It’s funny how your tastes change as you get older. I used to hate westerns and war movies, and now I devour them. When I was a teenager, I was raised on Star Trek: The Next Generation and was really only aware of the original series as the basis for the movies and as a vague memory from watching with my dad, because they weren’t really in heavy syndication as much as the 90s series were. So it’s really refreshing to be able to go back and watch it all with a fresh perspective, many of them for the first time, and realize what an awesome show this really was.
The Show
This of course is the show’s debut on the Blu Ray format, and we’ll get to that particular discussion later in the review, but suffice it to say it’s like watching the show with a whole new set of eyes. As well, CBS/Paramount went through and fixed all the old special effects, replacing them with shiny new CGI effects. But hey, if that bugs you, you can change mid-episode and just watch the original as well! Now THAT’S how it should be done. Paying attention, George Lucas?
The first season contains 29 episodes spread over 7 discs…
Disc One
– "The Man Trap". The new CGI shots of the Enterprise are immediately breathtaking in 1080P. So the very first episode aired sees Kirk and McCoy heading down to a desolate planet to check on a pair of researchers, one of whom is a mysterious woman from Dr. McCoy’s past. The third crew member (who isn’t wearing a red shirt, by the way), is quickly killed off under strange circumstances, and we get the historic first "He’s dead, Jim." Things are quite weird to begin with, though, as "Nancy" appears completely different to each member of the crew who views her. This one doesn’t even seem like the first one, as there’s an easy camaraderie with the crew members and the story is generic Trek enough that you could drop it pretty much anywhere in the season. That’s pretty impressive. The mystery is like something out of the X-Files, as people are dropping dead due to apparent salt deprivation. Unfortunately, the amazing clarity of Blu Ray makes it ridiculously obvious that they’re on a shooting stage when they’re outside. You’d think they would have used the CGI advances to redo the sky into something like looks like real sky instead of painted backdrop. And wouldn’t you know, the changeling gets beamed onto the ship, hungry for SALT. Sulu is apparently a botanist in his spare time here, something that never gets mentioned again as far as I can remember. Once Kirk actually figures out what’s going on (FORTY MINUTES INTO THE SHOW!) things slow down into the usual philosophical debate that Roddenberry loved so much. Do you punish the creature for killing people to survive, or pity the creature for attempting to continue its species in the only way it knows how? The big showdown at the end, with Spock bitchslapping McCoy’s great love like a coked-up pimp, unfortunately falls more on the hilarious end of the dramatic spectrum these days. "If she was Nancy, could she take this?" WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! Obviously Spock is not yet the emotionless Vulcan he would become. A good start to the series, although it’s a very different show at this point.
– "Charlie X". The Enterprise picks up Charles Evans, the sole survivor of a colony gone horribly wrong, and a bit of a creepy little bastard to boot. Puberty is a bitch at the best of times, but when your only companion for the first 17 years of your life is a computer and you apparently have strange mental powers you’re pretty much guaranteed to need galactic therapy for the rest of your life. Luckily he’s at least normal enough to know that Janice Rand is the hotness (outside of the basket woven into her hair), although making moves on the captain’s personal yeoman (if you know what I mean) may be the worst idea ever. Interesting that close-ups of women are always shot with a soft filter on them, giving them a glow, while the men are left to their own devices. First McCoy v. Spock philosophical smackdown here, as they argue the merits of science v. nature. So Charlie, as happens often to this crew, is a godlike being with the power to change matter, influence minds, and do badass card tricks. You just know that this isn’t gonna end up good for him. Kirk of course sees the young demi-god as a potential protégé, giving us a "fight training" sequence that looks like pro wrestling training more than anything. And I have to say, Kirk takes the sight of a kid obliterating a human being with an eye-roll with far more calm than most people would. But hey, that’s why he’s JAMES TIBERIUS KIRK. Inevitably Charlie runs amok because of Jim’s failings as a father figure, giving us creepy punishments like Spock reciting poetry and a woman with no face. Luckily, his adoptive alien parents stop by to pick him up and spare us the trouble of actually having an ending, but that’s Trek for you. So was Charlie a Q? I’m sure some branch of the Trek world has addressed that question at some point.
– "Where No Man Has Gone Before". Third episode aired, but the first one shot (not counting "The Cage" of course) and stuff is drastically different here. The uniforms are all different, most notably, and there are cosmetic differences in the ship. Plus there’s no McCoy, only Dr. Piper. So the plot sees the Enterprise voyaging to the edge of the galaxy, where a giant barrier awaits to put the cosmic smackdown on anything that comes near. And in this case, Lt. Gary Mitchell suffers that fate which so many Trek characters would suffer after him: Godlike powers without the godlike instruction book. You can tell he’s godlike because he has silver contact lenses after his exposure to the barrier. The commentary points out that mental powers were a favourite of Gene’s because they were impressive as a sci-fi concept and yet could be done for dirt cheap. Kirk, it should be noted, is 100% fully formed as a character here, as Shatner nails the thing in one episode and doesn’t look back. Spock, on the other hand, shows emotion (despite his claims to the contrary) and is frankly kind of a dick at times. Speaking of being a dick, once Gary Mitchell starts showing superpowers, the crew switches from supporting his lifestyle choice of godhood to "let’s take him down to the planet and blow the shit out of him". Can you blame him for going crazy and trying to kill everyone? Things get a bit silly as Gary Mitchell and his silver-eyed bride-to-be Dr. Hot Lips try to craft a paradise, and Kirk is having none of that. Dig the overacting on Kirk as he’s tortured by Mitchell! There’s just no "off" switch with Shatner, is there? Luckily, they needed an action show to sell this version of the pilot, so instead of philosophical debate we get the first ass-whooping delivered by Kirk to settle things, as it should be. Remember kids: For all the talk about Roddenberry’s visions of peace, more often than not the solution was Kirk beating the hell out of someone and then dropping a rock on them. Usually metaphorically speaking, but in this case literally.
