ST:TAS Season One, Episode Sixteen "The Jihad"

"The Jihad"
Air Order: 16
Stardate: 5683.1
Original Air Date: January 12, 1974


So unless you are living under a studio-made rock right now, you probably know that the ship goddess is part of a NASA mission:

Does it go into space? No. It's like a shuttlecraft. It hangs out in the air and collects information. Does anyone care much that Uhura is not actually in space? Why would they, when she give us photo ops like this:

I can't even, you guys. I just can't.

How can you be so badass and adorable at the same time, Nichelle?

*******

Kirk's Log 5683.1: "We're orbiting this planet because Spock and I have been called by the Vedala for some secret mission. We don't know what it is, but the Vedala are hella smart, and are the oldest-known space-faring race in the galaxy, so we're gonna trust their judgment and walk blindly into this situation."

Kirk and Spock beam down to the surface, and I just kind of sigh. The animated series is awesome for allowing Star Trek to boldly go where no live-action show has gone before, but this is one of those episodes where they take advantage of not having to pay more for special effects and costuming, and instead of being extra cool, it just looks jumbled, and pretty much like they were trying too hard to push the envelope.
For instance, our heroes beam down into a circle of aliens, and it looks more like a zoo than last week's episode, which featured... a zoo.

So first we have a Vedalan, which looks like exactly like a white Kzinti, but apparently is not. Then there's what looks to be a Gorn, but again... is not. One one side of the Gorn doppelganger is some kind of pupae-insect thing, and on the other side is a Skorr, a sort of griffon-thing. We've seen one of these before, in "Yesteryear". Last but not least, there's a human, but she obviously comes from a different Earth-colonized planet. The Vadalan introduces them around. 

The Skorr is the prince of his people, and he has a problem, in that some religious artifact of his people has been stolen. None of his people know that it's gone, and they need to get the thing back and keep it a secret, otherwise, his people might declare a jihad on the galaxy for no other reason that their thing is gone.

Like Christine Chapel, Tchar has far too many neck bones.

So each of them was called up for a reason. Em/3/Green, the pupae guy (no, I'm not fucking with you, the dude's name is Em/3/Green), is a lock picker and a thief. He was sentenced to this expedition, as he loudly complains. He's already singled himself out as a douche, so that's easy for us. Tchar the Skorr prince is there for information obviously, but the human girl Lara is a hunter. Spock is there because he's smart. Kirk just tagged along for the ride because he felt like it.

No, that's not true. They wanted him for his leadership skills and adaptability, blah, blah, blah.

We don't really find out why Sord the Gorn look-alike is there, because Em/3/Green interrupts to whine about shit.

So Tchar gives us some background on the artifact, which doesn't actually come into play at all, so there really isn't much reason to mention it, beyond how it ties into the situation: the Skorr are all civilized now, but were once warriors. Alar is the Skorr version of Serak, convincing them to be peaceful, which is good, because the Skorr breed like rabbits and could build a huge army in two years. When Alar died, they trapped his brain waves in some ugly sculpture, and that's what's missing.

Nobody knows who took the sculpture, but when Spock asks where it is, the Vedalan surprisingly roars and waves her arms. Apparently, this is how she uses her powers of conjuring and teleportation or whatever. A hologram appears of a planet, and she says the sculpture is on this shitty planet where nobody lives, and the place is some kind of geological nightmare.

The Vedalan admits that they are the fourth expedition to try to get the sculpture back, and nobody seems to flinch at this notion. They seriously lost almost twenty people to this, and nobody balks?

"How come you guys didn't just go get it?" Kirk asks the Vadalan. "You guys have better powers than us."

"We're weak little pussies," replies the Vadalan. "Besides, it's better to sacrifice you guys than us."

Somehow, everyone agrees to this plan, even that whiny bitch Em/3/Green, and the Vadalan waves her arms and roars again, and she teleports away.

We cut to the surface of the "mad planet" where the group is getting into some kind of ATV. Em says he will work the technology, and then proceeds to blow up one of the control panels.

"Fuck it," says Lara, the human hunter chick. "I know navigation, I'll just do it by hand."

You know what else needs to be done by hand? The trimming of your Klingon-esque eyebrows, Lara.

Lara also has too many neck bones.

She picks a direction, and Tchar agrees to fly overhead and scout while the others drive.

Lara is mildly annoying, and is unfortunate enough to be a weird mix of Calamity Jane and Ellie May Clampett. She dresses like Zarabeth, that cavechick that Spock fell for in "All Our Yesterdays", but she calls Spock a "cold-blooded critter" when he defends her navigational skills. She's also racist, but not in a jokey way like Bones, and she starts hitting on Kirk in an aggressive, creepy way.

"Good," I think, "this chick will give Kirk a taste of his own medicine."

That's not the way it happens, though.

He turns her down in favor of getting the job done.

He isn't even going to walk away thinking that he should treat women better.

