ST:TNG Season Three, Episode Twenty-Three "Sarek"

ST:TNG Season Three, Episode Twenty-Three "Sarek"
Production Order: 23
Air Order: 23
Stardate: 43917.4
Original Air Date: May 14, 1990

Picard's Log 43917.4: "So this mysterious race called the Lagarans are thinking of joining the Federation. The E has been chosen to host the first meeting. But first, we're going to Vulcan to pick up Ambassador Sarek and his wife Perrin."

Okay, so let's go over some shit before we get into it: Sarek is 202 years old in this episode, and humans don't live as long as Vulcans. Cool? Cool. So there's an issue with the fact that his wife Amanda is human and clearly not going to die after he does. Sarek is a widower here. But he's also remarried, to another human named Perrin. I have mixed feelings about Perrin, but we'll get to that later. Right now, you just need to know that Amanda's died, so Sarek is remarried. (It was possibly a question of Jane Wyatt being available - she died in 2006, but had a mild stroke in the 1990's. Nothing appears in her filmography on Wikipedia after 1989.)

Anyway, Picard and Riker are dressed to the nines in their dress uniforms, only this time, the tights have been ditched for a looser-fitting pant. Looks pretty good. Go with that in the future.

They're chatting about how awe-inspiring Sarek is, how Riker has read all about him at the Academy, and what kinds of rad things he's done for the Federation. Picard mentions Coridan joining the Federation after Sarek's intervention, a direct continuity of the TOS episode "Journey to Babel." (I know you were waiting with bated breath for 24 years to know how that situation was gonna turn out. Don't worry - those of you who wagered "join" have some money coming to them.) He also talks about having met Sarek once as a young lieutenant and being completely tongue-tied. Its a rather charming moment:
Picard: "Standing in the presence of such history. I remember he spoke to me and I just stood there, grinning like an idiot."
Riker: "You? Tongue-tied?"
Picard: "Indeed. How do you make small talk with someone who shaped the Federation?"
D'awwwww. Bb Picard.
They discuss the rumors that Sarek is doing this one last ambassador gig before retiring. Picard says it'll be an awesome end to his career, because being allied with the Legarans is super-beneficial to the Federation.
They hit the transporter room, and O'Brien beams up two dudes, one human and one Vulcan. The human introduces himself as Ki (Kee) Mendrossen, Sarek's chief of staff. The Vulcan is Sakkath, Sarek's personal assistant.

"So... we have some delicate stuff to go over before the ambassador comes aboard," says Mendrossen.
Picard and Riker exchange a look, because WTH?
"Okay?" says Picard.
"The ambassador isn't young," says Mendrossen. "This shit is important, and he needs to conserve his strength. So, no fun ambassadorial stuff. Like, cancel any plans you made."
"Well, crap," says Riker. "We planned a Mozart concert for tonight cuz we heard he liked Mozart."
"Yeah, not doing that," replies Mendrossen. He's not as friendly now. "When he beams aboard, he needs to go straight to his quarters, and then be left alone until we get to Legara."
Picard looks put out that they rained on his ambassador parade, but assures Mendrossen that no one will disturb Sarek.
"Awesome!" Mendrossen is friendly again.
Sarek and Perrin beam aboard, and there's a mirroring of "Journey to Babel" here: Sarek introduces Perrin as "she who is my wife," just as he introduced Amanda to Kirk. And much like Kirk, Picard attempts to greet her as Mrs Sarek, which is incorrect. Like Amanda, Perrin smiles and instructs him to simply address her by her first name.

"Let's go see the conference room," says Sarek.
The others in his party, including his wife, all try to convince him to settle into his quarters first, and that Sakkath and Mendrossen can check on the conference room for him, but he's pretty insistent, telling Picard good-naturedly that his entourage worries too much about his health.
Riker offers to take them, and they leave.
The camera zooms in on Picard's worried face.

Dramatic music! Opening credits break!

When we return, Wes and Geordi are in the conference room setting up a vat of rainbow slime. Wes is in a hurry to get shit done, because he has a date with Ensign Dumont.
"Noice," says Geordi. "That takes guts."
Not sure if he means asking out Dumont in particular or dating in general, but he congratulates Wes on getting that date all the same.
The ambassadorial party arrives and Sarek is immediately annoyed. "You need to get rid of the furniture in here and take everything off the walls. I've been preparing for this meeting for 93 years! It has to be right!"
Picard is a bit taken aback, but he explains that Geordi and Wes aren't done. Mendrossen soothes Sarek, telling him that he's sure the E's crew will make everything up to spec before the meeting. Sakkath comes up behind Sarek and gently tells him that they should let Geordi and Wes continue their work.
"Okay," agrees Sarek. On his way out, he turns and tells them sharply that the walls are too bright.

Later on the bridge, Picard talks to Troi and Riker. Riker admits that with the way the entourage talked, he expected a frail old man, but Sarek is certainly not that.
Sassy Picard Moment: "I hope I'm that frail when I'm 202 years old."
They decide that maybe Mendrossen and Sakkath are kind of overprotective, and Picard admits that while he'll follow their instructions to leave Sarek alone, he was kind of hoping he could talk to the ambassador.
Troi asks if he is going to cancel the concert, and he says no, though he's disappointed that Sarek won't be there.
"You could ask if Perrin wants to go," she suggests.
"That's a good idea!"
Picard hops out of his chair to go call on Perrin.

Perrin is surprised when Picard turns up and says he's there to see her instead of Sarek. They exchange pleasantries, and she tells him that they were pleased to find out that the E would be hosting.
Perrin: "My husband has taken an interest in your career. He finds it to be... satisfactory."
Picard: "My word. High praise from a Vulcan."
Lol.
He invites her and Sarek to the Mozart concert, and she says she isn't sure if her husband can go, but maybe she will.
"Cool," he says, leaving. "Hope to see you there."
She looks concerned, and goes to find Sarek, who is in another room.
She guesses that he is having trouble meditating, as he has been for a few weeks.
He's irritated, and sends her away.

Geordi and Wes are still setting up the goo pool, only the lights are down and there's nothing on the walls.
"Can I fucking go?" demands Wes.
"Why? It's not like you're gonna get anywhere with Ensign Dumont," replies Geordi.
"At least I'm not spending the night with a good book, like some people."
"Fuck off, pissant. She's way out of your league."
And a heated argument almost comes to blows:
Wes: "Since when did you become such an expert on women?"
Geordi: "Compared to you, every male on this ship is an expert on women!"
Wes: "Well, at least I don't have to find my women on the holodeck!"

Daaaaamn, how'd he know about that?
Riker strides in and catches them shouting at one another, asking them if there's something going on. Wes asks to be excused, then stomps out without waiting for an answer.
"Everything okay?" Riker asks coldly.
"Yep," snaps Geordi.
Zoom-in on a concerned Riker!

Dramatic music! Commercial break!

We jump forward to the concert. Data and his musician friends are warming up while Riker and Picard take their seats. Picard tells Riker about Worf putting an ensign on report for insubordination, and Riker is surprised, because that ensign has been an awesome crew member thus far. Riker mentions the argument he broke up between Geordi and Wes.
The doors whoosh open, and Sarek and his party step in.
"Sweet, you came!" says Picard.
"Yeah, Perrin suggested it would be a good diversion. She can be quite... logical when she wants to be," says Sarek, with a small smile.
Not to be left out and wanting the others to think that he had some say in the matter, Mendrossen pipes up, "Looks like the ambassador had more free time than we thought!"
Picard introduces Data, who tells them that he's been programmed with the techniques of over 300 different violinists, and lists a few, asking if they have a preference. Perrin selects one, and I kind of like that in the future, people might have strong opinions on violinists.

The costumes for this episode are absolutely killing it.

The concert begins, and everyone seems to be enjoying themselves. We skip to a new song, one that is dramatic and sad. Sakkath leans forward in his chair to stare at Sarek's profile.

