ST:TAS Season One, Episode Eight: The Magicks of Megas-Tu

"The Magicks of Megas-Tu"
Air Order: 8
Star Date: 1254.4
Original Air Date: October 7, 1973

So, do we notice anything about this week's stardate? Yeah. It takes place four years before the previous episode. It does, in fact, take place before Chekov joins the crew, which makes so much sense, because Arax is sitting in his seat. It also takes place before the first episode, "Where No Man Has Gone Before". but you want to know what the best part is? Kirk was born in the year 2233, before they began measuring time in stardates. So even though this episode takes place waaay the hell before every other episode, it still takes place in the Earth year 2324. Doesn't Kirk look fabulous for being 91?
Now, I know that they weren't really doing a close check on stardates until they hit TNG, and somebody said, "Can we please fix this stardate shit?" but at least they were mostly operating within the same years. Sometimes, they'd give us a stardate where the episodes would appear to take place months or weeks before the previous episode, but four freaking years? The stardates for previous episodes started with fives, yet they see no problem with this stardate beginning with a one.
Which helps support my theory for this episode: everyone involved with it was on drugs. Like black market LSD.
"Lady Archon, isn't all LSD technically black market?"
Yes. This market is blacker. It's like, Black Hole Market LSD.
I'm pretty sure that you could take some and watch "The Magicks of Megas-Tu" and it would be a better ride than "Fantasia."
This episode is that trippy. The people who worked on this episode were taking something even more potent than what the costume design took before working on "The Trouble with Tribbles", and let's face it, that was some quality shit.

So this week, I'm posting more screencaps, because the visuals are all over the place, and you have to see this shit to believe it.

*******

Kirk's Log, four fucking years ago: "So the Big Bang happened, right? So scientists are thinking that because the universe is expanding from that point, then we can go there to see new shit as it's being created. Cool, huh?"

Okay, right away, my twenty-first century brain is going "NO. The universe has no center." but then I'm remembering that this "lack of a center" info is relatively new science-wise, so in 1973, it's possible that they still thought that it had a center. (I spent quite a bit of time Googling this matter to see when exactly this "no center of the universe" conclusion was actually proposed, so as to determine if I could call Star Trek on it's bullshit or not, but all I could find, time after time, was a vague "sometime during the twentieth century" answer. So, it's possible it was proposed in the 27 years between the airing of this episode and the end of the twentieth century.) Either way, this basis for the plot is still more fiction than science. It's interesting science fiction, but fiction nonetheless.

So the E is going to the center of the universe to see if they can watch new matter being created. And because it's the E, they're not just going to park themselves at a safe distance to observe. Oh, no. They're going to drive through the hurricane, cuz that's more fun.

"Because this stuff is new, we may see things that we don't understand," says Spock prophetically.

"Yup," says Kirk, and he sets the ship at yellow alert.

Suddenly, the E flies into a Van Gogh painting.

So there's shit exploding all around them, and rocking the ship, and Kirk is excited because he thinks they're at the creation point. He orders them to park there. Sulu says it's taking a lot of juice to stay parked.

Now we get concentric rings in pastel rainbow colors. Let's just layer all that crap on there.

Yep, shit is still exploding behind those moving rings.

Spock starts his scientific study, and Bones barges onto the bridge.

"WTF is going on?" he demands.

"We're at the center of the universe!" replies Kirk.

Oops, looks like we've slipped into a slightly different Van Gogh.

I want to marvel at this background, but I can't. It's like an
un-ironic Ugly Christmas sweater.

And now it seems that those swirly yellow-ochre swipes are forming some kind of space storm, which starts pulling them "in." Into what, I don't know. Everybody falls out of their chairs, and Scotty calls to say that, in their trying to back out of the storm-thing, they're draining the emergency back-up power. Spock manages to move them to the eye of the storm, where it is calm. Scotty says he will start repairs.

So Bones is weirded out by this situation, but Kirk and Spock are pretty jazzed, though I suspect that Kirk is enjoying the danger aspect while Spock just wants to scan shit.

They're sitting pretty for half a second before the E glows yellow and disappears. It reappears in this swirly mass.

