ST:TNG Season One, Episode Nine "Justice"

ST:TNG Season One, Episode Nine "Justice"
Production Order: 9
Air Order: 8
Stardate: 41255.6
Original Air Date: November 9, 1987

Picard's Log 41255.6: "So we just finished helping some Earth colonists settle on a new planet, and we were headed out again when we saw that there's an inhabited planet in the next system over. Riker took some people down to check it out."

Picard and Troi are on the bridge talking about reports back from the away team, and Crusher enters. There's a weird moment here where Crusher interrupts and says, "Sorry, Troi."
"Troi"? It sounds weird, Crusher calling her that, especially because I know that they'll become super buddy-buddy later on, and only refer to each other as Deanna and Beverly.
Troi isn't mad at being interrupted, because her tone is friendly when she tells Picard that Crusher has something important to say to him. It's kind of unsettling, Troi reminding everyone that she can read their emotions. Seems like information she'd mostly keep to herself, and that others would also ignore in turn. More polite that way.
Anyway, Crusher is insistent that the crew get some shore leave. Preferably without giant rabbits. Riker, Geordi and Yar come back from their away mission, and Riker says that the people are super-cool, and confirms that it would be a good place to rest for a bit. Geordi says they're very lawful people, but "make love at the drop of a hat."
"Any hat," adds Yar.
They can't find any bad parts to this place, which automatically means that there's some giant secret afoot, because that's how plots work.
Data and Worf tell Picard that there's some weird anomaly out in space near them, but they can't really detect it fully. There's something there, but also not. Yar thinks it's a glitch in the sensors.
Picard tells Wes that he wants to form another away team, this time with the idea of doing shore leave, and he wants Wes to see if it's a cool place for kids to hang out as well. Wes is chuffed.

Picard's Log, supplemental: "Orbiting Rubicun 3. These people call themselves the Edo, and we're gonna see if we can hang with them for a bit."

The away team beams down with Wes in tow. I actually like Wes' sweater this time. The two-tone pants are weird, but they aren't the fashion crime of last week's orange bedspread. Actually, I would pair this week's sweater with last week's brown pinstripe pants.
Anyway, everyone else looks pretty good except for Troi, who still looks awful. I cannot wait for next season, when she gets a wardrobe change that suits her better. That also seems to be when they ditch those long manicured nails on her, which strikes me as being too fussy for Deanna Troi.

Check out the light poles in the background. There's one above Deanna's head.
These scenes were filmed near the Van Nuys airport.

A male and female Edo approach and greet them. Riker starts to introduce everybody, but they cut him off, because I guess the Edo dry-hump people in greeting. Riker gets a super-erotic hug from a blonde chick, Rivan, and Troi is like, "Okay, y'all, get a room." But then the dude, Liator, hugs her, and she's all "Riker who?"

Rivan says she will welcome "this huge one" and she hugs Worf. Should he take exception to that? I feel like calling someone "this huge one" is kind of rude. Whatever. She also moans "oh, yes" when hugging Worf.

She comes to Wes, and is confused, because he's "young." It's clear she means "not yet fuckable," and asks what the custom is regarding young people.

Wes is awkward and says "whatever you guys do is fine." She hugs him, but it isn't like the way she hugged Worf and Riker.

Dude, terrible wig alert. It's like Rand-bad.

Riker says that the E would like to do shore leave on their planet, and Liator says they can discuss it with the council. Rivan wants to know if they should go now, or stay where they are and start an orgy. Nope, not kidding. She'd really like to hook up with Worf. Liator wants to get into Troi's ugly grey jumpsuit.
Wes awkwardly reminds them that he's standing right the fuck there, and Rivan is like, "Oh, right. Kids. Let's go to the council now instead. We can find you some other kids to play with."
They run to the council chambers, because everybody runs here for some reason, where they conveniently encounter a trio of kids Wes' age. The kids aren't dressed as provocatively as the adults, but the clothes are similar, if a bit unflattering on her. Whatever, close enough. The boys are friendly and invite Wes to join them. The girl adds, "Yes, please!" in a way that's sort of half-way between "friendly teenage girl" and Jessica Rabbit.