Troi, sitting behind Sakkath, looks at Sarek as well. Sakkath whispers to Medrossen, who glances at Sarek. Troi looks between them. A few tears fall from Sarek's eyes, and when he turns to Perrin, she wipes them away.

Picard takes notice. The group gets up and leaves quietly. Troi glances at Picard. We zoom in on his face, worried.

Wes goes to see his mom in her office, as she's summoned him there.
"Hey, what's up?" he asks.
"You weren't at the concert," she says coldly.
He says lightly that he told her he might go, but his date wanted to go to the arboretum instead.
"Captain Picard asked where you were," she replies. "I don't like making excuses for you."
The argument gets heated on her end. Wes is baffled, because he didn't expect her to get angry over this. The concert wasn't an official function. He suggests that she might be overreacting and turns away.
She grabs his arm. "Where are you going?"
"Away from you!" he replies, alarmed.
And she fucking slaps him.
Damn, Beverly. I know he sometimes says asshole-ish things out of character, but this is not one of those times.

"I slapped him!" wails Crusher to Troi. "I've never hit my kid!"
She's in Troi's office.
Troi has some idea of what's going on. "What were you thinking when you hit him?'
"Nothing. I was just super pissed."
"Did he provoke you?"
"No. I was just suddenly enraged. For no reason."
"Yeah, I've heard that from ten different people over the last two days."

Data gives Sakkath a tour of the bridge. "The captain, Commander Riker, and Counselor Troi sit in these seats."
"Yeah, about that," says Sakkath. "Counselor Troi is a Betazoid?"
"Half," replies Data. "She's an empath rather than a telepath."
"Hmmm. And how good are Picard's diplomacy skills? Does he know the Legarans well? Could he take over if need be?"
"That's...a weird question," says Data. "Do you think the ambassador won't be able to do it?"
"No," says Sakkath quickly. "Just thinking about how we could fix things if something went awry. Anyway, thanks for the tour."
He high-tails it off the bridge, leaving a confused Data behind.

A bunch of people are down in Ten Forward. O'Brien and another Gold are leaving the bar to sit at a table, when a group of Blues sits down at that same table.
"Yo," says O'Brien. "That's our table."
"Don't see your name on it," sneers the Blue.
Sensing an issue arising, Geordi steps up to them. "Hey, plenty of tables here."
"That's true," admits O'Brien, his sails deflating somewhat.

In the corridor, Riker is talking to Worf about his accusations of insubordination.
"Is it just me," asks Riker, "or have tempers become a little frayed on the ship lately?"
"I hadn't noticed," says Worf in a clipped tone.
The door to Ten Forward opens in front of them.

Sassy Worf Moment: "I see what you mean."
He pages security to Ten Forward, then takes Geordi's place between two brawling Golds.
"Geordi, WTF?" demands Riker.
"Dunno!" calls Geordi, just before he gets punched.

Dramatic music! Commercial break!

In the aftermath of the Ten Forward brawl, wait staff pick up broken tables and Crusher checks for injuries.
"WTH?" demands Picard.
"There's a lot of this going around," says Troi. "All over the ship, people are just randomly getting violent."
"Like it's contagious?" asks an alarmed Picard.
"Yeah," says Crusher. "Only I've checked the water supply, the replicators, the air... all nothing."
"That's shit timing," says Picard. "I want the ambassador isolated from this."
Crusher and Troi look guilty.
"So... this stuff started pretty much when Sarek and his entourage beamed over," says Crusher.
The look Picard gives her says "you're shitting me."

Crusher and Troi take Picard back to Crusher's office to talk to him privately.
"Something happened at the concert," says Troi. "I sensed it."
"Yeah, he cried," nods Picard. "It's freaking weird for a Vulcan to cry."
"Eh," says Troi. "They have the same basic emotions as us, they just learned to repress them. But it felt like he's losing control over things."
"There's a rare thing that Vulcans can get when they're 200 or more years old," says Crusher. "It's called Bendii Syndrome. They have sudden bursts of emotion, mostly irrational anger. Eventually, they lose all control of their emotions."
Picard is horrified. "That sounds like it would be highly offensive to a Vulcan. Control of emotions is their thing." He turns to Troi. "How could he affect the crew?"
"Vulcans are telepathic," she replies. "I think he's projecting his emotional outbursts onto people unintentionally."
He asks about the Legarans, and Troi says that when they come onboard, they could also be affected. Frantic, he asks Crusher if there's a cure.
"No," she says. "I mean, I could test him, by growing a culture. But it would take a few days."
"Shit, I have 12 hours," he laments.

Picard asks Mendrossen into the ready room to ask him to delay the conference.
"Fuck off," replies Mendrossen. "The ambassador is perfectly healthy."
And ugh, he tries to gaslight Picard. Why is everybody in the future such a fucking asshole?
"You're crazy, Picard. If this is true, why are Perrin and I not affected?"
"Dunno," says Picard. "Some people on board haven't been affected, either. But it's random. And you don't have to be standing right next to him."
Mendrossen decides to threaten Picard and gaslight him some more for good measure, saying that he won't tell the ambassador that Picard suspects him of losing his mind. "...for now," he adds, implying that he'll probably say something later, and also that accusing a powerful man of such a thing on the eve of his last triumph and retirement is dangerous, and that Picard should consider his career.
Mendrossen leaves.
"Oh, fuck me," sighs Picard. He hits his comm badge. "Data, can you come here?"

Data goes to the conference room, where Sakkath is staring into the vat of rainbow sludge. Data gets right to the point.
"Okay, brosef: the captain doesn't think that Sarek is well enough to do this mission. Do you?"
"Why would you think I doubt the ambassador's abilities?" Sakkath deflects.
"Because you indirectly asked me about the diplomatic abilities of Picard and Troi."
Sakkath considers this, then pleads whatever the Vulcans have that's similar to the fifth. "I'm honor-bound to help Sarek complete this mission."
That's not an answer, and they both know it. "Uh-huh. But along with your honor to Sarek, you also have a duty to the Federation. And is it logical to continue the mission at this point?"
Ah, there we go. Appeal to logic.
Sakkath pauses. "Yeaaahh, tell the captain that this mission has gone sideways."

On the bridge, Data tells Picard and Riker that thus far, Sakkath has been using his telepathic abilities to shore up Sarek's emotional control. But there's been a lot of stress around this conference, making it harder. Picard laments that, even with all of this technology they have, they're still susceptible to the affects of old age.
Data admits confusion that Sarek, a logical man, cannot see the symptoms of Bendii Syndrome.
"He probably doesn't want to," says Picard quietly. "And the people closest to him are shielding him from it, thinking they're protecting him."
"Somebody has to tell him," says Riker.
"Ugh, what a shitty job," laments Picard. "I guess I gotta do it. Don't want to, though."
Riker gets irrationally angry. "Why the hell is everyone protecting this guy? Even you!"
"You want me to go down there and destroy him?"
And suddenly, they're screaming at each other.
"Whoa, slow your roll!" says Data.
They calm down. Picard says he'll go right away.

Picard goes to Sarek's quarters, where he tries to break the news to Perrin. She's pretty pissed off, and declares that Bendii Syndrome is more myth than fact, and that there hasn't really been a case of it in her husband's lifetime.
"He's sick," says Picard. "Sakkath has been helping him, holding his mind together during this mission and maybe longer."
"Sakkath is a dumb child," she says dismissively.
"I need to talk to Sarek," he insists.
Her tune changes from angry denial to panic. "Please don't do this to him."
But too late. Sarek, Mendrossen and Sakkath have come into the room behind her.
"Do what to me?"
She looks away.

Dramatic music! Commercial break!