– "The Naked Time". This episode’s title is very misleading. Anyway, while investigating a space station where things have gone horribly wrong, a crewman totally ignores the proper use of a protective suit and touches things with his bare hand. Shockingly, he does not wear a red uniform. First appearance of Majel Barrett as Nurse Chapel here, by the way. Sulu’s passion has now shifted from botany to fencing. This is another good one for Roddenberry’s budget problems, because the crew starts slowly going nuts and dying from an invisible pathogen that requires no special effects. Sulu turning into a crazed swashbuckler gives Kirk’s hammy acting a run for its money. Now, I should note that in a previous commentary for "The Enemy Within", it was noted that that episode was the first appearance of the Vulcan nerve pinch, but Spock actually puts Sulu down with it here. There’s actually a great running gag here, as the annoying Irish crewman takes over engineering and sings folk songs, BADLY, over the intercom until everyone is going out of their minds and trying to break in just to shut him up. It’s a nice bit of levity on a show where pathos is normally the rule. The big plot point here, of course, is Chapel revealing her hidden lust for Spock while under the influence and passing the virus onto him, thus giving us Blubbering Idiot Spock as he lets his emotions loose. This of course has more impact to current viewers who understand Spock’s character than it would to 60s viewers who were still learning about him for the first time. Another historic first: Scotty cannot change the laws of physics! Which is funny considering that wrap drive works by essentially throwing those laws on the ground, dry-humping them, and then spitting on them. Anyway, not to be outdone by Spock’s pimpness in "The Man Trap", Kirk slaps the shit out of Spock here to snap him out of it and goes into crazy ham mode due to the virus, but of course how do you tell the difference? The ending here is pretty weird, as the engines "implode" and they end up going back in time, but only three days into the past. In fact they were supposed to end up in 1968 for the episode "Tomorrow is Yesterday" as a two-parter but that one got moved back in the schedule instead. Still, dumb ending aside, this is solid sci-fi with some real suspense and the best episode of the series thus far.
Disc Two
– "The Enemy Within". YEAH! One the stupidest pieces of crap produced by the Trek universe, but it’s so wonderfully dumb and filled with over-the-top nonsense from Shatner that it actually inspired a live theatre version that toured. Hopefully you know the episode — Kirk gets beamed up from an away mission…but he’s TWO PEOPLE. And one of them is really evil, which you know because he’s wearing mascara and has Vaseline on his face. I can’t even take credit for that line because Garfield Reeves-Stevens delivers it on a commentary track, happily lampooning his own work and admitting the faults. First appearance of Kirk’s goofy tunic uniform here. EVIL KIRK tries to rape Janice Rand because he’s so EVIL, and meanwhile the away team is stuck on a freezing planet because they can’t beam up. And good Kirk is turning into a big wuss. Continuity goofs are everywhere as the crew learned to produce the show. So you see, everyone has a good and evil side, and you need both of them to function, which is The Big Lesson being imparted here in between Shatner mugging for the camera every other scene. If you want the textbook Shatner over-acting performance, this is it. You might as well dress him with pineapple slices and bake him for Christmas dinner. OK, I admit, I kind of love this one, even if people being in "117 degrees below zero" would be dead within 10 minutes. Unless they use the Kelvin scale in the future, I dunno.
– "Mudd’s Women". The first episode to veer into the comedy side of things, as the Enterprise finds a vessel in distress and manages to save the captain and three young women (shot in soft focus as usual), leaving McCoy and Scotty dumbstruck. But the crew quickly suspects "Leo Walsh" of wrongdoing in the explosion of his ship, especially when he declares the rescued women to be his "cargo". A court-martial reveals him to be conman Harry Mudd and he’s apparently carrying the women for use as wives on a Federation colony. Of course he quickly reveals to the viewers that he’s up to no good, as you can probably surmise by the entire crew fawning over the women while Spock makes disdainful glances at them. That’s some underrated comic acting from Nimoy there. Turns out that Mudd is trying to con his way into a shipment of dilithium crystals (worth more than diamonds or gold in the future), but THE KIRK has managed to make one of his accomplices fall in love with him. Well of course. Unfortunately the ship is falling apart and they’re out of crystals, which makes the entire crew falling in love something of a problem. The show takes kind of a left turn when they head down to the planet to barter the women for the crystals, with everything turning super-serious when one of the women throws a fit and goes off into the freezing night alone, but things get fun and light once Eve hooks up with a miner and does her best to domesticate him. Another winner.