Little yellow pods float by in the swirly part, and Spock reads off that they aren't really in a time and space that is recognized between here and their universe. Then they notice that all of the ship's equipment has stopped working, including life support. They begin passing out on the floor, rather more quickly than one would expect. Nothing sucked the air from the ship, so they should be able to survive off of the recycled air that they are breathing for several hours before feeling the effects of CO2 poisoning.

Now a rainbow aura is flashing around the ship.

And who comes in through the viewscreen, using that wavy "underwater" filter? It's Pan, who jovially chastises humans for not being able to do anything right.

Kirk pleads for him to do something, because they can't breathe, and he says "Of course!" and waves his arms. All of the computers magically start running again under his rainbow powers.

"I'm Lucien, and we're friends!" he announces. "You should come hang out with me!"

And he waves his magical rainbow powers, and our intrepid trio reappears on the swirly surface of a planet with more of those explody things.

And this is how Kirk looks.

"Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it."

I'm stone-cold sober, you guys. I feel like I should be describing this shit to a therapist.

"This is fucked up," says Kirk. "Fix it, Lucien."

"Okay," says Lucien. "I forgot that humans like to be all corporeal and shit."

Again, he waves his magic arms, and everyone has a form again.

A kid version of Lucien appears for a split second, for no other reason than to illustrate that he wants to "play." Then the group is suddenly surrounded by a forest on the edge of a city.

"This is Megas-Tu," he explains. "Our world runs on magic. You can get anything you need from a local wizard."

They watch some dude in stereotypical wizards' robes and a pointed hat create some structure from thin air for what is obviously a client standing next to him.

"That makes sense," reasons Spock. "The creation point must extend through space and time, so while our laws of physics don't work here, magic does."

"I made your ship work...with MAGIC!" announces Lucien. 

This guy digs theatrics. He's actually more annoying that way than Harry Mudd.

"You talk like you know us..." says Kirk suspiciously.

"You pretend like you don't," counters Lucien. "Okay, I'll bite."

He stoops next to a river and runs his hand through the water so that images appear. Images of fucking blue Klansmen with glowy yellow eyes. These dudes represent the Megans.

Is this episode over yet? Cuz I'm already really done.

Nope, because we haven't come to our WTF moment.

Now is the sequence where they saved a shit-ton of money on animation. We linger for a while on the Megans while Lucien talks about how each of them specializes in a certain kind of magic. Also, there are no other people in their universe. There's like, two seconds of cheap animation that shows some ghost-like Klansmen flying away from their planet, through the creation point, then he says they found Earth, and became advisers to the Terrans. Now we just get a still shot of Earth, about thirty seconds of it, while he describes his people somehow drawing on their powers from their own world and performing magic, which really shouldn't be possible if this episode is to make any sense at all. He says they were forced to leave, which he was unhappy about.

Then he says that, while all the other Megans specialized in specific kinds of magic, he did general magic instead, and was thought of as a weirdo among his own people.

Kirk is asking why they left if they liked Earth so much, when Lucien kind of flies up into the air, then jumps down again, announcing that they must leave, and should not reveal themselves. He waves his hand, and they end up back on the bridge of the E.

"WTF?" ask Scotty and Uhura, who are on the bridge as well.

"That was messed up," says Kirk. "I'm so over this."

"Why'd he ask us not to reveal ourselves?" asks Bones. "Don't they know we're here?"

"Probably not," says Scotty. "See, they have a cloud over the planet." And he points to the viewscreen, which shows a weird cloud over a planet that looks like those yucky ribbon candies that old ladies have on their coffee tables for 30 years.

In the rec room, Spock draws a freaking pentagram on the floor, then stands in it, telling Bones that it's logical for him to do magic. Then he starts addressing the universe or something, like he's running a seance.

"Power of this universe, get into my body!"

His hands glow rainbow, and a chess piece across the room moves to another square. Kirk looks like he's about to piss himself with glee.

Kirk's Log, supplemental: "Sweet, we're all wizards, Harry!"

On the bridge, Sulu concentrates with his arms out and makes some girl appear. He moves forward to make out with her, but then Lucien appears in her place and demands to know what they are doing. Sulu makes that face that teenage boys make when their moms walk in on them in the bathroom, and they have a fist full of lotion.

"We're learning magic," says Kirk.

"Naw, don't do that," says Lucien. "I'll protect you, because you're my friends. Now, you need to knock that shit off, because you're using a lot of mental power, and you'll be found out."