They're driving through some crazy weather, earthquakes and stuff, and a pretty decent joke comes up:

Em the pupae guy declares, "We're all gonna die here!"

"A statistical probability," reasons Spock.

"You ever quote anything besides statistics, Vulcan?" asks Lara.

"Yes," he replies. "But philosophy and poetry are not appropriate here."

Vulcan for STFU, Lara.

Tchar flies back with the news that he's spotted where the ugly soul sculpture is, but now they 're having issues with erupting volcanoes.

Dramatic music! Commercial break!

We return from the break to see... one lone shot of the E. It's not orbiting a planet, and we don't see what's going on aboard while Kirk and Spock are away. It's more like, they had seven seconds to fill and used that shot. Or they were going to add a scene on the ship there, but changed their minds just before broadcast and never removed that shot. Maybe it's just there to remind you what you were watching before you got up to pee or get more cereal.

So now they have this problem, which is that they're about to be overtaken by lava, and conveniently enough, it is making it's way toward them through a ravine. Also, even though the E is elsewhere, we ended up with a Disable the Ship: their ATV is too slow to be of any use against lava.

Pssst, hey Star Trek: lava doesn't flow that fast. How slow is your freaking car?

Anyway, they've come up with two plans that are kind of one. Spock and whiny Em are going to hotwire the car so it can go faster than the lava (zero to ten in 0.6 seconds?), while the others dump huge boulders in the ravine to block the lava flow for a short period of time. Because they've pretty much frying the car's circuitry, they only get to go fast for a few seconds. (OMG, they may get up to fifteen!)

So miraculously, Kirk and Sord and Lara manage to push a whole bunch of boulders into this ravine and of course it buys Spock and Em just enough time to hotwire their ATV. It's a good thing too, because that blockade they set up really just proves to be some kind of launch ramp for the lava coming from the ravine.

It's raining lava, you guys. It's raining lava, and they're just barely escaping it.

I'm only half-way through this shit.

Can I watch something else? I'm simultaneously bored and annoyed at the lack of science here.

There's a series of shots that show lava flowing and chasing the car and acting like lahars instead of actual, slow-ass lava, and of course the car hits a rock or something, and Spock is thrown from the ATV.

You know what comes next.

Spock selflessly declares that they go on, despite the fact that no one at this point as suggested otherwise. Or maybe he's pre-empting Kirk, who of course jumps from the car to help him up.

Now, I'm not suggesting that we should most definitely leave people behind, but can we have a different outcome sometimes? Or just stop using this cliche?

We get it. You're brothers in spirit, and no way would you ever leave the other behind.

Just stahp.

But then it doesn't matter that Kirk held them up by helping Spock, because their damn ATV can't get up the hill, they're stuck getting out to walk.

Kirk and Spock pause for a lovers' quarrel over rescuing others at a risk to the group, and you know everyone on that mission is thinking "Just kiss already!"

Sord pretty much tells them to get a room.

It starts snowing. They go back to the somehow unburied car and gather whatever equipment they need (never mentioned before, and won't be used, so who cares?) before leaving on foot.

When we cut to the next scene, the ground is covered in snow.

Really? Volcanic wasteland to Winter Wonderland?

And zero reaction between the snow and lava, which sometimes takes years to cool down?

RAWR, fuck this show!

So the ground gives way under Em's feet, and he almost falls into a chasm, which would be fine by me, but Kirk insists that they rescue the little green asshole, so Spock and Tchar pull Em to safety. Em then declares that he's too tired to keep going. No, he's not hurt. Just sleepy. But instead of drinking a Red Bull or whatever, Sord gets talked into carrying that whiny motherfucker the rest of the way to the sculpture.

Tchar goes on ahead to check out the building where he thinks the sculpture might be, and the others keep walking. At one point, Sord swears he saw something moving in the bushes. Yeah, that's right. No longer snowing, now just bushes and mountains. They meet up with Tchar again, who says he saw that building again, and why are we repeating this shit? Was the episode too short? Tchar leaves once again, and this time, Kirk and Lara break off to scout ahead.

Sord, Spock, and Em have a somewhat paranoid discussion as to whether or not they are alone on this planet, and very cheap animation gets made more cheaper by the fact that the animators select camera angles to hide mouths so they won't have to animate those parts when characters are talking. They do it to both Sord and Spock but allow us to see Em talking just so that it's not super obvious.

We catch up again with Kirk and Lara. Lara suggests that they hook up because "that would make the trip easier," and "provide us with green memories."

"I already have green memories," Kirk replies.

Sorry? Did I miss something? "Green memories"?

I had to look that shit up, and dig a bit for it on the Google.

It's like memories that are alive or young.

Anyway, Kirk says "maybe later" and Lara has decided to keep wearing him down. Way to be creepy, Lara. Also, way to muddy things, Kirk. Yes or no, dude. She's just gonna keep harassing you.