But Sarek has caught more of their conversation than they thought. He knows that Picard thinks he has Bendii Syndrome.
"I've been accused of a lot of things in my life," muses Sarek. "An excess of emotion is not one of them."
His entourage tries to deflect the discussion. Mendrossen asks to talk to Picard alone. Perrin insists that this conversation is nonsense.
"Nope, I want Captain Picard to have faith in my abilities," says Sarek. "I'll take the test for Bendii Syndrome."
"Yeah, we wouldn't get the results from that test for a few days," says Picard. "We need to postpone the conference."
"NO!" says Sarek. Everybody jumps. Realizing that he needs to simmer down, Sarek continues calmly. "My health is perfect."
"Um, then why is Sakkath bolstering your ability to control your emotions? He's propping you up."
"Is that true?" asks Sarek.
"Hell no!" says Mendrossen.
Sarek suspects that Mendrossen has gone Yes Man on him, and he asks if Perrin knew about this.
She falters, says nothing.
"Well?" he asks Sakkath.
Sakkath admits to using his "limited abilities" to help Sarek remain in control.
"That's no longer necessary," says Sarek.
Sakkath pauses. "That would not be wise," he says evenly.
Shit, dude. Imagine telling Sarek - Sarek, FFS! - that his choice of action would not be wise.
"Maybe not," says Sarek. "But you're gonna knock it off, all the same."
Sakkath leaves, and Sarek requests that the others go as well, so that he can talk to Picard alone.

Mendrossen looks like he hopes to catch Sakkath in a dark alley later.

Picard expresses the concern that he has embarrassed Sarek, who declares that that emotion doesn't affect him.
"I think it does," says Picard quietly.
"Okay, give me your arguments," says Sarek calmly. "I'll consider them."
Picard tells him about the rash of angry outbursts on the ship, and that they think it is caused by Sarek's Bendii Syndrome. Sarek counters with the idea that sometimes a ship will encounter unexplained phenomena. Picard concedes that it could be that, and says that Crusher is continuing to look at other causes.
"But this shit started when you guys came on board."
"Coincidence."
"Your wife and chief of staff are isolating you from everyone else."
"You're just reacting to their molly-coddling me."
"Okay, but is Sakkath being lead by emotion, too?"
"He is young! An inexperienced child!" Sarek is getting a bit hot under the collar now. "I don't need his help. He was wrong about that."
"Then why did you need it at the concert? You were crying."
"You're exaggerating," accuses Sarek. "There was only one tear!"
"Dude. You were still emotional over the music. Is it logical for a Vulcan to cry?"
Sarek starts spewing excuses as fast as he can think of them... it was late, he was tired, this mission is stressful, the Legarans only trust him to do this mission...

Unfortunately, Picard realizes that the only way to solve this is to push Sarek over the edge, so that he realizes exactly what is happening. He has to goad him into realizing the truth.
"Sarek of Vulcan would never shy away from the truth! Is that anger in your voice?"
"It is illogical for a Vulcan to feel anger!" Sarek yells. "ILLOGICAL! ILLOGICAL! ILLOGICAL! ILLOGICAL!"
I'd make a joke about how similar this is to Kirk giving a computer an existential crisis, but this shit is not funny. It's devastating. Picard must make an important, dignified man come to grips with the reality that age has caused him to lose his mind, little by little. And that it will not improve as time goes on. It will most likely get worse.

Dramatic music. Commercial break.

Picard's Log, supplemental: "We're three hours out from Legara, and we have no one to run our negotiations."

Picard stares forlornly out the window in his ready room. Riker comes in to ask if he wants Worf to contact the Legaran ambassador, but Picard says no. He will have to do it himself, and make sure they know exactly why the conference is being canceled.
"You did the right thing," Riker tells him.
Picard looks like he wants to crawl in a hole to die.
Perrin comes in and asks to speak to Picard alone. Riker leaves. As soon as the door closes, she begs Picard to reconsider, to say that Sarek is well enough to run the conference, and to let him have this one last great mission before retiring. To save face.
"He doesn't have to save face," argues Picard. "He's a great man, and he remains a great man."
Perrin admits that she and Mendrossen weren't looking to lie to anyone. Sarek's condition started gradually, so they covered it up gradually. And they convinced themselves that he could do this one last thing and then retire and no one would be the wiser.
"I want to say yes, but I can't."
Perrin has an idea.

Picard meets with Sarek in the conference room to discuss Perrin's idea: a mind-meld between the two of them. Sarek would gain the emotional stability of Picard, finish the treaty with the Legarans, complete the mission, and retire with no one being the wiser. Picard, on the other hand, would take over Sarek's emotions for a few hours.
"Vulcan emotions are fierce," Sarek protests. "They'll overwhelm you."
"It's the only logical solution," says Picard quietly.
Sarek nods. "Your courage honors me."

They meet up in the office part of Picard's quarters, just before the conference begins. Picard will hide out here, monitored by Dr Crusher. She's not thrilled about this idea, but recognizes that it's going to happen whether she likes it or not. Before Sarek showed up, Picard admitted to her that he was nervous about doing this, and thanked her for being there.
Sarek comes in and performs the mind-meld.

The E arrives at Legara, and a composed Sarek exits the lift to the bridge, addressing Riker as Number One, and asking him to let the Legarans know he is ready to meet with them.
In the next small scene, Riker walks Sarek to the conference room.
"Is Picard okay?" he asks.
"Don't worry, Number One."
"And the ambassador?"
"I am myself again. It has been a long time."
Sarek disappears through the door.

Picard is less composed. He's running the full spectrum of intense emotion, anger and despair and frustration, about aging, about losing control, about wanting to lose that control so he can just feel things, about the struggle to gain a handle over the desire to feel. He sobs about being old, about dead friends, about studying for so long to keep his emotions in check, and to have it all washed away.

Crusher slaps the table to bring him back to the present, but it only lasts a moment.
He begins sobbing, telling his wives how much he loves them and his son, how much he's always wanted to let them know, how he could not, because that is not the Vulcan way.
Crusher touches his shoulder, and he tells her how difficult this is.
"The anguish of the man... the regrets. I can't hold it in."

Riker's Log 43920.7: "The negotiations have been successfully completed."

Picard and Riker go to the transporter room. Another Federation ship has arrived to take Sarek and his group back to Vulcan.
Mendrossen and Sakkath thank the others for their hospitality and help. Sakkath says that now that the conference has passed, it'll be easier for him to help Sarek hold things together until they get home.
"What will happen to Sarek once you get back?" asks Riker.
"Bendii Syndrome is irreversible, but the research always continues," says Mendrossen.
Basically... he'll just continue to get worse.
They get on the transporter pad. Picard approaches Perrin, and she thanks him as well, but he's a bit tongue-tied here. He just spent several hours experiencing the depths of emotion that this woman's husband has for her, and it's obvious that he's not only struggling with whether or not he should tell her, but if he does, how much? How can he even express that? He was privy to all of Sarek's secrets, and wonders what to reveal.
Picard finds his voice. "He loves you... very much."
She smiles. "I know."

Sarek enters. He formally announces his intentions to leave, and adds that he doesn't think he and Picard will meet again. Picard replies that he hopes that that isn't true.
"We'll always carry the best parts of each other inside of us," says Sarek.
"I think I got the better deal there," Picard smiles.
And because this show isn't satisfied that I've felt enough devastation watching Picard trying to keep Sarek's emotions in check -

Fucking ninjas.

*sniffle*

*******

This episode is amazing. Hard to watch and horrific to imagine the endgame, but amazing all the same. It started out with the idea that an important official or Starfleet dignitary would have a brush with mental health during some kind of negotiation, and gradually the thought that a Vulcan would be hit hardest by this kind of illness was proposed. They finally decided that the decline of Sarek would have the most impact. The idea then seems to have been tabled for a bit. Michael Piller recalled that by the time Gene Rod came around to the story and gave his blessing for the filming of it. there were two write-ups, one with Sarek and one with another Vulcan. Gene told them to go with Sarek, and Piller recalls feeling that Gene also seemed to be traveling down a similar path as Sarek at that point, getting on in years, not being able to accomplish what he had previously, feeling his age in that way that we all get to feeling from time to time.