– "What Are Little Girls Made Of?". The Enterprise travels to yet another deserted planet on a rescue mission, as Nurse Chapel’s fiancée is stranded on an archaeological dig and has to journey down with Kirk to save him. Who knew Chapel had a backstory? Things are immediately suspicious when the mysterious Dr. Korby fails to appear where promised, so Kirk brings down a pair of redshirts as backup (the first ever in the series!) and you just know they’re doomed. And sure enough, mere SECONDS after joining Kirk on the planet, one of the poor bastards falls into a BOTTOMLESS PIT. Now there’s a death you don’t see every day. The other one is quickly murdered by Lurch. And if that didn’t tip off Kirk enough, soon they’re being held hostage by the good doctor, who has apparently turned into a Bond villain after all his time on the planet. Yes, it’s that great bane of the Trek universe: EVIL ROBOTS. And you know how Roddenberry feels about people who are playing God, I hope. Chapel gets the cattiest line of the show when she answers Korby’s "Did you think I could love a machine?" with "Well, did you?" CAT SOUND. In all fairness, his assistant Andrea (with coveralls barely covering all, ya know?) is a machine that you could really get to love. And even though we’re only a few episodes into the season, it’s once again time for Kirk to get replaced by an evil double, in this case an android sent by Korby to make the galaxy a better place or some such nonsense. Luckily the real Kirk has the forethought to make sure his double will be prejudiced against Vulcans and their half-breed interference. The Big Message of the show: Man could live forever by replacing our frail bodies with androids, but at what cost? Do you see the ironic payoff coming? Assuming of course you haven’t seen these a million times like most Trek geeks. I’m with Korby, bring on immortality. I should note that the caverns here are lit with a series of pastel colors that look absolutely STUNNING in hi-def. When they redid this one for Blu Ray they didn’t mess around. More on that in the video section, of course. Anyway, Kirk is so manly that he almost makes Andrea the Android into a sex-crazed machine, because he’s THE KIRK. Final dead redshirt count: 2.
– "Miri". This one became more famous from the South Park homage, I think. The Enterprise discovers a second Earth in their travels, which is apparently an exact duplicate of our own planet as if it had been abandoned and run down from 1960 until the 24th century. Hey, what a fabulous way to save money on special effects! The only rational survivor is a young girl named Miri who spouts nonsense about "grups" and "foolies" in the "before time". Thankfully she’s a bit too young for The Kirk to put the moves on her. Uh, I think. Spock and the redshirts run into a REALLY creepy group of kids and it seems that not only did all the grown-ups die of a plague in the past here, but the current grown-ups who are on the surface have the plague as well and are just as doomed. For you see, the elders of THIS planet also tried for immortality, and ol’ Gene just hates it when people presume to play God, so the kids became nearly immortal, but when they DO hit puberty…look out. Even worse, they’ve got 4 days to live and the bratty little immortal kids steal their communicators with no vaccine in sight. Now that’s dramatic tension! Even Janice Rand is dying…albeit in soft focus. And without the ship’s computers to help, Spock’s work could just be a BEAKER FULL OF DEATH. Now there’s the line of the episode. Kirk trying to reason with a classroom full of unruly pre-teens is creepy and yet true to life in their behaviour. If kids don’t want to listen there’s just no reasoning. Oddly enough, after making such a big deal about it at the beginning, the fact that it’s an exact replica of Earth in every way is never mentioned again. And both redshirts survive! A classic creepy episode.
– "Dagger of the Mind". Great title. The Enterprise beams up a mysterious box from a penal colony, and he quickly escapes and turns out to be a crazed killer of some sort. The first redshirt bites it just after the opening credits, in fact. Turns out, however, that the "killer" is actually a doctor from the colony, and that’s just a bit too weird for Kirk, so he beams down with a psychiatrist from McCoy’s department. One who he apparently hooked up with at the galactic equivalent of the Christmas party and then never called back. Nice to know that’s still awkward even hundreds of years in the future. The crazy doctor, Van Gelder, is so crazy that Spock has to bust out the first ever Vulcan Mind Meld to decipher his gibberish, while on the planet Kirk wants to test out the device that fried Van Gelder’s mind for himself. It’s a neutralizer, you see, which basically wipes the mind clean and allows you to implant whatever memories or thoughts you want onto the mind. You can see how that would be useful in rehabilitating prisoners, but again, PLAYING GOD IS BAD. And indeed, Kirk messing with his mind goes horribly wrong for him when the guy running the prison turns out to be yet another villain out to get all up in The Kirk’s business. But it’s Roddenberry, so you know what’s gonna happen to him by the end of the episode! McCoy gives us "He’s dead, Captain" which is close but not exactly "He’s dead, Jim" so I can’t really add it to the running total in good conscience.
Disc Three
– "The Corbomite Maneuver". Yeah! McCoy is a doctor, not a moon-shuttle conductor! Anyway, the ship runs into a creepy floating cube in space, which blocks them in any direction and won’t let them leave. Great line from Spock here, as he rebukes a hothead navigator ("I have a little something called an adrenaline gland." "Have you considered having it removed?") With that blown up (after remarkable restraint from Kirk) things get worse with the arrival of the people who left the cube. It seems that destroying their warning cube has led these new aliens to think that, for some CRAZY reason, Kirk is primitive and war-like. Perish the thought. Balok grants them 10 minutes to make peace with their gods, and then they’re toast. Now THERE’S an immediate threat that the audience can grasp. The previous shows had kind of been vaguely philosophical with no immediate threat, and this is some good old alien action. Navigator Bailey freaks the hell out, and can you blame him? What’s great is that even with 4 minutes to live, McCoy is still challenging Kirk on his decision to push Bailey too hard. However, that tips off Kirk that the solution here isn’t a game of chess, but rather poker. So Kirk, with some stone cold balls of steel, tells the aliens that the ship is equipped with a substance called Corbomite that will blow up the aliens if they blow up the Enterprise. That bluff works, but then Balok really pushes it and wants to tow the Enterprise to a planet and leave them there, and you know Kirk isn’t gonna take this shit much longer, despite all the ominous warnings of the fake-looking alien who keeps appearing on their screen. And when Kirk finally does beat them at their own game and beams over to render assistance with hotheaded Bailey and McCoy, it’s old "man behind the curtain" deal that reveals why the alien looked so fake. And dig baby Clint Howard! An absolute classic.