"Haha, too late!" comes a voice.

And then these floating demon heads from the Hell scene in Hercules come slithering onto the bridge.

"Humans have come to spread their evil in our universe, and this time, you shall paaaayyyy!"

Dramatic music! E falling in space against a weird backdrop! Things exploding around them! Lady Archon re-evaluating her life choices!

So the E splits in two (whut?) and then the "camera" is panning around an old-school Earth village that's labelled as Salem, Massachusetts, and Lucien and the whole fucking crew are in some stockades arranged around a pentagram.

You know what would make this better? The end credits, rolling right now. Then I could spend the next few paragraphs wondering why the hell the episode ended right in the middle of the story, and how weird that was. Instead, I actually have to slog through this shit to the end, and describe what actually happens, which is nowhere near as exciting and logical as the end credits rolling right now.

You know what else would make this better? Rum. Liberal amounts of rum made Legend bearable. Maybe it could do the same for "The Magicks of Megas-Tu."

So now some rotund dude comes up and proclaims himself to be Imodium, the prosecutor, and says that the E crew is on trial for being terrible, horrible no-good humans, and also, he's trying Lucien too.

"The fuck?" demands Kirk.

Yeah, Imodium, make with the exposition already.

So it seems that Lucien edited the story a bit, and when the Megans went to Earth, greedy Terrans tried to get them to use their powers for evil. When they wouldn't, the Terrans talked shit about them to others, and they were cast down. Survivors tried to live peacefully in Salem, but they fucked up, used magic, and were burned as witches.

And that, friends, is what we've been sitting through the last 16 minutes for: our WTF moment is that these aliens are the witches from the Salem Witch Trials. Also, magic is alien powers from another universe.

*sigh*

So Imodum says that the remaining Magans gathered their powers and returned to their own planet to become xenophobic, and they are now concerned that others will find Megas-Tu.

Spock volunteers to speak in defense of the humans, and he calls Lucien to the stand.

"Why do you like humans?" he asks.

"Humans are my bros," Lucien replies. "They're curious, and they want to be friends. I can relate."

"Cool," says Spock, and he calls Kirk to the stand. "Do you think humans have changed since Salem?" he asks.

"Dude, totes," says Kirk. "Well, we try, anyway. You should look at the history of our people," he tells Imodium. "It's all in our records, and you should look at the Prime Directive, which says that we don't fuck with other cultures' development."

Really, Kirk? I'd be steering him away from the E's records on the PD, if I were you.

"I've heard enough," says Imodium. He makes some records and things fly across the sky.

"These are your records, and we've miraculously looked at all of them in a split second." he looks at the crowd. "Time to vote!" And a moment later, without anyone answering, he says that they've decided that the arrival of the E was an accident, and probably won't happen again.

"You're free to go," says Imodium. "But we have to punish Lucien, so we're going to encapsulate him for eternity in this red bubble thing. And he can't talk to anyone. Permanent time-out."

"That's shitty," says Kirk. "I think that's a terrible punishment."

"You only think that because he told you his name was Lucien," says Imodium. "What if I told you his name was... Lucifer?"

"Yeah, I don't give a shit," says Kirk.

This is the correct response. Everybody on the E is fucking nauseated from that whirlwind of visual vomit in the first few scenes of this episode, then they get magic powers, only to find out that they're being hosted by Salem Witch Trial witches, who may or may not kill them. If I had had that kind of day, and it was followed with "And your new buddy is the Devil!" then I would also respond with "Fuck you, I haven't got the energy for this shit anymore."

He refuses to help Imodium and the Megans punish Lucien, so Imodium tries to capture him in a red bubble, like Kirk is some Pokemon that nobody wants. ("I choose you, SpaceHamlet!") 

So then Spock, who is confused as to which franchise he belongs to, says, "Use the Force, Luke! Believe in yourself!"

Kirk conjures the rainbow aura and shoots lightning bolts at Imodium.

But Imodium forms a magic egg around himself to protect from the lightning.

He makes fire spring up around Kirk, who puts it out by making it rain. (No, not that way.)

I can't decide if this is better or worse than a regular fight scene. Nobody's hitting each other, which is boring, but they're not really doing anything terribly interesting, despite the dramatic music insisting that they are. Kirk puts out brambles or some shit, because clearly Imodium is Sleeping Beauty -

- so Imodium throws out... Rainbow Wind!