"No, thank you. I'd like to keep this professional" is nice and definitive.

But he sounds more like he's filing her away for a booty call the next time he's in her sector.

So they finally, FINALLY reach the building where Tchar thinks the soul thing might be, and Kirk remarks that it looks like a Skorr temple. The lock on the door has to be picked, and I guess this is why it was important that they save Em from being swallowed alive by this planets.

And I guess they needed a commercial break here, because why else would haul out the Dramatic Music?

We get another random shot of the ship when we return from break. I mean, I love the angle on this, but between these ship shots and footage of Tchar flying, this episode has been padded all to hell.

So Em is opening the locks, and he tells them in a panicky voice that they're on a timed trigger, and that he has to open them all correctly or the whole thing will explode. Okay, fine.

Oh, what in gay hell? Fucking dragons again! Were these things seeded? They're on every fucking planet in the known universe!

They start shooting, and the dragons blow up. Turns out they're machines. One carries off Tchar. Em announces that the door is open, and then we, in turn, get close-up shots of each person in the party, as though Em opening a door is cause to get everyone's reaction.

Em looks how I feel.

Enough with this shit. I'm pretty sure that if we removed the opening theme, the random shots of the ship, and all of the crap like this - all of the padding, basically - this episode would be about ten minutes long.

So they walk inside the building, and Kirk says the most un-Kirk-like thing ever:

"Should we rest for a while?"

...whut?

This is Kirk, the guy who jumps in without taking precautions and who is okay with running other people ragged in pursuit of something. Yet now he's suggesting a nap?

"No, fuck that," says Lara.

"Seriously, what the hell?" asks Spock.

They all walk past him, because this is not Dungeons and Dragons. You're pretty much gonna find what you want right away, and you know why? Because there's only like six and a half minutes left of this shit, so we know you're not gonna take a siesta and then go fight a Minotaur before making your way to the center of a maze. Also, mazes and Minotaurs are not Star Trek. That's  the Myceneans and Doctor Who and Harry Potter and shows with actual budgets that come from other places besides the change in Gene's couch cushions.

So here's our fugly sculpture thing, and it's clearly floating a bit off the floor, but when we swing back to the group, Kirk starts talking about how they have to figure out how to get to it from across the room.

... something didn't translate there. There doesn't appear to be anything wrong with the floor, and it doesn't look like there's any kind of force field keeping them from walking over there. nor does it seem that the thing is floating very far off the ground. So why is Kirk lamenting that the walls are not climbable?

The door shuts, and Em whines that they are prisoners, as there is no way out. Kirk has already figured out that it's a trap, because he's Kirk the All-Knowing. He's guessing based on the fact that three expeditions have already failed, and he suspects that one of the group has sabotaged the whole thing. Spock says this is likely.

Kirk notices that there's a ledge around the room, and he, Spock and Lara climb up. Sord gives Em a boost, but stays on the floor himself. Dude, Kirk just said there was no way to climb the walls. Like, ten seconds ago.

Kirk and Spock are discussing how to get the sculpture down when they are attacked by Tchar.

"You dick!" yells Kirk. "You're the saboteur! Why would you start a war like that?"

"My people are wusses," say Tchar. "I want them to die in glorious battle!"

"You're gonna start a war within the Federation for funsies?" asks Spock.

"Yup," replies Tchar.

And he turns off the fucking gravity. He's decided that the rest of the group are actually pretty hearty people, and he wants them to fight and die in the air, like some proud Skorr warrior.

Kirk turns to Spock. "How long since you did The Matrix wire-fighting thing?"

"Bitch, that was last week," replies Spock. "And then we made out in zero-g. Remember?"

Of course they work out in zero-g. Kirk wins every fight because he always seems to be familiar with every kind of fight and environment. Hell, he even knew how to expertly use the pon farr weapons the first time he picked them up. So are we shocked that he and Spock work out in zero gravity, and are then given the opportunity to fight in such a situation? We are not.

While fighting Tchar, Kirk hooks his foot on the sculpture, and yells at Lara to call for beam-out. Somehow, they are beamed back to the grove on Vadala, an entirely different planet. Either that, or they beamed up to some ship orbiting the scary planet, which then carried them to Vadala, where they all beamed down to the grove with the sculpture and Tchar, who is now encased in glass.

"Sorry we can't give you rewards or recognition or anything," says the Vadalan. "We can't call attention to this or it'll fuck up all the shit with the Skorr."

"It's all good," says Kirk. "but what do we tell people who ask where we were?"

"No worries," says the Vadalan. "After a while, you won't even remember going on this mission."

"Bye, James," says Lara. "Sorry I didn't get to bend you over the helm of your own starship."

And Kirk and Spock beam back up to the transporter room.

"The hell?" ask Sulu at the console.

"You were only gone two minutes," says the helmsman.