– "The Menagerie" . Speaking of classics (although not necessarily in the sense of quality), this is the two-parter famously cut together from the original unsold pilot of the show. Spock strangely requests a visit to former Enterprise Captain Christopher Pike, who is interred in a famous black box of death thanks to a barrage of "delta rays" he sustained while acting all heroic years back. Even stranger, he mutinies, kidnaps Pike from his care facility, and takes the Enterprise to the forbidden planet of Talos IV. So you know something’s going on here. Spock accepts arrest and court-martial with all the calm you’d expect, and so Spock presents the original "The Cage" pilot as evidence in his own defense. Ho, that Roddenberry. So in case you don’t know the plot already, Chris Pike and the Enterprise beam down to Talos IV to rescue a ship that crashed 18 years previous, and Pike finds himself kidnapped by the big-headed aliens known as the Talosians. They’re screwing with his brain by putting him into visions to "test" him and such, and frankly neither the present nor the past storylines are particularly captivating. Jeffrey Hunter is kind of a drag as Captain Pike and I can see why they wanted someone more like Shatner to replace him. Odd that the original episode was so expensive to produce, because it’s incredibly talky and absolutely much more cerebral than the later episodes became. I should note, however, that this episode presents the first ever green-skinned alien chick (albeit a hallucinated one) in Trek history. It’s a flashback, though, so Kirk doesn’t bang her. The two parts don’t really match up to a cohesive whole here.
– "The Conscience of the King". While attending a performance of Macbeth, Kirk’s friend Dr. Thomas Leighton seemingly recognizes the lead actor as vicious killer Kodos The Executioner and wants Kirk to do something about it. The dude’s missing half his face now so it’s understandable that he’d be a bit focused on getting justice, I suppose. Now, here’s a weird point: They make a big deal about Leighton being the only one to see Kodos face-to-face and thus being able to ID him, but there’s clearly a photo of Kodos on file in the computer. Even today given a "before" and "after" photo like that we’d be able to match up points on the face and determine that it’s the same person. At least, if CSI has taught me anything. And wouldn’t you know, after Leighton expresses his feelings to Kirk, he turns up dead. And wouldn’t you know that the "actor" (now going by Karidian) has a hot daughter who’s in need of some Kirk-loving. So Kirk diverts the troupe’s original ride and picks them up himself (Spock’s confusion at how Kirk could have known that the troupe would need a ride and Kirk’s simple "I’m the captain" explanation is part of the charm of this crew), hoping to catch Karidian in the act as Kodos. The mystery is lent a certain level of grey area when its revealed that Kodos killed 4000 members of a colony during a food shortage in order to save the other 4000…but he CHOSE which 4000 to kill. And the food shortage was averted soon after, rendering him a monster rather than a hero. Kirk, much like Hamlet, just can’t make up his mind about whether to take action or not, and of course everything leads to a performance of Hamlet where we learn who REALLY killed off the witnesses. This is pretty much what Roddenberry pitched the show as — a good old Western story set in space. I should note, however, that had Picard been the captain, he would have dived right in there and played two or three parts himself.
Disc Four
– "Balance of Terror". Man, could they write an episode title in those days or what? An oldie but a goodie, referenced years later with the Borg’s initial attacks on the Federation. There’s outposts vanishing in the Neutral Zone, and people suspect the mysterious Romulans, with whom the Federation had a silent war 100 years before. Spock gives us some REALLY clunky exposition to explain that war, but then it was only the 9th episode anyway. So they head off to the Zone to defend another outpost, and we meet two crew members, one a Romulan-hating navigator who had a relative killed by them, and the other a young and happily engaged crewman who had his wedding interrupted by the attacks. I liked it better when they’d just stick the dead meat in red shirts instead of trying to give them a backstory. The Romulans’ cloaking device is introduced here, although it has huge limitations on it at this point, rather than being the magic invisibility device it became in later shows. And things get more tense as everyone suspects a mole, and the first glimpse of a Romulan shows that he has pointed ears, just like that other guy! You know, Spock. The Romulan commander is played, rather ironically, by Mark Lenard, future portrayer of Spock’s dad Sarek. Tension ramps up and now even Spock wants to attack, and of course McCoy is Indignant. Each attacks and soon it’s the old submarine movie with both moving silently and taking potshots in the dark. The Romulans decide to show mercy, but mercy and kindness never won any battles for James Tiberius Kirk, and the Romulans learn THAT lesson the hard way. And by hard way, I mean "blown up real good" way. And of course the distrusting navigator gets saved by Spock and the bright young ensign gets killed off and yada yada.