"You're nuts!" yells Kirk over the wind. "You're just as bad as those people back in Salem, all those centuries ago!"

Then, because this episode is completely incomprehensible, Imodium throws up his palms, and there's some flashing light, and we see the E in space, in one piece again. The "camera" drops down to the surface of Megas-Tu, and we see Kirk and Spock next to Imodium. The red bubble around Lucien is fading.

"So, hey," says Imodium. "We saw in your records that you're better people now, but we had to test you to see if it was BS or not. You defended Lucien, so I guess it isn't."

"Ha, I told you they didn't suck!" crows Lucien. "You guys are welcome here whenever. Now, let's get wasted in celebration!" And he makes tankards appear in everyone's hand. Everybody drinks.

Back on the bridge, everyone watches the viewscreen as the center of the universe recedes.

"Do you think that guy was really Lucifer?" asks Bones.

"Who gives a shit?" asks Kirk.

"If he was, he was cast out twice, but you saved him the second time," says Spock.

And the episode ends there, on a high note for Kirk, because no one wants to point out that that "second casting out" would have a been a ruse perpetuated on the E crew by Lucien and his own people.

I don't feel like this episode requires much of a summing-up. Like most of the really terrible episodes of Star Trek, it feels like they took several ideas and tried to make them cohere into one story. It didn't work. There was the "center of the universe" story, which could have been its own story, but was instead used as a vehicle to get them to Megas-Tu. Then there was the ridiculous "Salem Witch Trial " bullshit, which was really just not going to work, ever. Tack on that crap about Lucien being the devil, and you have... a huge mess that makes no sense.

Go home, Star Trek. You're on drugs.

This episode was shockingly similar to: "Who Mourns for Adonais?" and "Wolf in the Fold" in that they try to convince us that famous people in Earth history are actually aliens with alien powers. While Adonais had an interesting premise, the episode was only so-so. Everything about Wolf sucked. Megas-Tu also sucked, and I'm starting to get tired of this alien-as-famous-human thing. It's also kind of similar "The Savage Curtain", where our boys meet some mytho-historical figure from Earth's past, and make buddies with him.

*******

I'm not sure if I've reviewed Tazo Tea's Iced Hibiscus before just by itself, but I know I've talked about it before, because it's the base in my favorite Starschmuck's drink, the Passion Tea Lemonade. Either way, this one comes in a box with only six bags, but they're pitcher-sized bags, so you're still getting a lot of delicious tea.
I'm gonna be straight with you, and I hate saying this because this tea is awesome, but the design of the giant tea bag leaves something to be desired. I know there are only so many ways one can make it... but the size and shape make it look a bit like a tea-filled maxi pad.
If you can get past that part, the tea is worth it. It's fruity without being heavy, and features hibiscus and passion fruit flavors. I ended up drinking the whole pitcher with a bear of honey. (Shut up, I can measure a unit of honey in bears.)

Tuna juice: the great equalizer.

ST:TAS Season One, Episode Seven: The Infinite Vulcan

"The Infinite Vulcan"
Air Order: 7
Star Date: 5554.4
Original Air Date: October 20, 1973

Roomie found this short article the other day about how scientists are using 3D printing machines and techniques to make food (for the most part, it's chocolate, because chocolate is easy). She was kind of excited because, hooray! food replicators! Now, I hate cooking a lot, and anything that makes food prep easier than even the humble microwave sounds good to me. But remember, this is what TOS says "food" is in the replicator-fueled future:

Can we just skip straight to TNG-replicated food? Because that's food that isn't colored cubes and mutant celery. kthnx.

(Just in case you want to read that little article: https://creator-space.basf.com/content/basf/creatorspace/en/blog/2015/03/3d-printed_food.html#WT.mc_id=US200000139 )

*******

Kirk's Log 5554.4: "Kickin' it at the edge of explored space again, and Starfleet wants us to check out this new planet."

So our intrepid trio beams down to the surface with Sulu. They start scanning, and Sulu immediately comes across this thing that is essentially a plant-based tribble with root-legs. When he moves away, it gets up and follows him, re-rooting in a new place next to him.

