So, this one feels slightly tricky. I have been making notes about episodes as I watch them, but also I have been writing up some on a private forum and having some back-and-forth there. Actually, maybe this will make it much easier.
Anyway, since Discovery is over, and I am caught up on Strange New Worlds and Lower Decks, I decided to move on to Star Trek, The Original Series (TOS). I really want to rewatch the TNG era stuff, but I am kind of trying to knock out all of the “older era” stuff first. Also, as it turns out, I really have not watched TOS, basically ever. I have watched the TOS movies a whole lot, I have seen TNG and DS9 a ton. I am sure I have watched a few TOS episodes here and there, though so far, non of it seems familiar at all.
I have kind of gone back and forth on how to break this up. The “new shows” are all framed around ten episodes seasons and arcs, which makes things pretty short, comparably. Discovery is 15 episodes less and 2 seasons longer. I don’t think 10 episode chunks really works out too well either, that makes 8 posts total. Also, I am not really doing “write-ups”, just more, thoughts and observations. Not to mention it’s a nearly 60-year-old show with a planet of fan analysis and thought on it. I am not really “breaking news ground” here for anyone but me.
One thing I do want to throw in a bit is some occasional thoughts on how it relates to the new shows and that expanded continuity. So anyway, basically, some episodes may get lots of detailed comments, and others may get almost nothing.
S01E01 – The Cage
Side note, I watched this after watching later episodes, just before The Menagerie. The Cage is the originally unaired, then 20 years later aired pilot. Unlike the main show, the core cast consists of Captain Pike, Mr Spock, Number One (who does not have a real name) and a Doctor whose name I forget. No one else is familiar, even the Yeoman chick is different (not Yeoman Rand). Pike, Spock, and Number One would “go on” to be the main cast members in Strange New Worlds.
Which leads me to my first note, Pike comments about “I’m not used to women on the bridge” to Yeoman Colt. Which is funny in the context of both Discovery and Strange New Worlds, where there were plenty of women on the bridge. Both ships had women at the helm. The show itself also makes it an in joke since Number One is right there piloting the ship, and is literally second in command.
The episode itself kind of feels really rough and the acting, especially by the non main cast feels kind of stiff. There is also some neat stuff that I kind of like more than what we got. Like how they put on those little jackets on the away mission. The Jackets are ugly, but this sort of gear is something that shows up a lot more in the current gen Trek versus a lot of the older Trek where they just wear their uniforms all the time. It’s also interesting how many little “Trek lore” things are there, like Talos system is the main focus, and they mention Rigel VII and “M Class” planets. They mention Orions and there is a green Orion girl at one point. I don’t think there have been any Orions mentioned or shown at all at this point where I am in the main Kirk episodes.
There is also a lot of weirdness. They mention using “Rockets” which feels like it was replaced by “Impulse Engines”. They go to “Time Warp” and mention how humans have “broken the time warp barrier.”. They also push it right up to “Time Warp Factor 7”. At this point in the main episodes, most of the time, Enterprise only goes Warp 1. I think in one episode they pushed it to Warp 4 or 5.
The whole plot also had this weird underpinning note about a race of aliens who got so caught up in watching and following dreams (TV) their society collapsed. Feels a bit contradictory for a TV show. The whole show weirdly feels MORE Sci-Fi like than the main show has. I mean, Star Trek is definitely Sci-Fi, but The Cage just feels a bit more so in some ways.
It’s probably worth noting that there are references to this episode later in Discovery, when Pike has to return to Talos. I honestly can’t even remember WHY he went back, but he did.
S01E02 – The Man Trap
There is a lot of weirdness around order film d and order released, but I am just going off the order listed on Paramount+ and IMDB.
During a seemingly routine checkup away mission, Bones runs into an old flame, but she has been replaced by some sort of shape shifter who is sucking the salt from people to survive. Something like 4 or 5 people are killed, which is kind of nutty. I have started keeping a sort of running tab of how many crew members died, though the deaths seem to have slowed down quite a bit.
You can really tell they are still trying to get a handle on what exactly they want the show to be with style and uniforms.
S01E03 – Charlie X
Just to go a long with my running tally of death, they mention at one point that the Enterprise has 428 crew members. The Enterprise has to escort a seeming regular young man only to find out he has telepathic powers. The kid kind of feels like a sort of Q/Human hybrid, he can sort of “make whatever he wants happen.” The kid is really annoying and the whole thing is kind of a metaphor for puberty I think.
Three people are killed in this one including Yeoman Rand, but by the end, everyone is restores, except the crew of the Antares, which was listed as 20 people.