– "Shore Leave". Back to the comedy, as everyone is incredibly tired and in need of shore leave, and they just happen to be orbiting a paradise planet. That again looks exactly like Earth. Spock of course needs no rest, but McCoy beams down and immediately sees Alice in Wonderland playing out before him. This of course is the forefather of the "Holodeck gone wrong" episodes in TNG, as everyone on the planet starts having crazy encounters with things from their memories and fantasies ("If you find that rabbit, tell him I’ve got a personal problem with him!") and it seems pretty harmless until Don Juan tries to rape the hot yeoman of the week. It’s looking all very silly and low-stakes…until McCoy gets brutally murdered by a black knight while defending his fair maiden yeoman. I’m sure everyone is hip to the room after years of this sort of thing on the other Trek shows (and Spock figures it out right away as well) but this was a fresh storyline idea back in the 60s, to be sure. Plus you’ve got a classic uniform-ripping ass-whooping delivered by Kirk in an extended stuntman battle.
– "The Galileo Seven". Enterprise is delivering vital medicine to a plague-ridden colony, but first Kirk wants to explore a quasar-like…thing…because they’ve got a few days to kill. So Spock, McCoy, Scotty and 4 expendable crew members take the Galileo shuttlecraft out to investigate (with spiffy new CGI ship) but Things Go Horribly Wrong and the shuttle is lost in the big cosmic morass. So they’re stranded on a weird planet and Spock decides to rule the day with logic (which of course immediately puts McCoy at his throat) and that means leaving three people on the planet to lighten the load. And Spock gets to choose who stays behind. Logically. That quickly becomes a moot point when they run out of fuel anyway and get…uh…attacked by giant cavemen. Unfortunately there’s no new CGI version of the silly-looking fur-clad enemies who throw giant Styrofoam spears. Spock’s being perfectly logical and the crew (well, mainly the token black guy) is getting increasingly mouthy. When even McCoy complains that you’re being a jerk, that’s some big insubordination. I mean, you’re being assaulted by the monster from Harry and the Hendersons and you want a FUNERAL SERVICE? For a security officer? The enforced deadline on the Enterprise here is a bit overdone and this is a forgettable entry in the first season.
– "The Squire of Gothos". So once again, the infinitely powerful godlike forces of the universe have got nothing better going on and decide to screw with James T. Kirk. In this case, Kirk and Sulu get kidnapped down a deserted planet’s surface, followed by McCoy and a pair of random crewmen, where they all meet Trelane, a pompous and yet all-powerful being who’s obsessed with Earth from 900 years previous. Once Spock gets involved and unleashes his powers of logic, Trelane is delighted to have someone to play off of. Kirk suspects that there’s some trickery behind Trelane’s "magic" and he challenges him to a duel to try to prove it (Trelane’s delighted "Are you challenging me to a DUEL?" really sells the fun of the character). Unfortunately it only takes him from annoying nuisance into downright psychotic danger. But when it comes down to another duel with Kirk and Trelane gets increasingly petulant, there’s really only one logical payoff to solve things. This one set the stage for Q much more clearly than the earlier "Charlie X" did, and it’s also a much better episode about a petulant god.
Disc Five
– "Arena". This one is of course famous for one thing in particular, which we’ll get to. As usual, the Enterprise is called in for a rescue mission on a colony…which is completely destroyed when they beam down. And even worse, they’re under attack from an enemy far off with some BADASS weapons and they don’t even know who. And you can add another redshirt death to the count. Kirk’s "Never mind about me, protect my ship" is Kirk at his most Kirkiest. Correction: Getting back to the ship and vowing to hunt down the invading aliens because "We’re the only police out here" is Kirk at his most Kirkiest. However, when they track the ship down, there’s apparently an even BIGGER police force patrolling the galaxy, called the Metrons. And they don’t take to violent behaviour, so they kidnap Kirk and strand him on a planet with THE GORN~! so that they can work out their aggression on each other. The Metrons know Kirk all too well, because while they cut off communications with the ship, they still give him a voice recorder so he can dramatically pose while cutting a monologue. Of course, this one is famous for the The Gorn, a lizard-suited alien captain that Kirk has to fight to the death while hopefully not laughing his ass off. The new CGI effects here allow the Gorn to blink now, by the way. And given the raw materials, Kirk is able to fashion a primitive cannon as his own version of an ultimate superweapon, which kind of shows that the Metrons are correct about us being warlike and violent. But then they’re the ones who staged a cosmic version of UFC, so who are they to talk?
– "Tomorrow is Yesterday". So apparently here in the present day, the Enterprise is flying around and showing up on Army screens, and that’s quite a hook before the credits even begin. Turns out that they’ve somehow warped into the past (in reality this was supposed to be the second part of "The Naked Time" given that show’s time-travel ending) and they immediately pick up a jet pilot after accidentally destroying his plane. Whoops. Kirk is all too open with information on what’s going on, and Captain Christopher is going to have to stay with them as a result. And they certainly can’t just beam down to Earth and live their lives there, because you know how people in Star Trek are all uptight about "changing the future". I much prefer Lost‘s "whatever happened, happened" take on things, although that would get more exploration later in the season. This one gives us a proto-version of Star Trek IV as Kirk and Sulu beam down to erase evidence of their trip to the past and just dig themselves a deeper hole as a result. Remember, kids: Time travel is for the PROFESSIONALS. Like Doc Brown or Booster Gold. Great Trek moment as Spock is checking out the stolen photos of the Enterprise and coldly comments "Poor photography", prompting McCoy to Get Indignant and explode with an emotional outburst on how it’s no time for logic when Kirk is stranded. That’s the show in a nutshell. A befuddled MP gets stuck on the ship and we encounter the replicator for the first time as a throwaway joke. Really, most of this episode is a total throwaway, as there’s never any real sense of danger or suspense, although it does give us the "slingshot effect" gag that would get used in the future.