Spock says that they are being scanned by one of the buildings nearby, and the trio moves off toward the building, leaving Sulu behind. He's left to ponder how Kirk, Spock and Bones are probably some kind of away-team clique, and he wasn't invited to go with the cool kids. Sulu foolishly decides to pick up the tribble plant, but promptly drops it, figuring it had thorns or something.

The boys are in the building checking out some computerized equipment when they hear Sulu yell outside. They find him unconscious on the grass.

A quick scan reveals that he's got some unknown toxin in his system. Bones gives him a hypo-spray of something, but it won't work quickly enough, if it works at all. Sulu has about a minute to live.

Well, that escalated quickly. Three and a half minutes in, and Sulu is dying.

And now, to the rescue, come a bunch of talking people-sized plants.

"Welcome to Phylos. I'm Agmar," says the head plant. "I can cure your friend." And he produces a drop of some liquid from the end of one of his finger-things.

Bones sort of loses his shit here. "No way you're injecting him with some kind of... of... dewdrop!"

I don't know what the hell Bones' problem is, because if my friend was dying in a very short period of time, and some stranger came upon the scene, announcing that he could save my friend, I'd let him take a stab at it. To fully grasp the oddness of Bones' anger here, you have to imagine him yelling the word dewdrop with all of the fervor and rage of Samuel L Jackson screaming motherfucker. What does he have against someone helping his friend? What does he have against dewdrops?

You're a weirdo, Bones. On a planet full of talking plants, you're the biggest weirdo here.

"Bones," says Kirk. "Don't be a douche. Let them help Sulu."

So he steps back and Agmar gives Sulu the dreaded dewdrop, and Sulu is groggily sitting up within moments. Suddenly, Bones is full of praise for these people who have better tech than he does.

"We've been watching you," says Agmar. "We're a peaceful people, but we're afraid of strangers. Your friend was bitten by the retlaw plant. We knew the antidote would work on him because we have had other humanoids here before."

Kirk asks where the rest of Agmar's people are, and the plant-dudes lead them back into the building, and into a hall where some giant Phylosian husks are lining the walls. Agmar says that this is the previous generation of people, but a humanoid showed up and brought some disease with him. It killed off a bunch of the people, but the human dude was determined to find a cure.

Once again escalating quickly, the air in the air is suddenly filled with like, dragons or something. Dragons with tentacles instead of legs. A quick scan reveals that these are also plant-based, then the dragon-things grab the away team. The Phylosians don't seem all that fussed. Then Kirk notices that once the dragons have grabbed Spock and flown away, they drop the rest of the away team and vacate the hall.

"The hell?" he demands. "Did you guys just kidnap my first officer?"

"So... yeah, sorry about that," says Agmar. "We've been searching all over for the perfect specimen for the Master's plan, and Spock fits the bill, sooooo..... yeah."

A door opens at the end of the hall, and a giant walks in. All of the plant guys genuflect and murmur about him being "the Master."

Just so you guys are keeping up, we're seven minutes in, and already, Sulu has almost died, we've met talking plants, the away team was attacked by dragons, Spock was kidnapped, and now the away team is being stared down by a giant called "the Master." Shit escalates every minute and a half or so.

"I'm Stavos Keniclius 5," says the giant. "I'm keeping Spock. Now get the fuck off my planet before I squish you between my toes."

And he tries to set the dragon things on the remaining away team again. Kirk opens his comm and reluctantly calls for a beam-up.

Kirk's Log 5554.8: "Recap for everyone who was in the bathroom for the last ten minutes."

Oh hey, look. It's Spock, sitting at the science station. Okay, never mind. Problem solved. We can all go home now.

Kirk's crew has not been able to find any info on the giant human Keniclius. Sulu also can't find him or Spock on the surface. They surmise that there are shields in place to keep that information away from the E crew. Sulu attempts to use phasers on the building with the computer, but it is shielded. They will have to go down and rescue Spock in person. Kirk calls Scotty, and they briefly discuss the progress being made on some super-secret weapon that Scotty is making. Bones enters the bridge to talk about his great-granddaddy's garden, and how he has "something cooking" in sick bay.

Uhura says she has found something on Keniclius in the history tapes and puts it on the viewscreen. Keniclius was a scientist during the Eugenics War. (Oh, yay. You remember the Eugenics War, right?)