Here, we see part of what makes Star Trek and science-fiction so relatable: the tie-into something that occurs now, occurring in the future. A great person going into decline can make for a good story overall, but they purposefully selected someone from a race that values control and composure, and made his experience about the loss of those things, as well as dignity. We have all seen this before, either in ourselves or in loved ones. It is never easy to watch. And we have old, familiar ties to Sarek, making it that much harder to deal with. 

The side-plot of Sarek's entourage holding him together and keeping it secret from even himself is not new or unexpected. It is dangerous though, as when life imitates art, and a politician's staff keep the secret from the politician himself and his voters from hearing the truth. On some level they felt like they were doing Sarek a kindness by keeping their suspicions to themselves, but what if early intervention might have eased his journey going forward, and they were all stuck in denial mode? Picard's remark to Data that people will sometimes ignore obvious clues to bad stuff in their own lives also rings true. We've all ignored the warning signs that we were getting sick, but went to work anyway, thinking it was just a cold and we could power through, but then you end up barfing on the person sitting next to you in some inane meeting. It seems like the worse an outcome the illness may have, the more we'll deny it, like it's hardwired in us. "Can't have a serious, spreading cancer. I have shit to do." Sarek's situation was bad enough that Picard ended up having to goad him into believing it.

As horrible as it is, I'm glad they didn't take the easy way out and have Sarek head back to Vulcan for some kind of easy treatment and cure. Real life is messier than that. I dislike that when Riker asks Mendrossen what will happen to Sarek when the reach Vulcan and all he can say is that research is ongoing, but what are you going to do? When the odds of getting better are very much against, about the best one can say is "research is ongoing." They've stopped lying to themselves and to Sarek, so why sugarcoat it?

Outside of the next TOS movie, we'll see Sarek just once more, and it won't be fun. But aging is a part of life. One that sucks sometimes, but if we're lucky, we'll get to experience it.

A quick note here about Perrin: I'm on the fence about her. She seems to really love Sarek, and vice-versa, but I have a tough time accepting her because my Star Trek OTP is Sarek + Amanda. I dislike seeing him with someone else, even if that person was written to be a sympathetic character. Shielding one's loved ones from harm or emotional turmoil is a pretty human thing to do, even if it was a bad idea, and I don't fault her for that. In fact, the next time we see her, she'll have an opinion that I don't agree with at all, but I really can't fault her for that, either. I want Amanda back, but I can't have her, so I guess I'll take Perrin instead.

In all, I don't really have any criticism of this episode. The acting by Mark Lenard and Patrick Stewart is amazing, the costumes fantastic, and the story one that is tough but well-handled.

Fun Facts:
- Writer Ira Steven Behr wanted to include more references to Spock, but at the time there was a kind of moratorium against talking about TOS characters on TNG. They wanted TNG to stand on it's own, which I get, but man, TOS is the Federation's history, and you can only get away with that so much. Behr broke the rules a bit by mentioning Spock and Amanda near the end of this episode. Apparently, he had to argue for days to get that mention.

- There's a weird ambiguity at the beginning of this episode where Picard and Riker are talking about how Picard at met Sarek "at his son's wedding." What... what wedding? Sarek had two sons, Spock and Fucking Sybok (yep, gonna start referring to him as Fucking Sybok, cuz that's what I think of that shit). He could not have met Sarek at Fucking Sybok's wedding because Picard had said that he was a lieutenant at the time, making the window for said wedding fall within a very specific time frame. Fucking Sybok died unmarried about 50 years prior to that time frame. Leaving Spock. Whom Memory Alpha also lists as unmarried. It's possible that this episode was referring to that ditched side plot in the fourth movie, where a tryst between teenage Spock and Saavik left her pregnant with his kid, and they were supposed to get married at some point, but again, that plot was ditched during the filming of movie four. The filming of movie four occurred a full four years before the filming of this episode, so why even mention it? Did they leave it open so TOS could fill in the blanks later with some random wedding between Spock and Kirk or some shit? Did they plan on introducing a new son of Sarek besides the other two? Like they did with movie five when they were all "Spock has a half-brother, lol"? I mean, they kind of made that shit so later in Discovery, but spoilers, and it also doesn't make that line in this episode true.

- Speaking of the unsolved mysteries of Memory Alpha, they can't seem to get their shit together concerning Amanda Grayson. The basic things we can piece together are that she was born in the early 2200's, met and married Sarek in the late 2220's, and had Spock in 2230. Good to go there. But they're adding to her story on Discovery, and new stuff has shown up on the wiki concerning those storylines. Her death date has been set as 2366, which... has got to be a typo of some kind. When you click on that year, it doesn't even list her death. Also, she's 160+ years old? I mean, McCoy toured the Enterprise-D at 137 years old, but he was a good 20-30 years younger than Amanda. Apocrypha places McCoy as still being alive at 180+ due to transplants and health treatments, so we know it's oddly possible for Amanda to continue to live until this age, but as the story goes, she had died quite a few years before this episode takes place... in 2366. So she died a few years earlier, and Spock and Perrin have been married for a while, but she's also alive until this same year? Part of me is like, "That's definitely a typo," but the other part of me is like, "Yeah, but I skipped over all of that new Discovery stuff, and who knows what they put in there, and also, Kirk's death date is super fucked-up because this is Star Trek, Spock has four fucking death dates listed on his wiki page. If 2366 is a typo, I could never pin down the actual year. If that is the right year, then... just STAHP, Star Trek.

 

- This is the first time that a Vulcan mind-meld occurs on TNG.
- The music that starts out the concert is Mozart, but the song playing when Sarek begins crying is Sextet #1 in B-Flat Minor by Johannes Brahms.
- The decoration on Picard's chair is the tapestry given to him by the Mintakans in "Who watches the Watchers."
- The scene where Picard experiences Sarek's emotions mirrors Spock's breakdown in "The Naked Time." Both scenes were done in one take.

Red deaths: 0
To date: 1

Gold deaths: 0
To date: 1

Blue deaths: 0
To date: 1
Unnamed color crew deaths: 0
To date: 127

Obnoxious Wes moments: 0
To date: 1

Legitimate Wes moments when he should have told someone to go fuck themselves: 0
To date: 0

Sassy Geordi moments: 0
To date: 11

Sassy Wes Moments: 0
To date: 0

Sassy Worf Moment: 1
To date: 8

Sassy Riker Moments: 0
To date: 13

Sassy Picard Moments: 1
To date: 12

Sassy NPC Moments: 0
To date: 0
Sassy Data Moments: 0
To date: 6
Sassy O'Brien Moments: 0
To date: 0
Sassy Crusher Moments: 0
To date: 2
Sassy Troi Moments: 0
To date: 5
Sassy Guest Star Moments: 0
To date: 1

Number of times that it is mentioned that Data is an android: 0
To date: 28

Number of times that Troi reacts to someone else's feelings: 1
To date: 26

Number of times that Geordi "looks at something" with his VISOR: 0
To date: 5
Number of times when Data gives too much info and has to be told to shut up: 0
To date: 3
Picard maneuvers: 3
To date: 34
Tea, Earl Grey:
To date: 4

Heated throw is life

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (Part I)

"Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home" (Part I)
Original Theatrical Release Date: November 26, 1986
Rating: PG
Stardate: 8930

So the The Shat has been bitching about how Paramount hasn't announced any kind of 50th anniversary thing for Star Trek yet (and they haven't asked him to do anything, which he seems super butthurt about), but while everyone has been looking in his direction, the US Postal Service has rolled out some stamps for that very occasion! Score! Another reason to send some snail mail to your friend, or to opt out of online bill paying. (I know you won't do that, because it's too damn easy to pay shit online. Just get a penpal or something, okay?)

Here's the deets:

http://www.cnet.com/news/u-s-postal-service-celebrates-star-trek-50th-anniversary-and-space-with-new-stamps/

Also, they're gonna roll out stamps about Pluto, because FUCK YEAH, PLUTO!