"Oh, um... the Vedala changed their minds," says Kirk. "Let's get the hell out of here."

And they fly away without cracking a joke that makes no sense.

You know an episode is bad when you start looking for ways to entertain yourself while you're watching it. Not in that sort of multi-tasking "must be doing four things at once" way that we've become so accustomed to, but I started wondering what else I could be watching while watching this show. Could I watch something else?

This episode is twenty-five minutes consisting of Kirk and a bunch of aliens beaming down to a planet to find a thing. They find it, then discover that the dude who took it also lured them there and has been pretending to be their friend. They capture him, and return the thing. The end. It took twenty-five minutes and five other alien species to say that.

There wasn't really anything about this episode that I actually like, which is a pretty difficult feat, considering that I can typically find something. But the extra characters were annoying (with the exception of Sord, who was almost not there at all), and the science was effed up. I'm pretty sure that lava plus snow equals chemical reaction, not Currier & Ives Christmas card. While the fight scene was short, it was almost too short. Kirk goes for Tchar and gets bounced off a wall. He and Spock grab Tchar, he grabs the sculpture, and Tchar is denied the fight he was looking for.

Plus, it was padded all to hell. 

"Let's add in still shots of stuff to lengthen out the episode," I can hear the writers say.

"That whiny dude, when he opens the door, let's get everyone's reaction."

"Okay, great. Because the door might have exploded, but didn't. We can see their shock and relief."

"No, it costs too much to draw facial expressions. Just show a shot of each. That's fine. It'll buy us another ten seconds."

You know what I'd like to see now? A live-action shot for shot parody remake of this episode. And I want the final battle to be a slap-fight between Kirk, Spock and Tchar. That would make it worth watching.

*******

I was complaining to Roomie the other day that our tea cupboard is full of tea that I only ever seem to drink one packet of, then the rest just sits there, not being consumed by anyone else.

"I don't want to keep adding to the pile," I lamented.

"You should drink that barley tea that Anim8ed gave us," she suggested.

I paused. I knew this tea existed at the back of the cupboard, but I had not touched it, because Anim8ed had given it to Roomie. It's also in a Ziplock baggie labeled with Japanese kanji.

I was also suspicious of it. It's made with roasted grains. What the hell would that taste like?

Fishing it out of the cupboard (I had to go deep, as it was buried behind 40 other things), I looked up steeping times and other information.

I guess it's really popular in Japan, and kind of in Great Britain as well, and it's got a bunch of supposed health benefits.

But it's made from barley: would it taste like beer?

Nope. It tastes like shredded wheat. Shredded wheat made with coffee rather than milk. Though it's still kind of milky as well.

I put the baggie back in the cupboard.

Roomie can have the rest.

Curie

Season 3, Episode 78 "All Our Yesterdays"

"All Our Yesterdays"

Production Order: 78
Air Order: 78
Stardate: 5943.7
Original Air Date: March 14, 1969

Last week, while perusing  a fancy organic grocery store for something both edible and affordable, Roomie and I stumbled upon this book:

We stood in the impulse gift section, reading each page and snickering.
Roomie dropped it in our basket. "Rumor has decided that you require this book. Rumor is buying it for you," she stated, whipping out their joint debit card. "Thank you, Rumor."
So it's not that I want to shake the hand of the author of this book. It's more like I want to make the Vulcan hand sign at him. I want to tell him to Live Long and Prosper. Then, while my hand is still in that formation, I want to high-five him. A Vulcan high-five.
You guys should read this. No, really. I'll wait. Go do it.

*******

Kirk's Log 5943.7: "So the sun in the Beta Niobi system is going nova in a few hours. The last report we got about the only planet in that system said that there was intelligent life living there, but now our scans say that there's no one on the planet. We're gonna check it out, even though past experience says that we're gonna get trapped on the planet just before nova-time, and that we'll have to struggle to escape. I hope the sound guys are ready with the Dramatic Music button."

*hand goes up* Hi, I have a question? What about the Prime Directive? Are you allowed to just stumble upon some planet and beam down? Seems intrusive to me. Also, if your earlier reports said that there was life, and now there is not, do you have reason to doubt said report? Otherwise, why are you beaming down to check it out? Is your equipment malfunctioning?

So our Golden Trio beams down into a building on the surface. (Beyond the establishing shot of the E in orbit, all of this episode takes place on the surface. We hear Scotty over the comms, but never actually see him.) The reason they picked this beam-down spot is that they picked up some kind of energy signature and want to check it out. Curiosity killed the Starfleet officers, I guess. They only pick up one life-form here on the surface, and Kirk wonders where everyone went. He posits that it could be any number of reasons, including mass suicide.
YES. That is a good guess, Kirk. Go with that and warp away from there. Then nobody has to use the Dramatic Music button.
Spock mentions that this civilization is pre-warp, so they didn't just leave. Nobody seems to think about how a star going nova could affect its own planets, and that maybe the place became uninhabitable in the intervening time. Anyway, upon looking around, they notice that they seem to have beamed down into a library or archive of some kind. A dude approaches and offers them help. He calls himself Mr Atoz. Get it? Mr A to Z. He runs a library. Yes, Star Trek, you're very clever.