So Keniclius proposed that humanity start a Master Race with clones of perfect specimens, which made him unpopular, and he disappeared. There is no record of his death or where he went. Bones says he's heard of a myth of a modern Diogenes who searches the galaxy for "someone special." Kirk says he's also heard of that.

"Um, can't be the same dude, cuz he'd be like, 250 years old," points out Bones.

"Yeah, but he was all into cloning," reasons Kirk. "And he did introduce himself as Keniculus 5. Maybe he's a clone."

So remember before when Kirk put very few puzzle pieces together without knowing what the picture looked like, and was correctly able to solve the mystery, and I bitched about it because Kirk should not be able to just randomly throw the solution together that quickly? This episode illustrates how to allow one's characters to arrive at a conclusion the natural way. The information was given (just enough but not all of it) so that Kirk, with the help of his friend Bones, could connect the dots. And none of this is taking place with five minutes left in the episode, so the revelation doesn't feel forced or hurried.

(Also, that last Kirk dialogue wasn't a typo. While the rest of the cast is pronouncing it correctly (Ken-ick-LEE-us), The Shat keeps saying Ken-ick-You-lus. Hey, Bill - say "nuclear" for me. Go on.)

The rest of the original away team gathers in the transporter room with Scotty. He gives them the super-secret weapon thing that he's been working on and prepares to beam then down. Kirk tells him to take the ship and get the hell out of Dodge. He agrees reluctantly.

"Sorry, but it's necessary," says Kirk. "If they think we left, they won't scan for us on the surface, and we can pull out some ninja rescue moves."

Our boys beam down again, and determine that they haven't been detected. More dragon things fly overhead. They decide to go into another building nearby, and find two long rows of space ships, covered in plant growth.

(Sooo, I'm curious. If the Phylosians are the higher life-form here, is moss like apes, or something?)

A few Phylosians are clearing ivy from the ships, and the boys try to determine if they were actually the peace-loving people they said they were.

"Maybe they had something planned, but were unable to complete it because of that disease that Keniculus brought to the planet," reasons Kirk.

They sneak outside and manage to kidnap Agmar, bringing him back into the hangar and demanding an explanation.

"Yeah, you guessed right," sighs Agmar. "Spock is the right blend of human and Vulcan qualities that the Master was looking for. And we did have some grand plans that came to a halt when the rest of us died out. But we're the last generation. We can't reproduce. I know you're worried about Spock, so I'll take you to him."

"That was kind of too easy," mutters Sulu.

"Yeah," Kirk says quietly. "Keep our secret weapon at the ready."

Agmar takes them to a lift platform, which drops them down into some tunnels. A quick scan from Sulu reveals that the tunnels are heavily fortified, which is why they weren't picking up life signs of Spock or Keniclius. They're gliding along on that same lift pad when the lights in the tunnel go out, and some unnecessary drama is added in the form of those plant-dragons. So our boys end up running through the dark, trying to avoid being dragged away, and heading for the light at the end. Of course, none of the dragons swoops for them.

In the room at the end of the tunnel, they find Spock lying on a bed-machine thing. A scan reveals that his brain activity is slowing down, and he'll be dead soon.

"You're too late!" bellows Keniclius. (Seriously, who wrote that contrived bit of dialogue?) "Soon, he will be gone, and in his place, Spock 2!"

And the giant gestures to another giant, who is indeed, Spock.

Okay, can somebody please tell me why clones are huge? Is Keniclius altering the genes of the original person to make the close that big? Is it some weird unintentional part of his cloning process? I'm really not getting why he's cloning giants. Also, given that he and Spock 2 are the same size, it is clearly not a case of "they just get bigger with each successive generation."

Anyway, our boys gasp because "ermagerd, giant Spock!" Then we get some dramatic music and a commercial break.

When we come back, the away team quickly slaps on some breathing masks (they put one on Spock.1 as well) and they get out some sprayers. Because of the shields, their weapons don't work on this planet. So they elected to spray the fuck out of everything with Round-Up. The dragons start dropping out of the sky, and the giants make a run for it.

When the spray clears, the giants are gone and the dragons aren't moving. Bones reveals that the spray was his great-granddaddy's weed killer. That's what he was cooking in sick bay: insecticide. Sounds safe, Bones. Good job mixing that up around the patients.