*******

So I put the DVD in and tell it what language I want for the subtitles, and after the set-up page, I get this:

Just in case you're not in the know here, the filmmakers are referring to the Challenger shuttle that exploded exactly eleven months earlier, killing all seven crew members aboard. Director Leonard Nimoy had said that he wanted to make movie #4 lighter than the first three, who main topics had been kind of heavy. So they started out by giving us the feels. Yaaaay. 

It's a sweet dedication, but it gives me a weird bittersweet feeling, as my teacher at the time was super-excited about the launch, and we had been listening to it live on the radio in the classroom when the shuttle exploded. It's a strange memory, sad and confusing.

...let's move on, okay?

The opening music for this movie is great. Fun and bouncy and kind of epic, a full orchestration.

Like the first film, we're gonna jump right into the action with some kind of cylindrical ship flying through a nebula and giving off a high-pitched signal. It's picked up by the USS Saratoga, and -

Holy shit! POC female captain! POC female captain!

That's Madge Sinclair, and you probably know her, even if you think you don't. She played Bell in "Roots," and (with James Earl Jones) played Queen Aoleon in "Coming to America." Later (again, with James Earl Jones) she voiced Sarabi, mother of Simba in "The Lion King." And a big fat Command Gold Star to you if you recognize her as playing Captain LaForge, Geordi's mother on TNG. 

I know some people are reading this and thinking, "So what? A black chick as captain isn't that big a deal." But perspective, friends: this movie came out a scant 20 years after Paramount nixed the idea of a female in charge (Majel Barrett's Number One), and Gene Rod was forced to pitch a fit to keep Uhura on the bridge. It'll be another six years before we get a POC main character captain (Sisko on DS9) and another nine before we get a main character female captain (Janeway on Voyager). Granted, the captain of the Saratoga has a very small part in this film, but representation matters. Little girls and POC kids were sitting up in their theater seats asking, "Wait, I can captain a starship someday?"

Fuck yeah, you can. You go, little kids. And you too, Saratoga captain.

Anyway, the captain reports back to Starfleet that they're tracking this probe thing out in the neutral Zone, and that it hasn't responded to their hails, but it's headed for Earth, so hey, head's up.

We switch over to a delegation room at Starfleet headquarters in San Francisco. Footage from ST3 is playing on a screen, only it has Klingon markings at the bottom to indicate that somehow, the Klingons have procured footage from the now-destroyed Enterprise, and are using it for their own purposes. Do I want to get into why that sounds difficult, if not downright impossible? Nope. Instead, we'll go into why the Klingons are showing this footage at Starfleet: they're fucking pissed as hell at Kirk.

Also, look! There in the front row - it's a Caitian! One of M'Ress' people! Sweet!

Anyway, let's get back to that cool political thing that the Klingons are starting.

The Klingons have some half-truths and misunderstandings concerning the story, but their basic beef with Kirk is that he told Kruge to beam his men over to the E, then he set the self-destruct mechanism and beam himself the fuck off the ship. He then stole Kruge's ship. Frankly, they have a right to be angry. That was a pretty douchey move by Kirk.

They have some tinfoil hat conspiracy about the Genesis device being used to take over the Klingon Empire, and they want Kirk extradited so he can stand trial on Qo'nos.

"Bitch, what the hell kind of bug is up your ass now?" asks a voice from the back of the room.

Awwww, yeah! It's Sarek, y'all!

"If you're gonna accuse Kirk of being nefarious, at least fill in the details," he says, stepping up to the Klingon ambassador. "The Genesis device isn't some dumb weapon, and Kruge was coming after it way before Kirk killed his crew. Actually asshole, if you want to get technical, Kruge killed first. He killed David."

The ambassador calls Vulcans "the puppets of the Federation," but says that Kruge did indeed kill David first. Sarek tells the federation president that he's here to speak on the behalf of the accused, but the president tells both of them that the hearing is over, and there's no need to argue. They're charging Kirk with nine violations of Starfleet regulations. 

This does not sit well with the Klingon ambassador, as he really wanted extradition, and he feels like Kirk will get a slap on the wrist. (Frankly, I do too.) He yells that there will be no peace as long as Kirk lives, then he and his aides stalk out of the room. Somebody shouts "you pompous ass!" at him as he leaves, which is pretty funny.

Sarek is done with your shit.

Meanwhile, back on the Kolinahr Ranch:

Kirk's Log 8390: "Been here three months. Bones has given our stolen Klingon ship a name."

I love you, Bones.

"We've decided to go back to Earth and face up to whatever punishment they want to slap us with."

Kirk lines his crew up and they all agree to go back, then break off to return to stations and prepare for the trip. He asks Scotty how long it will take before they can get under way, and Scotty gets a pretty funny line here:

"About a day, sir. Damage control is easy. It's reading Klingon that's hard."

Bones bitches about having to go home in a Klingon ship, and Kirk reminds him that the cloaking device onboard is valuable.

Kirk sees Spock standing on a ledge, watching them, and there's a nice transition here where we follow Spock back inside.

He's doing testing on himself, presumably not only to sharpen his wits, but also to test to see if he can multitask, given that he's working five panels at once.

Every answer he gives is announced to be correct, but then it asks "How do you feel?" and he comes up stumped. When he gives no answer, all of the screens ask the same question.

"I do not understand the question," he tells the computer.

A female voice asks what's wrong, and you guys, it's Amanda!

Amanda Fucking Greyson!

And damn, does she look fabulous in that Vulcan couture! She's done all in soft, dove grey fabrics and shawls, and there's no trace of the ugly-ass stuff she wore in "Journey to Babel." not only does she look lovely, but she does the Mom thing really well here.

"I do not understand the question, Mother," Spock explains. He's a grown-up, but his choice of words here is both Vulcan and slightly child-like. He is still becoming comfortable with himself.

She gently explains that the computer has taken into account that he is half-human, and has asked him about his emotions.

She says that, as her son, he will have emotions and should look into how to deal with them. He replies that if she finds that important, he will put effort into it, but he can't right now, because he has to go to Earth to testify. She asks if he's doing it out of a sense of friendship. When he replies that he's doing it because he was there, she points out that his friends brought him back to life and rescued him out of friendship.

"Humans are illogical," he states, somewhat confused.

"They are indeed," she smiles.

ZOD DAMMIT, HAVE I TOLD YOU HOW MUCH I LOVE THIS WOMAN?

Here is a woman who both lives with, and loves, two Vulcans. She knows that the simple acknowledgement of "they are, indeed" is all that a confused Vulcan requires. This is a woman who has married one Vulcan, raised another, puts up with their shit daily, and all she asks in return is that they acknowledge that sometimes, humans don't suck. They are merely different. Sarek gets it. Spock gets it. They get it because they love her in return. This family is brilliant, and their parts were brilliantly cast and understood by the actors that portrayed them.

*head explodes from the adorable*

We go back to the Saratoga, which is flying a bit too close to the probe-thingy, and the amplification of the call it's sending out is high enough to fry the ship's systems. They lose contact with Starfleet. And I'm sure that they don't want me to say it, but the part of the probe that is sending out the call looks like a penis. A penis with a round, glowy head. But the probe itself appears to be some kind of stone pillar, so it's like a giant rock penis...with a penis.

...penis.

Starfleet's feathers are ruffled. Apparently, the penis-probe is giving off an insane amount of an energy that no one recognizes, and it's causing destruction wherever it goes. An admiral tells the president that two Klingon vessels have been destroyed, and they watch a captain's log entry from the USS Yorktown, which they've lost contact with.

Dude, Indian captain: YAS.

Kirk readies the HMS Klingon Bounty for its flight to Earth. Everyone individually reports that they are prepared to leave, and Scotty cheerfully tells Kirk that he replaced the food replicator systems with Terran selections. 