He asks if he can help them.

"Where are the people?' asks Bones.

"I can't tell you where individuals are," Atoz replies. "That's confidential."

"No, people in general," Bones corrects.

Atoz says he understands that they are having trouble selecting a place, and that our boys are a bit late, but he has a "better late than never" attitude, and invites the trio to browse through the library. They turn a corner without Atoz, and run into... Atoz. He asks if he can help them as though he's never seen them, and says they can select from thousands of tapes.

"You have recent history?" asks Kirk, trying to figure this shit out.

"Naw, nobody was interested, sorry. But you can ask at the reference desk," Atoz replies, pointing.

So they go into another room, where they encounter... Atoz.

"You're very late!" he scolds, like some Lewis Carroll character.

"The fuck?" demands Kirk. "How many are there of you?"

Dramatic music! Commercial break!

So after some long, round-about conversation, Atoz says that he sent everyone on the planet to safety, and when the time comes, he will join his own family, who are also safe. They have been aware of the sun going nova and sent everyone to safety in time. In order to accomplish this, he made replicas of himself. One replica smiles at them from the drawers. Atoz the First (Bones scans him to be sure he's not a replica) tells them that he can set them up, and leads him to the drawers. Apparently, they pick out a disk from the drawers, put them in players, and see what they chose. They can select any time or any place. Atoz leads Kirk back to the reference desk and tells him to check out the disks he has there. Kirk places a disk in the player and sees a little scene of a town with some horses. He seems pretty impressed.

Actually, I'm kind of impressed, too. That's an awesome little bit of cut and paste filmography.

Bones puts a disk in a reader, and it shows him scenes of a frozen tundra. Spock wanders over to Atoz, who is working at another machine. Are you paying attention, friends? Because that machine is the Beta 5 computer that Gary Seven uses in "Assignment: Earth". Good on ya, Budget. Re-using that probably allowed them the money to make that little special effect with the disks.

"I'm still confused," says Spock. "What am I choosing again?"

"A time and place," repeats Atoz. "Then I use this machine, the Atavachron, to prepare you."

This is getting a bit taxing. Rather than just straight-up telling Atoz that they're aliens from another world, and are wondering where the population has disappeared to, they just keep playing along, as though they're actually members of this species who are late in reporting to the library. And so instead of giving them the info they want, he just keeps repeating that they need to pick out disks, and that they're very late. Speaking of which, they have a little over three hours until the sun goes nova, so they better quit dicking around and just ask outright.

Spock thanks Atoz for the non-info, and goes back to stand with Bones.

Kirk hears a woman scream while he is watching his disk. He looks up like a cat looking up at the sound of a can opener. He yells to Spock and Bones. When he hears the scream again, he turns and runs through the nearest archway, presumably to go outside and find her. Instead, lights flash in the archway, and he disappears as Atoz yells, "Wait, I haven't prepared you!"

Kirk appears on the other side of a brick wall, and finds out that the screaming lady is some chick who is being hassled by some drunken musketeers, or something.

Pretty sure they raided the studio's costume department for these.

Without stopping to think - and they really should have stopped to think - Spock and Bones run through the archway as well, with Atoz yelling at them that they "have to be prepared first!" The lights flash again, and they disappear.

Only they don't end up where Kirk is. They end up in the land of Spray-Painted Papier-Mache Soundstage.

It's actually not the worst thing I've seen on this show.

Wherever Kirk is, he decides to come to the lady's rescue, so he beats down the first drunk dude, and is then challenged to a sword fight by another. He's not as good as Sulu is, though. No one is as good at drunken sword-fighting as Sulu. Somehow he beats the guy with the sword, and then he fucking spanks these two guys with the rapier as they run away. The other drunkards laugh. The chick Kirk saved turns out to also be drunk as hell, and she talks like the pirates on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland. She thanks Kirk for getting rid of those guys for her. Apparently, she was attempting to steal from them, and they caught her and figured they'd mess with her in turn. Kirk has now noticed that there's no opening back into the library.

Dramatic music! Commercial break!

Back in the papier-mache tundra, Spock and bones have determined that their phasers do not work, so they can't use them to heat rocks to stay warm. They start yelling for Kirk, who it turns out, can hear them when he's standing right next to the wall that he came through. Spock yells that he figured out that the people on this planet escaped from the sun going nova by opening up windows to the past and going to live there instead. This way, they could live out their lives without ending them in a fiery ball of death. That... that's kind of clever. Unfortunately, when Spock and Bones tried to follow Kirk, they ended up someplace different. Bones went to their ice age, and because Spock stepped through at the same time, he did as well. The chick is completely freaked out because she can hear Spock and Bones talking to Kirk.