Kirk tries to call the E, to no avail. Why does he think that would work? Nothing else he has on him has worked so far.

The Keniclius giant comes back and says that Spock.1 is being sacrificed to bring about Spock.2. Basically, dude uploaded all of Spock's brain into the clone.

"That's such bullshit," says Kirk. 

They take Spock's body and try to leave, but giant cloned Spock is standing in their way. He kind of cocks his head at them in confusion when Kirk tries to order him to move.

"I don't think he's finished uploading," says Bones.

Upstairs, Uhura reports that none of her hails are getting through to the surface. Scotty orders that all power except environmentals should be routed to communications so they can reach the away team.

"Um, that'll drain our power," Uhura tells him.

"I know," he admits. "But we have to talk to them."

Back on the surface, Kirk is asking the giant Spock clone why he thinks it's logical for Spock.1 to die so that the clone might exist. He points out that Vulcans do not condone meaningless death, and it's pretty meaningless that Spock might die so that a giant version of himself could live. Keniclius laughs and says that Spock.2 is not just a giant clone, that he is the first in a long line of the Master race.

Kirk's comm chirps, and he decides that Spock.2 should answer. Now fully conscious, the clone answers the hail.

"I have more info on Keniclius," Uhura says through the comm. "His later papers talk about cloning a master race of people to be used as intergalactic peacekeepers."

Then she has to hang up, because the dilithium crystals are damn near depleted.

"Hey, wait," says Kirk. "We've had peace in this galaxy for more than one hundred years. Do you think we're still at war?"

"Of course we are!" says Keniclius. "A race of giant Spocks will bring about and enforce peace for everyone."

"Um, no," says Bones. "You've been out of touch, cloning yourself for two hundred years or more, passing down the same outdated information. We're at peace."

"And why are you guys going along with this?" Kirk asks Agmar. "You guys keep calling him Master."

"Well, yeah," replies Agmar. "Before we were mostly wiped out, that was our big plan: to use our space fleet to enforce peace in the galaxy. But then Keniclius came, and our people started dying, and we couldn't finish the project. Luckily, he had the same plan."

"Dude, nobody has to force peace on anyone," says Kirk. "We already have it, and it was agreed upon. Let's be done with this crap."

"Screw you," replies Keniclius.

Kirk appeals to Spock.2: "Dude, you have Spock's mind. You know about the Vulcan philosophy of the IDIC, right?"

"Yeah, infinite diversities in infinite combinations," the clone answers. "It symbolizes the elements that create truth and beauty."

"Can an army of giant Spock clones enforce peace on the galaxy that gels with the IDIC philosophy?" asks Kirk.

"Nope," says Spock.2.

"This is crap!" yells Agmar. "We have to be able to assert peace!"

He tries to attack Sulu and fails. Keniclius swings his giant pimp cane, destroying the bed-machine.

"You killed Spock!" Kirk howls.

"You bastards!" adds Bones.

"Chillax," says Spock.2, literally stopping Kirk's charge forward with his hand. "This is an easier fix than you think it is."

And he uses his big-ass fingers to mind-meld with Spock.1. This should really not be possible, as it's been demonstrated multiple times that one must place one's fingers in a specific configuration on the participant's face in order to achieve a lock between the minds. Giant clone Spock's fingers are just too big. This show just keeps messing with the mind-meld, attempting to have it fix things that it should not be able to fix. Like Spock melding with a freaking space cloud. 

So here's how this goes down: Keniclius set it in motion that he should make a giant clone of Spock, then somehow (it's never explained) uploads Spock's brain into the giant Spock. So Classic Spock is dying because his brain has essentially been transferred to New Spock. Like his brain is a glass of water that was poured into a different glass. Now New Spock is transferring the consciousness back into Classic Spock, only somehow, the full volume of the water is in both glasses.

Classic Spock gets up, right as rain.

"It's all good," clone Spock tells Kirk. "Nobody is starting an army of giant Spocks."

Keniclius objects, because he's been working very hard for the past two hundred years, and now he's out of the job. Has actually been out of the job for the last hundred or so.

"No, we're still good," says Spock.1. "I say we leave Spock.2 here to work with you, and together, you guys can figure out how to bring back the Phylosian race."

"Oh, that's good, actually," says Keniclius. "I like that."