S01E04 – Where No Man Has Gone Before
Speaking of Q, I believe this episode was reconned in a book that the cause of the ESP powers gained by the crew members was from a lost/trapped member of the Q continuum. There seems to be a lot of push on telepathic and ESP powers in these earlier episodes, I suppose it’s a cheap and easy way to make it seem futuristic without actually having to have fancy effects. There are also a lot of weird uniforms in this one.
A few things that feel off. They track down an old Earth ship that drifted to the Galaxy’s edge 200 years ago. Star Trek Enterprise I believe was 100 years ago and was the first really Warp Capable Earth Ship, and I am not sure First Contact was more or less than 200 years, but either way, that seems really too early.
One thing though, I really found interesting. In Star Trek Discovery they go to th edge of the galaxy and they have to leave the galaxy and breech the barrier and everyone acts like it’s a HUGE deal, it’s “never been done.” But here we are, episode 4, maybe even the first one actually produced, and they are exiting the galaxy.
Nine people died in this episode.
S01E05 – Naked Time
Aye, it’s Nurse Chapel finally. I am sure anyone who cares knows, but Chapel in TOS, is played by Majel Barrett, who also played Number One in the Cage, and later plays the ship’s computer voice and Leaxana Troi. She was Gene Roddenberry’s girlfriend at the time of TOS and later they were married. Roddenberry of course being the creator of Star Trek.
Chapel in this feels soooo so different than the SNW Chapel. Honestly, for what I have experienced so far, Chapel from SNW would have almost been better as a version of Yeoman Rand. Rand is in this show a lot and goes on away missions and such a lot. Rand feels way more like a former war fighter that Chapel on SNW is shown to be.
Naked Time is one of those “people put it in lists” episodes, and it’s one of the better ones so far. I believe this is the first time we have seen Sulu, and he gets to run around with his shirt off sword fighting people. Also notable for firsts, they are calling the medical area “Sickbay” now instead of of “The Dispensary.”
As for the plot, there is basically a virus going around the ship that causes people to become emotionally less inhibited. Both Spock and Kirk have some pretty good moments here, but Spock’s is definitely better than Kirk’s.
We have had some form of singing in two episodes now as well, which makes the musical episode of Strange New Worlds feel less random. Like, singing in Star Trek has been a thing since forever too!
The episode ends on a random time travel moment where they sort of rewind time a few hours to avoid getting the virus in the first place. I am told this episode was supposed to air later and lead into another time travel themed episode, but I have not gotten there yet.
S01E06 – The Enemy Within
It’s Thomas Kirk(er)! That was a little TNG joke, they basically did this plot in TNG with Riker. Kirk gets split into two people by a transporter accident. It’s not quite the same as Thomas Riker though because Kirk has his personality split as well, one Kirk is aggressive and rude and the other is meek and cowering.
Because they are not sure what is happening with the transporter, Sulu and some others get stranded. I guess there is only one transporter room. Didn’t the Enterprise have a medical transporter in Strange New Worlds? Oh wait, that technically has not happened yet, despite being in the past. No shuttle to manually rescue them either. I guess they all got destroy d during that battle with Control years ago, no wait, that didn’t happen in the past yet either.
Ok, I’ll stop.
This is probably my favorite episode so far and feels the most “Like Star Trek” of everything so far.
Bones says the line for the first time, “He’s dead Jim!”. In relation to the death of the poor Space Dog in a costume.
S01E07 – Mudd’s Women
Mudd is one of the few reoccurring characters in TOS Lore. And one of the few that I had heard of before watching the show. I believe (and I may be wrong, i didn’t double check), Mudd shows up in 3 TOS episodes and one episode of the TOS Animated show. He is also in 2 Episodes of Discovery and maybe at least one TOS video game.
When he shows up, he uses a fake name. Despite that his real name is in the show title, and that the Closed Captions for the show, list him as “Mudd”. Maybe neither of those were an issue during the original run. Mudd is trying to sell some women as wives to a bunch of miners on a barely habited planet. What the heck is with all the mostly deserted planets in this galaxy? How is it at all sustainable for 1-5 people to live alone on a planet? Especially for such an important resource as Lithium Crystals, which I think may be the first mention of them, though it’s not clear if this is the same as Dilithium used to power the warp drives. Shouldn’t there be a fairly large operation on this planet? How do they even get the crystals off the planet?
