The Star Trek TOS Project – Weeks 15 & 16 (star trek original series)

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

Hi, I’m Sue.  I can get very emotional about puppets, and I am an Anomaly.  Another two-week update!  Two weeks and only four Star Trek Original Series episodes?  Yeah, I’ve been busy.

3×08  For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky
Summary:  The Enterprise must deflect an asteroid that is on a collision course with Daran V, which has nearly 4 billion inhabitants.  But it turns out that it’s not an asteroid at all…
Thoughts:  Actually, I liked a lot of this story.  The idea of a a generation (or more) ship made to look like a planet/asteroid, and the passengers forgetting (or never knowing) they’re actually on a ship – it’s very interesting.  Even the dude that goes crazy because he was a little too curious about his world – I was into that.  I am a bit over the all-powerful computers running the show, thought.  It makes me wish that they’d had a bigger budget and better special effects, because that could be very cool, visually. But, once again, Kirk and the gang have to go and destroy/undermine their culture.

3×09  The Tholian Web
Summary:  The Enterprise is investigating the disappearance of yet another Federation starship – this time it’s the Defiant.  They find the ship, with the crew dead at each others’ hands.  Whatever affected that crew begins to affect the Enterprise, and then Kirk goes missing as well…  just when the Tholians show up.
Thoughts:  Did Spock really say that there was no record of a mutiny on a Starfleet vessel?  Cause I’m pretty sure there’s been a mutiny on the Enterprise itself, at least once.  By this point, it’s obvious that I love me some Spock-McCoy sassing, but the episode overall didn’t do much for me.  Which makes me sad, because there are a lot of people who consider this one of the best episodes of all the Star Treks ever.  What am I missing?  (Am I just at the wrong end of the “long conversation”?)

3×10 Plato’s Stepchildren
Summary:  A landing party beams down to a planet in response to a distress call, where they find a society modeled after classical/ancient Greece.  Once McCoy treats their leader, however, the crew is prevented from leaving, and find themselves being controlled by the Platonians for their own amusement.
Thoughts:  You know, I really wanted this to be an awesome episode.  It’s got an amazingly iconic moment, but that’s really all it has going for it.  The rest of it is just ridiculous.  Those poor actors.

3×11  Wink of an Eye
Summary:  The Enterprise receives a distress call from Scalos, but the landing party beams down to an empty city.  Then the crew starts disappearing one by one, including Captain Kirk.
Thoughts:  This is not a bad premise, but there’s some pretty poor execution.  The “we need alien men to save our species” thing is a trope as old as time, but infertility is still an interesting sci-fi issue worth exploring.  But if Kirk wants to contact the rest of the crew, why not just write a note?  Why just hope that they’ll find this recording and slow it down?  And wouldn’t the crew be able to see sped-up people if they’re standing still for a log time (even if they’re blurry)?

I feel like I am so close, and yet so far from finishing the series.  I’m hoping to take a big chunk out of the series this coming week, and then move on to the six films with this crew…

~s