This doesn't bode very well for Kirk, because those drunk musketeers come back with the cops, who then arrest Kirk on suspicion of being a witch. They arrest her because she's a purse-cutting hussy.

Spock and Bones look for shelter from the ice storm. Bones collapses in the snow, yelling for Spock to just leave him and go, to save himself. Spock yells back that they both go, or neither does. It's the sort of Spockoy moment of a caliber that I haven't seen since their tender moment in jail during "Bread and Circuses". Spock holds Bones and tells him that he will carry him to shelter, because Bones is starting to suffer from frostbite.

It's here that they encounter what is clearly a Jawa that has mated with a Wookie. It just kind of looks at them like, "Just kiss already!" then it turns and walks away. They follow it. Maybe it is going back to its lair. Maybe it will eat them. Who knows?

It does go to its lair, but then it helpfully points out a kind of bed and some animal furs. Spock lays Bones down, covering him with the furs, and then he scans Bones with the tricorder... which magically works, despite the fact that the phasers don't.

The thing takes off its hood, and shocker! It's a gorgeous girl with dimples. She is friendly, and asks if Spock and Bones are prisoners, too. When he says no and asks why, she replies that this is where Zorcon likes to exile prisoners. He says they arrived by accident and admits that they are aliens. She's stoked. Suddenly, she loses her shit.

"Oh, no! I'm imagining this! I'm going insane!"

Spock convinces her that he is real, and she buys it immediately, apologizing because she has been alone so long that she thought she might have made them up.

Kirk is asleep in a jail cell. The hussy is in the cell across the way. A dude in fathered hat unlocks the door to Kirk's cell and wakes him up to talk to some official. Kirk tells this new dude that he is not the hussy's accomplice, that he heard her screaming, and came to her aid when he thought she was being attacked.

The official is on Kirk's side, nodding thoughtfully, until Kirk mentions the library. Then we get this comical zoom-in on the ridiculous face that the official makes at the mention of the library.

"Um..." says the official. "I think you're innocent."

The hussy starts screeching that Kirk is a witch. In fact, the way she does it reminds me so much of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, that I ask myself why I'm watching this so-so episode when I could be watching movie instead. In fact, she makes an accusation against Kirk putting a spell on her, and I half-expected her to lamely finish with, "I got better." Here's a thought: let's toss Kirk in a lake and see if he floats.

The jailer agrees with the hussy, because he also heard Kirk talking to a spirit called Bones. Kirk tries to explain to the official that he was talking to his friends in the library, and the official hurriedly tells Kirk that he's going to get an expert in witchcraft to come down and talk to Kirk, and he and the jailer rush out. The hussy hisses that they're going to burn Kirk.

Back in the cave, Bones has woken up. The girl tells him that her name is Zarabeth. Spock says they are still in the tundra, but safe, only he isn't certain how they're going to get back, or find Kirk.Bones goes back to sleep. Spock goes into another room in the cave, and Zarabeth follows. She says Spock's name to get him turn around, and when he does, she makes rather a show of disrobing, revealing what appears to be a rip-off of Raquel Welch's costume from One Million Years BC. Surprisingly for Star Trek, Zarabeth's costume actually covers more than Raquel's did. Either way, it's clearly supposed to be a "Dayum, girl!" moment. Spock, being Spock, gives no fucks.

She asks about Kirk, because Bones mentioned him, and Spock says that Kirk got stuck in another time period. He begins trying to logic himself out of this situation. His main goal in staying in the cave was to ensure that Bones would live, and now Bones will be fine. But if he leaves now to find Kirk and the library, he will possibly trap Bones in the tundra. But if he doesn't go, there may not be anyone to free Kirk. He actually gets pissed off when he can't find the solution. 

Out of curiosity, he asks why she was exiled. She replies that she picked bad friends. Yeah, I've done that, and you don't see me sitting in the Slushy version of Elba. I guess these friends tried to kill Zorcon, so Zorcon killed her friends, and scattered her family to the four winds using the Atavachron. Spock says he remembers the name Zorcon from the data tapes in the library. Zorcon was a tyrant, and apparently, a dick who exiles people. After this quick lesson in Zarabeth's personal history, Spock announces that he has a plan: they will carry Bones back to the portal site, and carry him into the library. Scotty will beam up both her and Bones while he goes looking for Kirk. That's when Zarabeth drops the bomb on him that the "prepared" that Atoz was yelling about meant that the Atavachron changed their systems so that they could live in the new time. But it meant never being able to go back without dying.

Bones gets up and demands to know why Spock has not gone to look for Kirk. Spock breaks the news to him that everyone is now trapped in those time periods, and they cannot go back through the portal, because they've been physiologically altered, and they'll die if they attempt it.