Rivan takes the rest of the away team into the chambers, where we see people doing some kind of exercise, people dancing, people giving massages to one another, people making out. And everyone is dressed in that same way, like they bleached Andrea the android's coveralls and then ran them through a shredder. Rivan tells the team to enjoy themselves.

Data enters the bridge to tell Picard that they've checked all of the sensor arrays and things, and whatever their sensors are picking up is not a glitch or mistake. There's actually something there, kind of in their space and not at the same time, yet it's not setting off their proximity alarms. He opens the channel (which is weird - can a person who is not the captain contact other ships like that?) and addresses "the ship which is off our starboard side."
A ship half-appears in front of them. Or maybe it's a station. I don't know. Looks like a station, but we can only see parts of it, so I'm just guessing. The proximity alarms finally go off, if only to provide a sense of impending doom.

Data says they got back a response, but none of their language programs have figured it out yet. Picard instructs Geordi to "have a real look." We don't find out until we follow Geordi from the bridge, that he's actually going to a window where he can stare at the thing with his VISOR. I don't know how I feel about that, Picard using Geordi's circumstances to further his own situation. Is it different than his using Troi to "read" people? Are Troi and Geordi okay with using their abilities in these ways? This is the first time we've seen Geordi being instructed to act in this way, but he's compliant, so maybe this has been asked of him before? It's an interesting subject, for me anyway.
Geordi reports back that "spectral analysis" says that the ship-station is only half-there.

The language systems finally spit out a message of "stand by," and a little ball of light exits the station-thing and flies at them. Everyone starts reporting in that the ball of light has entered the ship, but they don't know where. Data says they've lost contact with the away team. They have no idea what's going on or how to describe it, so they have to guess.
Frustrated with the language being used, Picard demands "Why has everything become a "something" or a "whatever"?"
Because this is Star Trek, Picard. And because sometimes, "something" and "whatever" are the closest thing one can approximate to a description on this show.
The ball of light appears on the bridge and flies up to Picard, where it demands in a booming voice "STATE THE PURPOSE." Everybody claps their hands over their ears and the ship shakes.

After a few moments, the ball adjusts the volume, because it recognizes that it's yelling when using an indoor voice works perfectly well, and there's some stumbling conversation before it gets to what it wants to say: the station has noticed that the E left its own people on the last planet they visited, and wants to know if they'll be leaving people at Rubicon 3 as well.
"No," says Picard. "We're just visiting here. Then we'll leave and take all of our people away."
The ball refers to the Edo as "my children." It doesn't particularly want them there, but seems satisfied that they're leaving. It then goes to Data, who relays back that the ball has asked him telepathically if he exists for "information exchange."
"Yes! Make it the fuck so! We need answers!" says Picard. Again, using his crew members' special talents for his own gain. I don't know how much I like Picard this week.
The ball attaches itself to Data's forehead, and he falls over... unconscious? Asleep? Whatever Data does when he isn't awake, I guess. Receiving Windows updates. Let's go with that. He's there, he's supposedly functioning, but you can't turn him off or use him for the next few hours, because you've been telling him to go fuck himself whenever he suggests an update, and now those updates have built up, so you don't have a choice anymore.

Back on the planet, Wes has found himself in an awkward position. After one boy does a walking handstand, he tries to one-up with a series of cartwheels and a round-off. Then the girl approaches him and says she'd like to do something with him, but he'll have to teach her. Wes takes it the wrong way, because this whole planet seems to be encouraging him to walk around with a partial boner, and he haltingly admits in a round-about way that he's a virgin. She says she wants him to teach her how to play ball. Relieved, he says if they find a branch, he can show them a game. They go to the gardens to find something to use.