– "Court Martial". I don’t even remember this one. We pick this one up seemingly in the middle of the story, as a deadly "ion storm" has killed a crew member and Kirk is getting grilled for it by hard-nosed Commodore Stone. Seems that the crewman held a grudge against from way back and things are looking fishy. So we move into Courtroom Drama…in SPACE. Those who have seen Law & Order more than, say, once will likely be able to figure out the trick ending here. And you can add another Ripped Shirt Stuntman Brawl to the list as no Star Trek courtroom scene would be complete with Kirk kicking some guy’s ass. Dull stuff.
– "The Return of the Archons". I didn’t even know the Archons were gone. Apparently it’s the name of a ship that went missing years ago (and given how many times that’s happened, Starfleet has gotta be running a deficit) on a planet that’s apparently inhabited by turn-of-the-century Mormons. Brainwashed ones at that, who babble about "Landru" and have a 12-hour orgy of destruction called Festival every once in a while. Now, here’s the thing that’s interesting to me: The enemy is some sort of computerized lifeforce who would rather assimilate his enemies than kill them. Sound like a familiar concept? Anyway, the crew gets kidnapped by the killer monks who work for Landru, and have to fake the peace and contentment that blissful brainwashing provides. This one marks the first official time that Kirk discovers an alien civilization and decides to fuck with it because the Prime Directive proves too inconvenient for him. And what was up with Festival and Red Hour? That whole subplot was dropped like a hot potato halfway through the episode and never mentioned again. Man, I hope there’s a super-classic episode coming up to kick off the next disc.
Disc Six
– "SPACE SEED~!" Yes, this will do. The caps and tilda-bang are mine. The Enterprise finds a dead ship in space, apparently the USS Botany Bay, which is filled with leftovers from the Eugenics Wars who have been frozen and left to drift as punishment for, you know, trying to conquer the world and all. Thus we meet Ricardo Montalban as Khan Noonien Singh, a combination of Hitler and Alexander the Great. So you know this is gonna lead somewhere bad. He immediately tries to shank McCoy after miraculously recovering from being mostly dead, and has an electric conversation with Kirk where you can just feel the alpha male posturing bleeding from the screen. This carries over into a supposedly-civil dinner where Spock is needling Khan like a swordsman while Kirk watches for weakness, and Khan even points that out to gain the upper hand again. Meanwhile, hottie crew-woman Marla falls in love with the ultimate bad-boy and agrees to help him in his quest to re-establish his empire of cloned super-soldiers. And Khan comes THAT close to taking over the ship and killing everyone, only losing out because of a dramatic stunt double battle. And Kirk banishes him and his crew to Ceti Alpha V, noting that it might be interesting to return later and see what’s become of him. Awesome, awesome stuff.
– "A Taste of Armageddon". Here’s another neat high concept idea wrapped in something of a forgettable episode. It’s yet another "chasing a lost starship" setup, as they stumble across a planet where a ship disappeared and there’s apparently a dire warning beacon telling anyone nearby not to beam down for any reason. So of course Kirk beams down and is informed that the planet is embroiled in a horrific war with another planet, although no one sees any evidence of it. And here’s the TWIST: Everything is simulated by computers, and "casualties" have to report to suicide booths for disintegration. And whoops, the Enterprise is "destroyed" by an attack, so everyone on board is sentenced to death within 24 hours. Now there’s some dramatic tension! You just know that Kirk is gonna mess with the Prime Directive here. Spock gets an all-time classic Vulcan one-liner in, with "Sir, there is a multi-legged creature crawling on your shoulder" before icing him with the nerve pinch. Unfortunately the concept and the action aren’t able to be sustained through more than the first 20 minutes, as the show gets bogged down in the politics instead of exploring the rather more interesting idea of what would drive an entire civilization to unquestioningly go to their own deaths. I think Next Gen would have handled this idea a lot better.
– "This Side of Paradise". So it’s another lost colony, this one on a dead planet constantly being bombarded by deadly radiation from space…and no one is more shocked than Kirk when they beam down and discover everyone is alive and quite cheerful, thank you very much. "Just speculation, but I’d guess that man is alive". Ah, McCoy. Such an ass sometimes. And then this one REALLY gets awkward when Spock runs into an old girlfriend. SPOCK! The weirdness continues as everything is a bit TOO perfect — everyone is 100% healthy and the soil will literally grow anything you plant in it. Kirk has orders to move everyone, paradise be damned, but Spock gets hit in the face with a mysterious spore and suddenly starts seeing pictures in the clouds and SMILING. Things actually get really funny as the whole crew gets addicted to plant spores that give you perfect health and really sunny disposition (McCoy suddenly developing a southern accent and making mint juleps is great stuff), leaving only James T. Kirk as the holdout with a stick up his ass about it. I don’t know if the spores are an allegory for pot, but it’s certainly the most laid-back mutiny in TV history, as the spores destroy all initiative in the victims. The evil flower popping out of the bottom of the screen and spraying people is a wonderfully campy effect, and Kirk gets to ham it up with MELODRAMA. And then when he realizes that violent emotions counteract the spores, Kirk picks a fight with Spock with some of the most awesome smack-talk ever heard on a sci-fi program. Your mother was an encyclopaedia! And it’s KIRK(‘s stuntman) v. SPOCK(‘s stuntman)! This is a pretty awesome episode that I’d never actually seen before.