Kirk's Log 5943.9: "Just in case you forgot about me while you were busy scoping the fine honey in the animal skin skirt that they're pushing on Spock, I'm stuck in jail staring at this Monty Python bitch, and I'm about to be tried as a witch."

The jailer comes back and lets the hussy out. Then a dude comes by with a bucket of slop. He asks for Kirk's cup, and Kirk fumbles it awkwardly. It's a ruse, of course, and he manages to get the guy twisted around and sort of head-locked. They he grabs the dude's keys, unlocks the door and drags him in, chopping the back of his neck and pulling him into the shadows. Poor slop guy. Kirk will probably pretend to teach him about love, then abandon him when he gets free. He closes the door, and when the official comes down to see him, they argue through the door. Kirk tries to convince the official to let him go, as the official came from the future as well, and knows that Kirk is innocent. He actually drags the official into the cell as well, where he can see that Kirk already got the slop guy.

"Don't hurt me!" he cries. "I promise I'll plead your innocence to the inquisition, but you can't talk to your friends ever again."

"Yew got a perty mouf."

"You have to get me back to the library," Kirk demands.

The official tells Kirk the same thing that Zarabeth told Spock: they can't leave, or they'll die. The Atavachron prepared them to live in the past, so they can't live in the future anymore.

"Hey, I was never prepared!" says Kirk. "I just leapt before I looked, like usual."

"Oh," says the official. "Well, in that case, you're fucked. You have to be prepared, or you can only live a few hours in the past."

And suddenly, he's in a huge hurry to get Kirk back to the portal.

Back in the cave, Bones is awake and drinking and insulting Spock. So... normal. He notices that Zarabeth is sweet on Spock, and Spock doesn't care either way, so he hits on her. She leaves, and Bones muses about Kirk. Spock says that hopefully Kirk is fine where he is trapped. Because it is somehow in Bones' job description to bitch at Spock whenever Kirk is missing, he does so now, and demands to know (again) why Spock didn't go looking for Kirk.

"What part of "we can't get back" don't you understand?" asks Spock.

"You like it here!" Bones lashes out. "You want to stay, which is why you're not trying harder!" He calls Spock a "pointy-eared Vulcan," which is about the most redundant insult ever.

Spock loses his shit, grabbing Bones by the collar and yanking him to his feet. "Bitch, what did you just call me?"

And Bones suddenly remembers that Vulcans possess far more strength than humans. Oops.

Spock drops Bones and walks away, but Bones is weirded out that Spock is being so emotive. he's clearly getting an idea as to why the Vulcan is acting differently, though.

Back in Witch-Hunt Time, the official takes Kirk back to the portal area, and Kirk feels the wall until he reaches a place where his hand disappears.

"Awesome," says the official. "Have a nice life." And he runs the hell away.

Kirk goes back through the portal and yells for his friends. Not finding anyone in the library, he calls Scotty.

"Um, yeah, you got seventeen minutes to get your asses back here before the sun blows up," says Scotty.

"Spock and Bones are missing," relays Kirk.

He closes the comm and calls for Atoz.

Atoz comes out, and he says he's glad Kirk is back, that he can process him, and send him along to the witch hunt again.

"Fuck that shit," says Kirk. They wrestle, and he locks Atoz in a closet.

Another Atoz approaches, but Kirk chops his neck, and the guy passes out.

"You replicated asshole!" Kirk yells at the third guy.

"I'm the real dude," says Atoz. "What the hell is your problem?" 

He zaps Kirk with some weapon, and the captain passes out.

Spock and Zarabeth talk about how she can't leave, and how she's acclimatized to this time, and she offers him some food. He pauses when he realizes that she only has "animal flesh" to offer him. Spock is a vegetarian? Was that information given before, because I don't remember him eating anything but those weird little colored cubes they serve on the Enterprise? Anyway, she says that the cave is heated by hot springs, and he says that after a while, he can set up a greenhouse to grow veggies and stuff. Sorry, how's that? You got a multitude of seeds in your pocket? She says that Zorcon set her up in this time with the things that she would need to survive, but only just. Spock remarks that it is cruel to exile a beautiful woman to the ice age with no companionship. Then he pauses and apologizes for his emotional outburst, saying that the cold must be affecting him.

"I have eaten animal flesh and I have enjoyed it! What is wrong with me?"

Of course they make out. I mean, my God, we haven't had an emotionless guy falls for beautiful woman story in over three episodes! He carries her over to the bed and waxes poetic about how beautiful she is, and he smiles.