Riker is checking out the ample ass at the council chambers, and he encounters Worf, who looks uncomfortable.
"What, you don't like sex?" Riker asks.
Whoa, yo. Personal.
"It's not that I don't like it," admits Worf. "It's that I'd need a Klingon female. Human females and Edo are too... delicate."
Riker deflects this by checking in with the E. His comm badge chirps, but no answer is given. He and Worf both look concerned. Troi, sitting nearby, also looks concerned.
...really? You tried one comm badge, but not the others? Maybe yours is busted, Riker. Maybe it got crushed when you were grinding up against some hot piece of Edo. Noooo, instead, there must be something wrong with the situation. He decides to gather up the away team, just to be on the safe side.
Troi thinks the Edo have nothing to do with the loss of communication. Riker decides that he's going to go find Wes, anyway.
"He's wandered off."
No, he hasn't. You guys wanted to get down with the Edo, so you shipped him off to the gardens with kids his own age. Technically, dude was just following orders. Riker goes to find Wes.
Worf approaches Yar, who is talking to Liator and Rivan about the laws on Rubicun 3. They tell her that there is no crime on the planet. They have cops, called mediators, who randomly select one zone each day, and make it a crime to enter that zone. Entering the zone means punishment by death.
"The fuck?" asks Yar.
"It's cool," says Rivan. "There's always a little white fence around the zone to warn people to keep out. So they do. Who wants to risk death?"
"You guys didn't tell us that!" yells Yar.
Now they really have to find Wes.

Shockingly, guess where Wes ends up? One of the boys throws a ball to him, and he trips over the little white fence-thing and falls into a bed of newly-planted flowers.
"It's cool, I'm fine," he says, getting up.
He doesn't realize that his new friends are upset because he's gonna die now, and not because he felt down and went boom.
A pair of mediators comes by, and he tries to tell them that he's fine, but they have no fucks to give. Dude crossed the white fence.
Riker finds them, and says he's sorry, and that it won't happen again, because they know the laws now. The girl is protesting that Wes can't be held accountable because he's from someplace else and didn't know.
Wes is super-confused, because nobody has mentioned that the punishment for tripping and falling into this flower bed is execution. Riker still doesn't know.
The mediators are telling Riker that it's extra-sad, because Wes didn't know, but the law is the law.
Yar and Worf come running up, and Riker accuses Tasha of filing an incomplete report about Edo laws.
"They didn't say anything about punishments!" she protests.
One of the mediators pulls out a syringe of poison and approaches Wes, but Riker knocks him down, and Yar and Worf pull out phasers.
"You were gonna kill him!" yells Riker.
"What the fuck?" demands Wes.

Riker tries to call the E again, but everything is blocked.
Back on the E, Crusher is scanning Data and says that he's otherwise fine. The ball of light lifts off of Data's head and dissipates. This lifts the communications block, and Yar's voice immediately comes in over Picard's comm badge.
Riker and Yar tell Picard that they need him down there ASAP because "there a problem with one of the away team and a strange law they have here."
Picard beams down.

They're having some kind of tribunal or something, and Rivan and Liator welcome them. Riker tells Picard that he's allowed them to hold Wes in detention, in accordance with the Prime Directive.
Liator says the law system they have in place has kept their society from crumbling into chaos, and they're peaceful and happy because of it. Rivan asks Picard if they execute criminal on his world.
Ooh, sticky wicket, Star Trek. How do you do an episode about capital punishment without getting a bunch of angry letters from either one side or the other?
Picard is understandably hesitant. The answer he gives could offend their guests, but in no way does he want them killing Wes.
"Um, we used to," he admits. "And the people who believed in capital punishment certainly felt it was justified. But these days, we've figured out how to detect which people will end up becoming criminals, so we can take care of that situation before it arises."
Ah, vague and polite, Star Trek. Maybe no hate mail for you.
But Liator apparently had a big ol' bucket of ramen for lunch, because boyfriend is salty as hell. "We're not as advanced as they are," he scoffs to Rivan. "Use your advanced powers to save Wes. Go on, then."

