have been isolationists for so long, and clearly want nothing to do with anyone, why is the Federation so desperate to contact them?  Perhaps I’m just too used to the “alien having fun with the silly humans” trope, or maybe it’s the Western setting which admittedly is not really my thing, but I found this to be quite boring.  At least they had a better explanation for the Old West setting in this episode than “Hodgkin’s Law of Parallel Planetary Development.”

3×07  Day of the Dove
Summary:  The Enterprise receives a distress call from a colony, but arrives to find to evidence of said colony but a completely disabled Klingon ship.  Kirk and the Klingons blame each other for their predicaments, and tensions escalate.  Until they figure out that this was all set up by an energy being that feeds off conflict.
Thoughts:  There is actual blackface in this episode – wow.  (That’s never okay.)  Other than that, I don’t really have much to say.  It was pretty hilarious that Kirk and Kang’s orders to stop fighting made the crew literally just stop in their tracks, as if a director had cut, but kept rolling anyway.  But, overall, this was another one that made no really impression on me.  Pretty forgettable.

A General Thought:  I may have mentioned this in a previous post, but I always got the impression from the other Star Trek series that the Vulcan mind meld was a deeply private and sacred thing, but Spock just mind melds with anyone, huh?  And with increasing frequency.  Weird.

Until next time, peace and long life.
~s