Saavik is staying behind on Vulcan. They don't say why she isn't going with them, but remember the nixed idea about her being knocked up with Spock's kid? That's why she wasn't going. But since they don't give another reason, I'm just gonna claim that it's because she decided to take an extended leave to brush up on her kolinahr studies and visit with her family. Truthfully, IRL, Saavik doesn't really have anything to do with the plot of this film, and they weren't certain with to do with her, so they just had her stay behind. She didn't really need to leave, because she had no reason to be court-martialed like the others. They committed all of that crap before they arrived on Genesis. She technically helped them steal the Klingon cruiser, but let's not split hairs. Saavik gets written up, everyone else gets drummed out.

Anyway, as part of her goodbye, Saavik claims that she didn't get a chance to tell Kirk about his son. This is actually crap, as I recall her doing this in movie #3, but she tells him again that he saved her and Spock.

Spock comes in as she is leaving. There's an awkward moment where they meet face-to-face, and she tells him that she hopes his journey is free from incident.

Bahahaha, have you met Kirk, Saavik? Dude cannot get from Point A to Point B without causing an interstellar incident, beaming tribbles onto an enemy ship, or seducing some hot alien.

Spock addresses Kirk as "admiral" and Kirk tries to get him to call him "Jim." Spock replies that it's inappropriate, and apologizes for his uniform going missing. He hops over to the science station. Bones briefly complains to Kirk that Spock is still a few marbles short of a bag, but Kirk shrugs it off.

Then there's an awesome shot of the cruiser leaving Vulcan while Saavik and Amanda look on.

We cut back to the penis-probe, which has completely shut down the spacedock and all of the ships within it. It pauses in orbit of Earth and broadcasts that high-pitched noise again. The probe changes the weather patterns on Earth, drawing moisture from the oceans up into the clouds.

And yet, nobody seems to be remarking on its penis-like qualities. It's the opposite of that "just a little prick" gag on Austin Powers 2.

So they're enroute to Earth, but Chekov reports no Federation vessels anywhere nearby. Kirk is unnerved. He asks Uhura what communications are like, and she replies that it's hella busy. She's picking up tons of stuff, but it doesn't sound normal.

Bones slides in next to Spock. "Hey. Glad I'm not in your head anymore."

"Uh-huh," says Spock.

Bones tries and fails to engage him in a discussion about death. "Come on, yo. What's it like to die?"

"We don't have a common frame of reference," Spock replies.

"Dude, I have to die before we can discuss what dying feels like?" Bones is aghast.

"Pretty much," says Spock. "Can't chat now. Getting a bunch of distress calls."

Bones walks away grouchy. You can tell he really wants to get into it with Spock, argue and trade some racist barbs. He probably figures that Spockoy is not Spockoy unless they're bitching at one another.

Back on Earth, Starfleet has determined that they are quickly becoming fucked six ways from Sunday. The screechy penis-probe has essentially covered most of the planet in clouds and is creating hurricanes. Locations from all over are calling in to report lost power. The admiral notes that they can't survive without the sun.

Sarek enters, and the president tells him that he's kind of trapped with them on Earth. Sarek suggests that they send up an SOS while they can. The president agrees.

Out in space, the Bounty picks up the SOS. The president tells anyone nearby to avoid Earth like the plague, because some transmission-thingy is fucking up all of the shit and taking out ships with it. They have no idea what the message says, so they have no idea how to answer it and keep it from destroying the planet.

Kirk looks distressed. He asks Uhura to play the probe's message, and she puts it on speakers. Then he asks Spock's opinion.

"Um, whoever it is is way smart, but they don't realize that their message is being destructive in that way. I don't think they're hostile. I also don't think the message is meant for humans."

"Who the fuck else would they be calling?" demands Bones.

"Don't be arrogant," says Spock. "Other things live on that planet besides freaking humans, you know. The president's message said it was aimed at the oceans."

Kirk thinks for a minute, then asks Uhura to basically filter the transmission as though it were being heard underwater. She plays it back.

"Yep," says Spock. "That's whale song, yo. Too bad you guys let the humpback whale go extinct, because that's who would have answered back."

"That's dumb," says Bones. "Who would send a probe across the galaxy to say "howdy" to some whales?"

"Whales are way older than humans," Spock points out. "Maybe the message is, why haven't we heard back from you?"

"Can we reply back in whale song?" Kirk asks

"No. We can make the sounds, but we don't freaking speak whale," Spock points out. "And whales are from Earth, so we can't just go out to some space-whale night club on some other planet and pick us up some humpbacks to answer the call. Super-screwed here."

"Okay," says Kirk. "Let's do the time warp again."

We go back to Starfleet headquarters, where they've declared red alert  and everyone is running around like headless chickens. An irate Christine is yelling at someone over the comm about shutting off power to her medical facilities.

Then, because this fandom loves them some nostalgia, we catch a glimpse of Rand nearby, doing the same.

Ops guys rush in to shore up the thick plate glass windows against the gale-force winds outside.

Kirk goes down to engineering and asks Scotty how big the bay is that they're standing in. 

"About 60 feet."

"Can you enclose it to hold water?"

"Yeah. You wanna take a swim?"

"Off the deep end," interjects Bones.

You're awesome, Bones.

"We need to find some humpbacks," Kirk tells Scotty. 

"Humpbacked people?" Scotty asks.

"Naw, man. Whales."

Scotty is probably wondering what kinds of drugs Kirk is on. Bones most likely is as well.

Bones tells Kirk that he's batshit crazy on their way back to the bridge.

"We've done time-travel before," Kirk points out.

"Yeah, with that slingshot thing that doesn't actually work IRL," says Bones. "You wanna do that, go back in time, pick up some whales, bring 'em back using that same dumb slingshot thing, and hope they say Go away, probe?"

"Yeah, why not?" asks Kirk.

"You're high," snaps Bones.

Bones saying the plan out loud brings up a question I have: How do you know which way you'll travel when you do that stupid slingshot thing? Like, with a TARDIS or a DeLorean, you have controls. You can tell them when you want to go. But with this slingshot thing, is there a set way to do it? There has to be. Clockwise for future, counterclockwise for past? Do they just assume? What if they went back in time, tried to go forward again, but just ended up going further into the past? What if it just kept throwing them further and further back, with no way to go forward again? Then you'd end up stuck in the Dark Ages with an alien spaceship and some whales, and no way to get home. I suppose if they managed to stop around the time of the Salem Witch Trials they could contact those aliens and somehow get home, but they'd have to land and hope to Zod that they'd have enough energy to keep the cloaking device on, lest they all be burned at the stake for witchcraft as well.

Shit. I've spiraled into madness, you guys. Space madness. Kirk has successfully baffled me with his bullshit.

Kirk calls Starfleet headquarters.

"Whut up, yo? So we figured out that the probe is looking for an extinct species of whale, so we're gonna go back in time and get some. It probs won't work, but what the hell, you know? You were gonna court-martial our asses, anyway."

I hope Rand is making that face. Rand Face.

Anyway, before they can tell Kirk that his plan holds no water, they lose the transmission and the window behind them bursts inward, spraying everyone with hurricane rain.

Kirk asks Spock if he's done with his calculations.

"Yeah, but I had to program some stuff from memory. Important stuff. Like, we could totally fail if I misremembered something."

Bones, who is already sick of this crap, quotes Hamlet, which Spock correctly identifies.

They go to stations. Sulu takes them to warp. Early on, the ship shakes and lose stuff falls off the stations. You know how I know this movie has a bigger budget than the show? The film can afford to build this ship set in such a way that, when the ship shakes, the set shakes. No one is jiggling in their chair while the camera guy shakes the camera. They grab their stations for stability, but it's obviously not faked.

A panel blows near Uhura, and a crack forms in the wall, spewing steam. Sulu makes his turn. They shoot out the other side of the sun, and thus follows the most baffling scene in a film where people go back in time to kidnap whales.

I'm pretty sure this scene was written by the people who wrote "Bem" and that episode where they meet the devil. People on drugs. Really, really good drugs. And, especially because this sort of scene was not included in the previous time travel adventure they had, I'm convinced that it was written in here mostly as "Look how cool our special effects are! We have money for things now!"