Sooo many boob hammocks...

"Yeah, we can't just take him," explains Picard. "We have this Prime Directive thing."
Rivan says that Riker explained the PD to them, and that they'll keep Wes alive until sun down, but after that they have to kill him, because he broke the law.
Picard agrees to this timeline, then asks them what the hell that thing is in space. He describes it as being in two places at once, both "here" and "not here."
Rivan and Liator look at one another in confusion, then Rivan asks, "Do you mean God?"
Hello, plot twist!
"Wait, what?" asks Picard.
Crusher calls Picard. She refers to herself formally as "CMO Crusher." I don't think I've ever heard her use that term before or since.
She says Data is awake and is demanding to talk to Picard. Picard wants to talk to him as well, and says he'll beam back up. He also wants to tell Crusher about Wes in person, rather than over the comm badges. After being reassured that the Edo will not kill Wes until sundown, Picard asks if one of them will come back to the ship with him. Rivan volunteers as tribute, but he tells her that he doesn't want her as a hostage. He just wants her to identify that thing out in space that she called God.

In the E corridors, Rivan exclaims that the ship is a city. Crusher approaches and tells Picard that she's just read the reports about Wes, but he tells her he'll talk to her in a moment.
Yeah, that's smart, Picard. Make the mama bear wait to hear about her son being executed at sundown, while you talk to the half-naked chick. Because that's not a good way at all to get your throat ripped out.
Rivan rephrases Liator's nasty comment form earlier: if they have all of this power, why don't they just take Wes back? He answers both women at once by saying that the PD complicates matters.

What's up with Rivan's wig here? It's sitting further back on her head, and they've
curled the actor's hair underneath to make weird two-toned bangs or something.

They take Rivan into the room where Geordi went to "check out" the station earlier, and when she sees it through the window, she genuflects, terrified.
"Is that God?" asks Picard. "How do you know? Does it speak to you?"
She haltingly says yes, that is God, and that it has appeared before and has spoken to them.
The station immediately rushes toward the E and that booming voice yells, "RETURN MY CHILD!"
"Whoa, fuck," Picard says, and he slaps his comm badge on Rivan, yelling at the transporter chief to beam her the hell off the ship, post-haste.
As soon as she's gone, the station backs off.

Picard and Crusher go to talk to Data, who is still in sick bay. In the corridor, Crusher demands info about Wes. She starts to go off on him, then backs up, regaining her composure, and apologizes. She says she is scared.
"So am I," he answers.
Nice. I like this building on history here. Picard is an old family friend of the Crushers' and while he struggles to relate to Wes, he understands that that is his friends' kid. He's also the CO of this ship, and is directly responsible for the well-being of both mother and son, as well as of inferior officers, of which they are also. His position right now sucks, and his brief vulnerability showing through is awesome. Truthfully, I kind of liked those moments in Kirk as well.

Data tells Picard and Crusher that the station connected with him in such a way as to take all of the information stored in Data's brain. Everything he knows, they know. And the station is most definitely a "they" rather than an it. He says the station exists in several places at once. So these Schrodinger aliens pretty much own all of the surrounding star systems, and Data says that it was probably not a good idea to set up a colony in the area. He starts to offer better suggestions for the settlers, but Picard barks at him to stop babbling.
"I was not aware that I babble, sir," he replies. He starts to talk about how he takes in information, sorts it, and returns it in verbal form, and Picard interrupts him to say that he needs to only pick out the most pertinent information to answer his questions.
The Schrodinger aliens are aware that the Edo worship them as God, and recognize that this is an okay thing for their current state of evolution. When Picard asks Data if the aliens are okay with the E being there, Data responds that they haven't decided yet, and they're waiting to see if the humans will violate their own Prime Directive.
Crusher gets upset at this, and yells at an unknowing Data that the Edo want to execute her son. Data is fascinated by the motherly emotions that Crusher is experiencing. She screams at him to shut up, and runs from the room.
"Huh," says Data. "I do babble."
I know it's mostly meant as a throw-away joke here, but I think that it's good character development for Data to recognize that he often offers up too much information, or outwardly wonders things that he should be keeping to himself, and possibly inquiring about, privately, later. Dude's ambition is to become more human-like, and humans will sometimes babble. Body language and verbal clues will tell another human when babbling is not appreciated, but Data has not picked up on that. It's actually something he'll struggle with for a while.