– "Devil In The Dark". On the other hand, we’ve all seen this one before. It’s a classic horror movie in Trek clothing, as a mining facility is being terrorized by a mysterious killer, preventing the universe from getting their pergium. WE WANT OUR PERGIUM, DAMMIT! Everyone in this episode is just super-gay for pergium. The Holy Trinity getting together and puzzling out what the creature could be is classic Trek, showing their basic relationship: Kirk is the driving force, Spock is the brains, McCoy is the sceptic questioning everything and keeping them thinking. First ever "It’s life but not as we know it" from Spock here. Kirk brings down a virtual army of red-shirts (all wearing red shirts, unfortunately for them) and surprisingly only one of them gets killed. This is still is a good one to point to if you’re looking for examples of that particular cliché, though. Speaking of cliché, when we finally meet the Rock Monster (not to be confused with Poison and other Monsters of Rock) Spock actually says he’s surprised that something so big could move so fast. REALLY? Wasn’t that a horrible cliché even back in the 60s? Another twist sees Spock figuring out that the poor creature is the last of its kind and he doesn’t want to kill it, but DAMMIT MAN THE PERGIUM! Another great bit of business sees Spock refuting Kirk’s attempts to shoo him away by using the EXACT odds of both of them dying to prove it’s not a huge risk. Kirk’s reaction here is classic Shatner. This thing rapidly turns into Aliens (and couldn’t you just picture Bill Paxton as a red-shirt?) but unfortunately the silly-looking rock monster just can’t pay off the tension from the first half of the episode properly. Blu Ray lays ALL the faults and cheap effects bare. And in typical Trek fashion, instead of a big shootout, Spock decides to talk to the creature and figure out what the thing’s problem is. And apparently the problem is pain and a lot of it, so Kirk calls in McCoy. This leads to my personal favourite of his one-liners, as he’s a doctor, not a bricklayer. Another classic in a series of them.
Disc Seven
– "Errand of Mercy". Here’s another classic one, as it introduces the world to the Klingons. After a quick battle with them (off-screen to save money) to save the planet Organia from invasion, Spock and Kirk beam down to check on them and make sure no one’s been slaughtered. Oh, and to offer protection from the big bad Klingons. The Organians are stubbornly against any help from either side. One really cool bit of new CGI here sees the awesome nerds inserting an entire Klingon fleet into what was previously just a one second shot of the Enterprise taking a hit. Michael Okuda has the best job in the whole world. So back to the episode, as the Klingons declare themselves the new rulers of the most peaceful planet in the universe and Kirk has to hold his tongue under the guise of being an Organian, and this is clearly a US v. Russia allegory. The Klingons here are more of a general evil menace rather than the specifically honourable warlike race they became later on. But while the Organians have no interest in fighting back, undercover Kirk and Spock are all too willing to blow some shit up to make their point. Kirk readily admits that he’s a soldier and not a diplomat, and that’s a key difference between him and Picard. Kirk and Kor actually start bonding over how annoying these pacifistic Organians are because they just want to wage some WAR, baby, whether their Organian friends want to help them or not. Everything is a just a little too weird, as the Organian leader calmly leads Kirk out of any predicament set up by Kor, with little regard for any potential consequences. Finally Kirk has just had enough and launches a two-man war on the Klingons (complete with another great little bit of dialogue with Spock about their odds of survival…approximately 7824.7 to 1) and finally the Organians step in and declare that shall be no violence on or around their planet, and that’s that. And then the big twist: The Organians are not even human beings, they’re energy beings who are supremely powerful and morally superior and even correctly foretell the future alliance between the Klingons & Federation. Spock again notes that it’s life, but not as we know it. This one kind of loses something without the Vietnam war as context (The lesson is that you shouldn’t interfere unless asked, you see) but it’s the KLINGONS!
– "The Alternative Factor". Weird shit is going on around the Enterprise in a weird region of space, and they pick up a space traveller named Lazarus. He’s chasing a mass-murdering monster, but when they get near him on the planet, all sorts of crazy lighting effects result. Ah, low budget Trek, gotta love it. Spock thinks Lazarus is full of crap because the problems only happen when he’s around. And if that wasn’t enough, Lazarus appears to be two different people, one normal and one evil, with neither version being aware of the other’s existence. Kirk shows remarkable patience with the situation, actually, despite all the contradicting evidence around him. Have to say, Lazarus has some major continuity problems with his beard, as it from wispy to thick from scene to scene. This one is pretty talky, as Kirk has to figure out a riddle that’s pretty easy to guess given many more years of hackneyed sci-fi that followed it. But back then, a Jekyll & Hyde story translated into space was still a new thing. This one somehow qualified for a "Best of" set last year despite easily being one of the worst of the first season.