How do I describe this scene?

The heads of the crew emerge half-formed as gelatinous goo from some kind of flat plane. They're all kind of talking at once.

I don't even know what to do with this.

And now, there's like whales, but not whales?

A naked mannequin is falling through space above Earth and into a bright light.

You guys, I have an art degree. I sat through four years of presentations of the weirdest shit on Earth, and I have to say... this could probably win some kind of award at a Time-Based Arts festival.

The mannequin falls into some water.

Reeds.

Fin.

Kirk wakes up in his chair. I guess they all passed out? Sulu, in surprise, says that the braking thrusters have fired.

DUDE, WHY ARE YOU SURPRISED? DID YOU NOT EXPECT THAT, OR PROGRAM FOR IT? Did no one push the button? Y'all blacked out! If those thrusters hadn't come on, they would have been scraping you off the pavement of some city somewhere, but you guys have no idea how that happened? What the hell kind of operation is this?

They check out the screen and see that they're orbiting Earth, and Spock thinks, based on pollution levels, that they hit their target time frame. He also points out that the people of Earth can probably see them on radar.

"Oh, yeah," says Kirk. "Let's cloak and get our crap done."

Uhura reports that she can hear whale song.

Scotty calls Kirk down to engineering.

"So these Klingon dilithium crystals suck," he explains. "They didn't like us traveling back in time, so they're breaking down. We get like, 24 hours with the cloak, then we're visible and stuck here. We can't even get out of orbit, let alone go forward in time again."

"Oh," says Kirk. "How long until you can recrystallize them?"

Scotty snorts. "Who says that's possible?"

"So, hey," says Spock as they walk back to the bridge. "If we're in the 1980's, that means they're working with nuclear fission. Naval vessels use that. It's super-toxic, but we could make a container to hold it and then beam it out of the ships and into ours. We might be able to recrystallize the dilithium that way."

"Cool," says Kirk.

On the bridge, he divides up his team. Uhura and Chekov are in charge of stealing uranium, cuz that's a smart move during the Cold War. Bones, Scotty, and Sulu are going to build a whale tank in the back of the ship. And Kirk and Spock will get some alone time while they search for whales to kidnap.

Oh, but what to do about the fact that your boyfriend's an alien? You can't go with that rice picker accident story again. Oh! I know! You dress him in your finest Karate Kid cosplay!

Kirk gives a speech about flying under the radar with the humans they encounter, and Sulu lands the Bounty in Golden Gate Park.

There's a short, goofy scene where some garbage men are going about their jobs, chatting with one another, and the cloaked Bounty lands, causing crazy bursts of wind from seemingly nowhere. An empty metal trashcan rolls out onto the grass and is crushed flat before their eyes. The earth surrounding it sinks in as the Bounty's landing gear attempts to support the obviously heavy weight of the ship.

Like all good alien films, there's a bright light, and a staircase descends from out of thin air, at which point, beings emerge. The garbage collectors take off, with the general attitude of "fuckfuckfuckfuck" and "neither of us saw anything."

I'm left with two thoughts here:

1. I wish I owned a copy of "Flight of the Navigator."

2. Could they not have done a life-form scan before landing? Or at least checked their perimeter before getting off the ship? I mean, yeah. It ruins that funny part, but aren't these people heavily trained in the Prime Directive? Because if anything qualifies for PD treatment, it's the past version of your own civilization.

Uhura has located the whales nearby, somewhere in San Francisco, and she gives Kirk the coordinates as they exit the ship.

"Everyone remember where we parked," he calls as they walk away.

Dumbo. You parked in Dumbo.

I guess they've been walking all night, because it's daytime when we see them next, walking through the city. Kirk almost gets mowed over by a red taxi, and the guy leans out the window to yell at him, calling him a dumbass. the captain is temporarily non-plussed, then yells back, "Oh, yeah? Well, double dumbass on you!"

*snort*

OMG, a Winchell's! I haven't seen one of those in forever!

They see a woman buying a newspaper from a machine ("Nuclear Arms Race!") and realize that they don't have any money, and that's going to be a problem. Kirk and Spock decide to remedy the situation. They find an antique shop nearby and Kirk sells his reading glasses, which are apparently 18th century.  (How lucky for Bones that he managed to find 500-year-old reading glasses in Kirk's prescription.)

"Um, didn't Dr McCoy give those to you for your birthday?" Spock asks.

"Yeah, and he will again," Kirk replies cheerfully.

Hello, paradox!

The antiques guy gives them a hundred bucks, and Kirk falters. "Is that a lot?" 

The guy kind of shrugs good-naturedly.

Kirk hands out the money to his companions and they separate, each going off on their assigned tasks. Kirk asks Spock how they should go about finding whales in San Francisco, and Spock stops at a map of the city, talking about comparing coordinates and blah, blah, blah, when a bus rolls up.

They are briefly stymied when the bus driver tells them they can only ride the bus with exact change.

We switch over to Sulu, Scotty and Bones, who are discussing how to build a whale tank in a Klingon cruiser. Scotty says he can do it easily with transparent aluminum, but Sulu tells him that he's a bit too early for that. (Like, ten years too early. Transparent aluminum was invented in the late 90's, and even though it has another name, it's often refer to as "transparent aluminum because of this goofy-ass film.) They wonder aloud where they might get something similar, so of course they wander right in front of a giant Yellow Pages ad.

Uhura and Chekov have already figured that part out, and Chekov closes a phone book to tell Uhura that he found what they needed listed under "US Government." Dude, you're smart af, Chekov. Peeps do not give you enough credit. 

Of course, I may have spoken too soon, as he and Uhura just start randomly stopping people on the street to ask them about "nuclear wessels" on the Naval Base at Alameda. Everybody, including a cop, just stares at them.

"Um, across the bay. In Alameda," responds one woman.

I don't think Walter Koenig could resist smirking at that.

The next scene is freaking fabulous. Spock and Kirk have obviously obtained exact change for the bus, but the bus they are riding also contains a punk with a huge boombox, on which he is loudly playing a song written for this film, entitled "I Hate You." Everyone else on the bus is clearly bothered by the fact that this rude-ass guy has no headphones. Kirk asks him politely to turn the music down, and the guy flips him off and turns it up.

So Spock pinches him. The other riders clap.

He then asks Kirk about Kirk adding swear words to his regular way of speaking.

"It's just the way they talk," Kirk explains. "You have to swear every other word or no one will pay attention to you."

The bus arrives at the Cetacean Institute, and their tour guide, Dr Gillian Taylor, explains that it's the only research institute in the world devoted to whales. How super-convenient for our heroes!

She gives some info to the group about how whales are mammals rather than fish, and tells them that they are not hostile, despite being aggressively hunted. She then shows them a graphic video of people hunting whales, and you know, harvesting them. Gross. She's clearly pissed off about the whole thing, and immediately gets on Spock's good side with her response to his statement that, "To hunt a species to extinction is not logical."

Gillian takes the group outside, to the salt-water tank where the institute has two mature humpback whales, George and Gracie. She says they wandered into the bay as calves and have been brought up there. Kirk and Spock are feeling good, because now they can just show up at night after the institute is closed, and beam the whales onboard.

She takes them back inside to check out the tank from below, and tells the group that they are going to be releasing the whales back into the open ocean soon. The institute can't keep up with the costs of housing them. They go into the aquarium and Gillian talks about whale song some more. She isn't paying any attention when Spock swims up to mind-meld with Gracie.

Kirk has the most fabulous reaction ever.

Someone points out that Spock is in the tank, and Gillian rushes back upstairs, with Kirk at her heels, both of them ready to rip Spock a new one, but for different reasons.

Spock tries his hand at swearing by inserting "the hell" into weird places in his speech. He makes a good point, though: if he had not gotten permission from the whales to get their help, then the crew of the Bounty would be no better than the people who had hunted the whales to extinction.

Damn. I wish I was a marine biologist. I would get a big-ass tattoo of that quote with some whales.