Back in the library, Atoz has gotten a passed-out Kirk onto some kind of cart, which he tries to push through the archway. Kirk rolls off in time to see the cart go through and disappear. A few quick questions here: did Atoz remember to hit Kirk with Atavachron machine to change him physically to fit into the past? Or was he just sending him blindly back, knowing he would die within a few hours? Kirk had admitted to the replicated Atoz that he and the others were aliens - did the replicated Atoz tell the original, and did the original want to then get rid of him? Would that not possibly destroy part of his planet's history, to send an unknown alien back into their time? And what of that stupid cart? The damn thing just went sailing off into Witch-Hunt Time. It was probably more modern than anything than anything they had at that time - could this not have wreaked (at least some) havoc on the development of his culture, thereby changing part of the future? Am I asking too many questions? Should I just shrug it off and go along with the story?
So Kirk rolls off the cart, it disappears, and Atoz tries to bodily push him through the archway. But remember, no one is allowed to win against Kirk, so he gets Atoz tin that same headlock that he put on the slop guy. Scotty comms in, and because Kirk is an efficient multitasker, he takes the call while beating on an old man. he tells Scotty to stand by on that beaming action, but to get ready to warp out when the star goes. Yeah, pretty sure you don't get time to leave when a star blows up. I think you should leave now to save the ship. Actually, it would have been wisest to leave your asses on the planet an hour ago.
Kirk tells Atoz that his friends are in a frozen wasteland, and a struggling Atoz agrees to help him look for the disc.

Bones finds Spock and Zarabeth canoodling, and starts yelling about how Spock lied to him, by not probing Zarabeth for more information. He has also figured out that he and Spock can go back because they were not zapped by the Atavachron or whatever, but that Zarabeth cannot go with them. he's angry because Zarabeth wants to keep Spock with her, and would sacrifice the E and its crew to get him. He grabs Zarabeth's face, and Spock in turn, grabs him and slams him against the wall.

"Ha!" says Bones. "You're being emotive! You've devolved into what your ancestors were like because we've traveled 5,000 years into the past on some other planet! That totally explains why you're acting this way, even though that makes no sense whatsoever!"
"Oh, crap, you're right," says Spock, letting him go. "That doesn't make sense, even though it works for the story!"
Zarabeth isn't sure if the boys can go back, just that she knows she can't.
They go back out to the portal.

Kirk and Atoz try some disks in the reader, with Kirk going to the portal to yell into the arch. They find the right one, and the boys must step through the rock face. Spock says goodbye to Zarabeth, and I'm sure they were trying to make her into another Edith Keeler, but I'm just not buying it. Step through the fucking portal already.

Spock asks how much time they have, and Bones relays it to Kirk, who asks Scotty.

"Fucking none!" yells Scotty. "What the hell is your problem?"

Our boys in blue step through the portal. Atoz yanks the tundra disk from the reader, inserts another disk, and pushes the boys out of the way to leap through the portal at the last minute.

"That's where his family was waiting," Kirk tells them.

"Quit staring at me, I'm fine now," Spock tells Bones.
"Yeah, but it happened," says Bones.
"Dude, that was five thousand years ago," Spock replies.
Kirk calls for their ride, and we see the E warp away as the star explodes.

Death Toll:

Red deaths this episode: 0
Red deaths this season: 6
Gold deaths this episode: 0
Gold deaths this season: 0
Blue deaths this episode: 0
Blue deaths this season: 1
Total crew deaths this season: 7
Total crew deaths thus far: 49

So an entire planet full of people sort of died? Or maybe didn't? Schrodinger's Planet? I dunno. It's a fuzzy grey area.

This is one of those episodes that  would file under "good premise, so-so execution." Also, "story got buried under Spock romance." First, the premise: escaping your planet's demise by going back to live in your planet's past is actually really interesting. According to IMDB, there were two Star Trek books based on this idea, and they might actually be good reads. The problem with this episode is that it's kind of boring. Kirk is accused of being a witch for talking to his friends through technology. That could get interesting, but it didn't. He talked another guy from the future into helping him get back to the portal. Lame. Spock and Bones get stuck in a frozen wasteland, and the writers fell back on the old reliable "there's something wrong with Spock because he's being emotional." It's become cliche at this point. And I can't tell you how sick I am of the "Spock romance" troupe. In the end, it was kind of anti-climactic. The boys beam up just in time, and the E gets away as the star explodes. Really, the thing that I might be saddest about is the complete loss of a culture. Or I would be if it wasn't another "let's go back in Earth's time" episode like the gangster planet or the Nazi planet. Really? There are planets in other systems that had development and culture just exactly like ours? You don't say!

*******

So this little kid I watch was like, "I really want some Starschmucks. If you fly, I'll buy." (I say little, but this kid already has two inches on me. Make no mistake: I'm a short little sucker.) So I let a pre-teen buy me a Starschmucks tea. I don't recall if I reviewed the Peach Green Tea Lemonade last summer, but I had one today, and it was pretty good. It's not terribly heavy on the lemonade, but it was really sweet, which could be a combo of the lemonade and the peach syrup? Dunno. It was good. Check it out if you like your tea really sweet.

Also, they better bring back that Blackberry Mojito. Just sayin.'

Momo would like to thank you for these lovely flowers.