– "City On The Edge of Forever". Probably the best episode out of the entire Original Trek lineup. This one is always good to keep in mind should you ever come across a time machine and need a lesson about the perils of messing with history. DON’T DO IT. McCoy, for once not being indignant about anything, is instead CRAZY from CRAZY space medicine that was supposed to be curing Sulu. By the way, George Takei’s facial expression upon being revived leaves no doubt how gay he was all along. Anyway, the doctor transports himself down the planet du jour, in this case one that’s inhabited by a sentient (and pretentious) time machine calling itself the Guardian of Forever. He’d probably have a barbed wire tattoo on his bicep, too, if he had arms. So McCoy jumps back to the Great Depression on Earth, and the Guardian informs the rest of the crew that they no longer exist now, really rubbing salt in the wounds and being a total prick about it. Geez, they just got ERASED from history, use a little tact, jerk. So back in time go Spock and Kirk to chase down McCoy, and that gives us some CLASSIC Kirk moments ("My friend here is obviously Chinese.") as he’s generally a lot smoother than he was in Star Trek IV when faced with the same predicament. And of course, we meet do-gooding soup kitchen owner Edith Keeler, while Spock whines about "endeavoring to make a mnemonic circuit out of stone knives and bearskins." They might not have emotions on Vulcan, but they sure have scathing sarcasm. And while Spock slaves over a hot vacuum tube all day, Kirk gets the girl. But hey, that’s why he’s the captain. You should of course know where the story goes from here, as Edith either dies in a car accident or lives and brings world peace, and Kirk has to figure out which option will restore the timeline. Spock has another great moment as he silently admonishes Kirk for not letting her fall down the stairs and break her neck, even though he KNOWS that her death is caused by a car accident. There’s preserving the timeline, and there’s being a shithead. Anyway, the message is clear here: Don’t mess with the timeline. Unless you’re JAMES T FUCKING KIRK. In which case, go for it, and screw lots of hot alien chicks while you’re at it.
– "Operation: Annihilate!". And finally the season wraps up after 29 episodes, which is a pretty good run for a show that was constantly on the verge of cancellation in the first season. So anyway, we come upon a ship flying into the sun, which is kind of an odd behaviour at the best of times. So Kirk and the team beam down to the planet, where we meet Jim’s brother Sam for the first time. And he’s Shatner with a PORN ‘STACHE! Or rather his corpse, because before we can even register that Kirk has an estranged brother, he and his family are killed off. And a crazy mob is running around the streets trying to kill everyone. It seems that something is controlling the people of the planet (as delivered by the melodramatic deathbed exposition of Sam’s widow — she’s a Kirk, all right!), and Kirk’s not gonna stand for that shit. So we get the highlight of the season (sarcasm alert) as the crew is attacked by life (but not as we know it) in the form of THE KILLER PLASTIC VOMIT OF DEATH and Spock is infected and trying to take over the ship. So Kirk jumps right to "well, we did what we could, now let’s blow up the planet and go get lunch" but you know McCoy isn’t gonna stand for that kind of solution. Spock trying to overcome Scotty and beam back down to the planet reminded me of Robot Chicken‘s take on the Trek universe. Spock is able to overcome the creature because he’s Spock, but the Holy Trinity still needs a solution, so they hash it out until they figure out that it’s light that can finally kill the little buggers, specifically light as powerful as the sun. So Spock gets to be the Vulcan guinea pig…and oops, he’s blinded. But luckily he "forgot" about an extra set of eyelids that protected him enough to make it temporary. Of course he did. Not the strongest end to the season, but given the episode it’s following, it would be hard to follow that anyway.
Final Tallies:
– McCoy is a doctor, not a (blank): 3
– It’s life, but not as we know it: 3
– Green alien chicks banged by Kirk: 0
– Scotty cannot change the laws of physics: 1
– Red-shirts killed: 6, but more were rendered unconscious or otherwise not explicitly killed as such.
Bring on season 2!
(Rating: *****)
Audio & Video
You hate to say "perfect", but this is the perfect video transfer. Not just the new CGI, but the remastered video in 1080p which is now so clear and pristine that you can literally make out the stitching on the uniforms. Colors, which were vivid to start with in the 60s as part of the color TV revolution, have been pumped up even more, giving the screen a glorious wash of primary colors. Video quality has also been improved to the point where there’s no film grain or dirt present from the third or fourth episode on. Absolutely breathtaking. And speaking of breathtaking, the soundtrack has been redone into an amazing 7.1 DTS mix, as you get the ambient sounds of the bridge and engines mixed into the surrounds, big booming bass, and the starship Enterprise whooshing through the speakers during the opening. Much of it is too subtle to get blown away by, but it just gives the experience that extra bit of kick that it needs. And hey, if you want the original mono soundtrack, that’s there as well.
(Rating: *****)
Bonus Features
And as you’d expect, this sucker is PACKED with extras. My favourite is the picture-in-picture "Starfleet Access" feature, which provides a running video commentary from writers and producers, running alongside encyclopedia entries explaining jargon and characters. It’s only on one episode per disc (probably for space reasons) but it’s great stuff. You also get one featurette per disc, mostly carried over from the previous DVD sets, plus "on the next episode" trailers from broadcast TV that really show how much work they did to clean this stuff up here. Not to mention the cool menus and interactive "tour" of the Enterprise, which have been carried over from HD-DVD. In a word, it’s a nerdgasm.
(Rating: *****)
The Pulse:
Are you a Trek fan? Do you have a Blu Ray player? BUY IT.
Case closed.