Gillian threatens to call the cops if they don't get the fuck out of her institute.

Later, they are walking along the bay, and Kirk tells Spock that maybe he shouldn't swear, cuz, you know, he's not good at it. Also, he thinks that maybe instead of being totally honest, Spock could exaggerate sometimes. Spock is puzzled by all of this, so Kirk skips forward in the convo and asks about the whales. Spock is pretty sure that the whales are going to help them.

Back at the institute, Gillian is talking to the whales. She's approached by a coworker, Bob, who asks about the weirdos who were in earlier. She shrugs it off, and admits that she's really torn about the whales leaving. He tells her that there's an equal chance of survival for them, whether they stay at the institute or are released back out into the wild. Then he makes the mistake of telling her that they aren't humans, and there's no assurance of their intelligence, and she yells at him that her "compassion for someone is not limited to my estimate of their intelligence."

Damn straight, honey! You tell 'em!

Team Two, Chekov and Uhura, have apparently found Alameda and the Naval Base. They crawl along the shoreline (which doesn't seem possible, given that it's the US military), and pause to get the coordinates of the nuclear reactor inside.

Chekov excitedly calls Kirk to report in. "Admiral! We found the ship! And -- it's the Enterprise!"

Of course it is.

He also thinks this will be a pretty straight-forward mission. Pavel, how many missions have you done with Kirk where everything went according to plan? Two? And a half?

Kirk and Spock are walking near the bay when Gillian pulls up in the most busted truck ever. It's like they located the oldest, clunkiest truck in San Francisco and paid the owner five dollars a day to rent it and slap some whale stickers on the back. Kirk decides to talk to her and find out when the whales are being moved, so they can steal them before that time.

"Please forgive my friend," says Kirk. "During the sixties, he spent too much time in Berkely doing LDS."

I wonder how many people accidentally choked on their popcorn at that possibly unintended joke. Spock spent a lot of time... in Berkely... doing Mormons.

Gillian is clearly taking everything he says with a shaker of salt.

She offers these two weirdos a ride, but also mentions that if they try anything funny, she'll knock their brains out with a tire iron. They get in, and Kirk asks what will happen when they release the whales into the wild. She hesitates, then admits they will possibly be at the mercy of whale hunters. But then she brings up the fact that Spock used the past tense when referring to the extinction of humpbacks. Kirk tries to play it off like Spock was talking about what will happen, but she doesn't buy it.

"Is it time for a colorful metaphor?" Spock asks Kirk.

Yes, Spock. Now would be a good time to mutter "fuck" very quietly.

She asks if they're from the military (she heard Spock call Kirk "admiral"), but he assures her that they're not.

"Gracie is pregnant," Spock announces, pretty much from nowhere.

Gillian slams on the brakes.

"Seriously, who the fuck are you?"

"Um..." says Kirk. "Not the military, but we can help you. We should have dinner."

Good Lord, Lothario Kirk is back. Phaser me now.

Scotty and Bones arrive at a plexiglass plant, and Bones wheedles his way into a tour by telling the supervisor that "Professor" Scott has come all the way from Edinburgh to study their manufacturing techniques, but convinces the poor guy that there was some kind of mix up, and an appointment had not be set on the plant's part. Scotty starts dickishly yelling about how he came all this way, but Bones "calms" him by saying that the supervisor, Dr Nichols, has offered to give them a tour.

I like Dr Nichols. They're screwing with him, but he's friendly and kind of nerdy, and he's wearing a giant button that says "I quit smoking," which is charming as hell.

Post-tour, Scotty and Bones goes back to Nichols' office to talk shop. Scotty asks Nichols how thick the Plexiglass would need to be on a tank that he's building, and Nichols tells him 6 inches. Scotty says he can give Nichols the formula for for a material that would do the same job, but only be one inch thick. Nichols is pretty sure that Scotty is screwing with him.

So Scotty sits down at this dude's tiny 1980's Mac, and verbally addresses it. When it doesn't respond, he tries again, using a tone reserved for adults talking to small children. Bones figures out the problem and hands Scotty the mouse. Scotty then proceeds to use it like a microphone.

Nichols finally tells him to use the keyboard, which Scotty balks at, but acquiesces. After some quick hunt-and-peck typing, the molecular structure for transparent aluminum pops up.

Scotty proposes a trade. Bones pulls him aside, and even though the good doctor has been pushing this agenda as well, he suddenly asks Scotty if this is an okay thing to do. Visions of the Prime Directive dance in his head.

"How do we know he didn't invent the thing?" Scotty counters, and that simple excuse is apparently enough, because Bones just smiles, and they go back to their negotiations.

Gillian and Kirk drop Spock off at the park. Gillian is weirded out that Spock just wants to hang out at the park rather than go get dinner, and when she demands to know how he knows that Gracie is pregnant - because nobody knows - he replies, "Gracie does." Gillian and Kirk drive away, and I guess she didn't bother to check her rearview, or see that Spock beams away onto the invisible ship in front of him.

Gonna end it here for this week, mostly because I've reached the mid-way point for this film, but also because the next scene is Lothario Kirk on his date with Gillian, and frankly, seeing New Kirk devolve back into Kirk Classic is painful.

Fun facts:

- The scene where our boys are standing in front of the Yellow Pages ad, and a tiny Japanese woman opens the door to yell at a guy who just exited the same door, was supposed to contain a small time-travel joke in which the woman is actually yelling at a little boy, whom she calls Hikaru. The joke is that Sulu was supposed to realize that this kid was the ancestor whom he was named after. But the kid they hired to play little Hikaru wasn't cooperating, so they switched it up and the lady yells at some dude instead.

- The woman who tells Chekov and Uhura to check Alameda for the Alameda Naval Base was a woman whose car had been towed because of filming. When she showed up to get her car and discovered it gone, she signed on to be an extra to make money to get her car out of impound. Additionally, none of the extras in that scene had any lines. They were supposed to shrug or look oddly at Chekov and Uhura. This lady forgot, and replied. "I dunno. Check Alameda?" Director Nimoy thought the response was hilarious, and left it in.

- The punk on the bus with the boombox is associate producer Kirk Thatcher. He disliked the music that was supposed to be playing, and wrote the song "I Hate You" for that scene specifically.

- Spock pinching the punk was added in by Leonard Nimoy, who had encountered such a person on the street at one point, and thought, "If I were really Spock, I would pinch that guy's head off."

- Catherine Hicks, who plays Gillian, was not familiar with Star Trek. While director Nimoy gave her a bit of background during her audition, she elected not to watch any of the original material, to further give her an "outsider" feeling. In addition, she did quite a bit of research on whales, to give her performance a bit of a boost. The information she gathered inspired her to continue on in whale conservation.

- A number of ideas were batted around for the plot of this film before the actual idea was settled upon: Gene Rod wanted a time-travel story where the E crew goes back in time to prevent the assassination of JFK. But that was too heavy, and the audience would already be aware of how that film would end from the get-go. They considered a story about the E crew traveling to the jungles of Earth in search for a cure for a terrible disease, but again, Nimoy wanted a lighter film, and felt this was too heavy. He finally decided on whales after reading up on extinct species, and felt that whale song added a nice mystery.

*******

This week's tea is (I think) another seasonal, because I haven't seen it any other time. Seasonal teas are great because I keep searching for stores for teas that I haven't tried that I think I might want a whole box of, and when seasonal teas crop up, it adds to the number of selections I can make.

To put it simply, Salted Caramel Tea is yummy.

It's a black base, and I didn't add any milk or dairy, so I'm baffled as to how this tea is creamy. Maybe it's the chicory? (Beeteedubs, I reviewed chicory before, and found it be gross on its own, but it isn't obvious here, so no worries about that.) I didn't have to add a lot of sugar, it was nicely sweet on its own.

https://www.bigelowtea.com/Shop-Teas/By-Type/Seasonal/Salted-Caramel-Tea#.VpMclfkrLIU