Anyway, it turns out that Mudd’s women are actually “ugly and older” than they appear, but he keeps giving them some sort of serum to make them more desirable, both visually and through some sort of pheromonal interactions, to everyone. Before they arrive at the planet though Mudd’s identity is revealed and there is a pretty amusing trial because Mudd in general, is an already wanted criminal. It’s not real clear what happened to Mudd in the end though. The women end up with the men, despite their “lack of beauty”, and Mudd retreats with Kirk to the Enterprise, but then he just sort of vanishes. Did they throw him in the brig?
I also want to take a moment to compare this Mudd a bit with Rain Wilson’s Mudd from Discovery. This Mudd is a lot more of a jokey goofball than the Discovery take, who is quite menacing really, especially after murdering Lorca dozens of times in a time loop. I think I might like this Mudd a bit better really.
S01E08 – What are Little Girls Made Of
If I were making an “essential episodes” list in relation to TOS and Discovery and SNW, I would definitely include this episode. Season 3 of Strange New Worlds is supposed to have some plots involving Doctor Korby and Christine Chappel and basically will probably serve as a prequel to this specific episode. The Enterprise heads to planet Exo 3 to meet with Doctor Korby who was Christine Chapel’s former fiancé. Kirk and Chapel beam down together because Korby insists on showing Kirk what his research has found. It turns into an android fueled Invasion of the Body Snatchers episode.
Didn’t we do this plot? The Evil Kirk Clone thing?
Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself. And there were a couple of Redshirts sent down as well, but they quickly get killed off, add in two for the Body Count, which seems to have lessened quite a bit since the series started. Kirk gets replaced by an android which gets sent back to the Enterprise, these androids want to get off the planet I guess, though I’m not sure why they went to so much trouble since Kirk would have just, beamed them all up if they had asked. Fortunately, Kirk was smart and gave himself a “fake memory” during the clone process and the fake gives itself away by insulting Spock.
Meanwhile Kirk is stuck on the planet fighting androids trying to escape, he tries flirting with the lady android to no avail, sadly, he doesn’t try to flirt his way past the big male android. Also these androids are a good example of why we need Assimov’s laws of robotics. Because they are kind of murderous. Chapel doesn’t serve a ton of purpose on the planet other than getting just generally traumatized by pretty much everything. Tricked by fake Kirk, and tricked by Korby and just generally kind of terrorized.
Kirk also mentions his brother George Kirk at one point, which was the first time that came up.
S01E09 – Miri
Hey! They found Slartyblartfast’s backup Earth! It’s just like Earth, same continenbts and everything. Apparently this was a sort of, concept that was supposed to be more prevalent in TOS, the whole “other Earths” thing. This one is populated by some zombie people? I guess? Or it’s just some sort of weird ageing virus. They encounter a small colony of Children who, age weirdly, or something, they are all hundreds of years old, but still children, the virus basically makes them go crazy and age rapidly when they reach puberty.
Also, 3 trained miners running a planet alone was kind of ridiculous, but a dozen or so actual minors, running a planet alone, for hundreds of years, WHILE battling the occasional zombified crazy adult, that’s a bit much. It’s clearly just an excuse to reuse the sets from the Andy Griffith Show.
Anyway, the away team contracts the virus, which gives them 7 days left before they all die from it, and because the children stole the communicators, they have no way of quickly synthesizing a cure using the ship’s computer. Ok, more accurately, Kirk, McCoy, Spock, and Rand all get the virus, the random redshirts don’t seem affected at all. Rand basically admits that she has wanted to get in Kirk’s pants, though in a very round about way, and to make a reveal that is wholly unrelated to wanting Kirk to notice her.
Miri, who is one of the children that the away team befriends, has basically fallen in love with Kirk. They sort of use this as a tell that she is “about to become a woman” because she is having “womanly feelings”. It’s a little creepy, but at one point Kirk shows up and the other kids start calling him “Mr Lovey Dovey” and start chanting “BONK!” or something similar at him.
(INSERT BONK MEME)
It does lead to a funny line at the end were Kirk comments that he isn’t into “older women”. Given Miri, while physical is, 14 or 15 I guess, is in fact, like 200-300 years old.
They manage to cure the virus in the end, but like Mudd, it’s not real clear where the kids went. did they just leave all those kids there alone? They also never even attempt to really explain why this planet looks EXACTLY like Earth. Also, why didn’t they call this episode “Neverland”?
S01E10 – Dagger of the Mind
Man, what a weirdly predictable episode, though it was pretty good. The Enterprise is transporting supplies to a prison planet, and I immediately thought, “they are going to also beam something up and it will have a prisoner inside.” and sure enough, they do.