Giant Spock agrees, and Kirk says he'll report back to the Federation that Keniclius is working to restore the plant race from certain space buffalo status.

"Hey," says Kirk to Sulu. "That move you used to deflect Agmar was pretty freaking awesome. Teach it to me?"

"I dunno if I can," says Sulu. "You have to be kind of inscrutable to do it."

"Inscrutable?" asks Kirk. "You're the most scrutable man I know!"

And Sulu winks to let us know that that crappy bit of dialogue was the closing joke.

Man, this episode is all over the place. It feels like multiple episodes squished into one. So we have our throwback to Khan and the Eugenics War with Keniclius, a guy who wants a master race of peacekeepers. This part is fine. But then they teamed him up with a race of talking plants, and that's where the story falls apart. Instead of matching Keniclius with the Phylosians, they should have put Keniclius on his own class M planet with a handful of giant clones, maybe harvested from other races across the galaxy. make him a sort of anti-Khan, in that he wants to use eugenics for good rather than evil. Then show how messing with eugenics always seems to go sideways either way, by pointing out that peace forced on people never works as well as peace that is agreed to.

The Phylosians need their own story, rather than one wrapped up with Keniclius. Keep their big plans, but make it not about enforcing peace. Maybe their planet is dying, and they needed to evacuate? Go ahead and keep them being mostly wiped out by disease. That works just fine. Now they have even more reason to leave, but maybe they need the E's help to do so?

Also, while I'm thinking about it, did anyone else notice the weird thing about the husks of the dead Phylosians? They're giants. Clones. It's never mentioned in the episode at all, which makes me think that part of the script included an explanation, which was then scrapped. My guess? The "disease" that Agmar talked about, which killed most of his people, was actually the cloning process. He attempted to clone the Phylosians, killing the originals in the process, and then the clones ended up dying. Maybe they weren't good cloning stock. Maybe the process works best on humans or part-humans. This was why he selected Spock. Agmar admitted that the disease killed most of his people when he was very young. It's possible that Keniclius tried his cloning process on the Phylosians, that something went wrong, that he claimed that it was a disease, and that he was working on a cure. This would paint him as the good guy in the eyes (or whatever they have) of the remaining Phylosians. Then they'd go along with his plans.

I dunno.

Just a fan theory, I guess.

Either way, this episode is weird. I'd rate it like a 6 out of 10. Not the worst thing ever, but you could easily make two eights out of the episode if you split it between the two ideas rather than attempt to mash them into one.

Some (sort of) fun facts about this episode:

"The Infinite Vulcan" was written by Walter Koenig. He was offered the chance to write more scripts for TAS, but was pissed off about not being included as a cast member, so he wrote this one episode and no other. What's more, it doesn't sound like it was fun at all. Walter had to do a bunch of re-writes because Gene Rod really, really wanted an episode that featured plant people, something that they couldn't do in the live-action show. Koenig wasn't feeling the plant-people, but went along with it anyway. The retlaw plat was named after Koenig. It's Walter spelled backward.

*******

So Roomie and I have a picnic coming up, and I made my way to the grocery store buy ingredients for my famous brownies.

Roomie called. "Hey, are you near the store across town that sells that fancy sauce?"

"Not even a little."

"Okay, wait, I'm online. There's another store nearby that sells the fancy sauce. It's Hella Pricey Organic Store, ten minutes away from Moderately-Priced Store where you are now."

So I picked out a tea at Moderately-Priced, bought my brownie supplies, and headed over to Hella Pricey. 

You know how it's hot right now? Like hotter than the core of the sun? I'm pretty lazy when it comes to preparing food, and there was no way that I wanted to go home and brew a bunch of tea. If I had to trek to Hella Pricey for sauce, then I was gonna buy something that I could drink now.

I spotted a bottle of Hubert's Half&Half Lemonade Tea in Peach.

"These are all things that I enjoy," I thought, dragging my tea and sauce to the check-out.

So here's the thing I found out while driving home: Hubert's is known for making lemonade. It's pretty good lemonade, but their Half&Half (just another word for an Arnold Palmer) tastes like lemonade rather than half tea. I didn't actually taste any peach, either.

So, yeah. Tastes like good lemonade, tastes nothing like peach or tea.

Roomie and Rumor bought a lizard. Bratty and Uhura are fairly
certain that it's a snack.