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Star Trek 2.13 (Obsession)

Cast:

Stephen Brooks (Ensign Garrovick)

Jerry Ayres (Ensign Rizzo)

Writer: Art Wallace

The obsession in the title is one of Kirks - three members of the Enterprise crew (redtops, naturally) are killed by a cloud on a planet, and Kirk is convinced it was a creature that he encountered 11 years ago when serving aboard the USS Faragut and won't let it lie. And despite the fact that the medical evidence supports his claim that it is the same creature, nobody believes him. I find this very difficult to understand - the way the men died was very usual - all of the "red corpuscles" (I assume they mean Red Blood Cells) were missing from the corpses, which is exactly what happened 11 years ago.

Kirk starts behaving erratically - snapping with people, questioning their loyalty. You can sort of understand why he would be upset by it - half of the crew, including the Captain died, and it was also his first deep space mission. But coupled with the fact they are supposed to rendez-vous with a medical ship with vital drugs for a planet that had a disease that is killing lots of people... I don't believe Kirks reaction, which underpins the point of the whole episode.

About halfway through, McCoy and Spock bring his behaviour to Kirks attention, and after this it suddenly works. He clearly doesn't want to slow down when they are pursuing the creature in space, but he does. That moment is far more believable than any of those that precede it, and it seems that Spock and McCoys little "pep talk" did the trick.

The second half of the episode is pretty good, it finished the story nicely and Kirk is able to give both himself and Ensign Garrovick (son of the Captain of the Faragut, now in Security aboard the Enterprise) the closure they need, as well as destroying the creature.

Crew Deaths: 4

Total Crew Deaths So Far: 39

Score: 6/10

Star Trek 2.12 (The Deadly Years)

Cast:

Charles Drake (Commodore George Stocker)

Sarah Marshall (Dr. Janet Wallace)

Felix Locher (Robert Johnson)

Carolyn Nelson (Yeoman Doris Atkins)

Laura Wood (Elaine Johnson)

Beverly Washburn (Lt. Arlene Galway)

Writer: David P. Harmon

I remember this episode as a kid - I think it was one of the very first ones that I saw. I recall being terrified at the obvious ageing of the characters.

Many many years on you do tend to look at this episode a little differently. Firstly, we know what the actors actually looked like when they were that much older, and whilst some of the ageing makeup is quite good for it's day, they do look rather different in this episode than they do for real now.

The story is going okay then takes a massive nosedive when they do a competency hearing. Of course Kirk isn't fit for command - we see that he is forgetting stuff very early into the episode. Why the hell McCoy didn't declare him unfit for command (something we know for later stories is the prerogative of the chief medical officer) I don't know. This portion of the episode is a waste of time. As are the arguments of the main crew. It would have been far better to have them lucid and just having the odd memory lapse (enough to get them declared unfit for command) and

having to deal with what comes next...

Then when Commodore Stocker takes command (as everyone else is too senile) he makes the decision to go the most direct route to the Starbase - and this happens to be through the Romulan Neutral zone.

We don't see the Romulans properly in this one - we see their ship trying to blow the crap out of the Enterprise, but luckily McCoy (even in his advanced aging state) comes up with a suggested drug that might reverse the effects, and luckily Jim is able to take command of the ship again before they are blown to kingdom come (using the corbomite bluff used in the first season!)

Ooh, and the radiation drug hyronalin gets mentioned, I think this is the first reference but we get to hear a lot about if in future generations...

This is okay fair, there is much better, there is much worse...

Crew Deaths: 1

Total Crew Deaths So Far: 35

Score: 6/10

Star Trek 2.11 (Fridays Child)

Cast:
Julie Newmar (Eleen)
Tige Andrews (Krag)
Michael Dante (Maab)
Cal Bolder (Keel)Ben Gage (Akaar)
Kirk Raymone (Duur)
Bob Bralver (Crewman Grant)

Writer: D.C. Fontana

There are some amazing episodes during the run of the original series of Star Trek. Sadly, this isn't one of them.

The plot is dull - the crew beam down to a primitive planet that has dilithium in order to negotiate a treaty to mine the ore. The Klingons have beaten them to it and also have a representative there to agree a similar treaty.

Like many primitive cultures in this show, this one is just unbelievable, their leader gets killed early on in a badly orchestrated coup and the person who favours the Klingon bid ends up in charge. So Kirk, Spock and McCoy escape (with the heavily pregnant wife of the former leader) and escape from a camp where the sky is a sort of greeny purple into some location shots where they sky is... well, blue. And whilst I am moaning about colour, when Spock uses sonic vibrations to cause a rock fall, the rocks that fall down are grey but the hills are sandy coloured.

I can't think of anything nice to say about this one, apart from the fact that I am surprised the prime directive allows them to make such contact with such a primitive culture. Perhaps they hadn't thought of that yet.

This episode also marks the mid point in the run - there were 39 before, there are 39 after. Let's hope some of them are better than this.

Crew Deaths: 1
Total Crew Deaths So Far: 34
Score: 3/10