But it’s not just any prisoner, it’s actually the escaped director of the prison. It seems his assistant(??) has basically brain wiped everyone on the planet into being perfect obedient slaves. This is pretty much just an excuse for Kirk to go down to the planet with some random woman whom he apparently sort of had a thing with at a Christmas party. It’s kind of weird, because we have never seen this character, nor the Christmas Party mentioned several times. She is supposed to be McCoy’s sort of, representative, to prove that the prison is fishy, but all she does is side with the crazy prison doctor.
Anyway, Kirk gets captured and pseudo brainwashed into thinking he is madly in love with this random woman, something that doesn’t seem to get resolved or cured at all by the end of the episode (this is starting to become a trend). Eventually though the mad doctor gets knocked out in the brainwashing chamber and becomes a vegetable, then a dead vegetable.
Did I say I enjoyed this episode? Maybe it wasn’t so great. I do believe this was the first time Spock did the Vulcan neck pinch thing and the Vulcan Mind Meld.
S01E11 – The Corbomite Maneuver
Ok, maybe I was thinking of this episode as the one I enjoyed.
Because I like tracking these little “first time” moments, McCoy says thing he is known for, “Damn it Jim, I’m a Doctor not a shuttle conductor.” I am pretty sure that’s new. What the hell is a shuttle conductor?
The Enterprise encounters a mysterious cube blocking their path. You might wonder how you can be blocked in the vastnness of space, well, it moves to keep blocking them. There is also this really annoying and winey crew member ont he bridge with Lieutenant Bailey. I have a note in my notes that simply reads, “Spock hates crewman Bailey.” Anyway, they end up shooting the cube with phasers to escape. I am pretty sure this is the first time the ship has fired phasers at anything. We don’t have torpedoes or shuttle craft yet but we have phasers!
The little cube though is replaced by a big sphere that threatens to destroy the enterprise, but offers them ten minutes to “pray to their deities.” Bailey kind of flips out that everyone is so calm about their imminent doom and he gets relieved of duty. Who is this joker again? Kirk bluffs the alien that they won’t be killed so easily because they are protected by a fake material called Corbomite, so instead the Alien ops to tow the Enterprise to a nearby planet and leave the crew stranded there. The ship manages to out maneuver the alien and escape from it’s clutches, and the alien reveals himself to be a much smaller, and much less menacing enemy, who was just looking for friends, basically.
They leave Bailey behind to be the alien’s friend. There are so many ways to go with this on head canon. Did Bailey make the alien decide to end itself? Did Bailey annoy the alien enough that the alien kills him and then decides humanity must pay for his suffering? Yet another unresolved plot device I guess.
S01E12 – The Menagerie Part 1 | S01E13 – The Menagerie Part 2
I mentioned at the start I thought it would be fund to wrap around back to Captain Pike for this post. Let me just start off, watching The Cage and The Menagerie back to back was a huge mistake. The Menagerie Part 1 is like, 50% clips from The Cage. Part 2 is like, 99% clips from The Cage. Part two is so much repeated material I don’t even have any notes on it. They just went back to “present day” when they needed to insert a commercial break.
Part 1 at last has some interesting set up plot. The Enterprise gets summoned to Starbase 11, only to discover that no such transmission was actually made. It turns out Spock had altered the data banks to force the ship to Starbase 11, where a crippled Captain Pike now resides. This Pike is AFTER the “Pike saves some cadets and becomes a wheelchair-bound paraplegic” moment that was shown to Pike during Discovery and that haunts him in Strange New Worlds.
Spock does more computer manipulation and hijacks the Enterprise, basically telling the crew that Captain Kirk has sent them on a secret mission. That mission, is to return Pike to Talos IV, so that he can live out his life in the comfort of fantasy created by the Talosians. Apparently going to Talos IV is the “only death penalty” still on Starfleet’s books, which seems a little extreme honestly. Also, Pike, realizes Spock’s plan and protests, very adamantly. Pike does not want this.
Anyway, Kirk and the Station 11 Admiral head out in a shuttlecraft to chase the Enterprise. We FINALLY have shuttles! Well, a, shuttle. the shuttle isn’t capable of keeping up though and runs out of power, and Spock rescues them, but not before locking in the ship’s course and locking everyone out of the computer. Do they not have Cybersecurity in the future?
Anyway, what follows is a trial of Spock for the mutiny, which mostly consists of clips from The Cage. In the end, it turns out the Admiral riding along with Kirk was also a Talosian illusion, and there was no actual court marshal and everyone is saved” from the death penalty.
Yay? I guess? I mean, if I were Kirk, I might still be a little upset with Spock.
So that wraps up my part one for my Star Trek The Original Series thoughts. Future installments may be a bit more brief, at least, they won’t have as much “introduction” tacked on to the front.