Picard's Log 41229.5: "So now on top of everything else, I have to figure out how to fix this shit with the Schrodinger aliens watching my every move. Lovely."

Picard invites Data back to his quarters to babble some more. He's stumped by the lack of answers, and is hoping that data might have more information to share. What they end up talking about is moral relativism. Data says that at one point, the Schrodinger aliens were much like humans in that they had blood and flesh bodies, and probably values very similar to Terrans. Picard doesn't want Wes to die, but if he breaks the PD, the aliens might decide that the Enterprise crew are no good, and the station could descend upon them, putting 1000 other lives at risk.
"Is the life of one worth more than the lives of 1000?" Data asks.
Whoa, damn. Data went all Spock there.
But instead of pulling out a Kobayashi Maru, Picard snaps back that he refuses "to allow arithmetic to decide in these matters."
Crusher comes in to request formally to be allowed to beam down to the planet's surface. Picard grants it, and puts Data in charge. He and Crusher transport down.

Rivan rushes forward the moment they appear on the scene. She gives Picard his comm badge, the genuflects.
"You share the sky with God, so you must also be gods."
"No," he says. "We're not gods."
Liator and the mediators bring in Wes. Crusher starts forward, but catches herself. I'm not sure if she stops because she doesn't want to embarrass Wes, or because they are all Starfleet officers, and rushing to hug him is not really becoming of any of their ranks.
Wes asks Picard if he's going to let them kill him.
"No," he answers, " but I have to make the Edo understand why."
The mediators are pissed. If they don't kill Wes, then the laws are undermined by strangers. One of them angrily implores Picard to look at how they were before enacting these laws.
"They seem to work very well for you," he replies. "But I have my own laws to follow and I'll catch hell from Starfleet for violating the Prime Directive."
"No way," says the mediator. "You'll have to answer to God for this."
"Yeah, they may kill us all as well," says Picard.

"If you save me," asks Wes, "is it possible that everyone on board the E would die?"

"STFU, Wesley," says Picard. "You're not involved in this, boy."

"The hell I'm not!" says Wes.

Good for you, Wes. Assert yourself, buddy.

Unfortunately, it comes to nothing.

Picard gathers the away team and Wes, and calls for a beam-out.
Really, Star Trek? You're not going to come up with a solution? You're just gonna leave? What crap.
But then nothing happens. The transporter chief says everything works, but the transporter is not transporting.
"Ha!" says the mediator. "God is not letting you leave!"
Wow, that's some unearthly schadenfreude right there.

"Okay, look," Picard addresses the ceiling. "I know it's shitty of me not to obey the laws here, but I also have to follow the Prime Directive, and let's be honest: the law doesn't work when it's absolute. Even life itself had to have loopholes in order to progress."
Riker makes a muttered comment about how life is never as well-laid-out as a rule book, and the away team shimmers and beams up.
The Schrodinger aliens agreed.

Everybody tromps back to the bridge, and Picard calls the station one more time. "So hey, we're leaving, and if you want us to go get those colonists, give us some kind of sign."
The station turns slightly, glows a bit, and vanishes.
"I guess that was a sign," shrugs Picard. "Let's get the hell out of here."

So this episode had some good stuff and some bad stuff. Let's get that first thing out of the way right out of the gate: the Enterprise should not have made contact with the Edo in the first place. The Edo appear to have been largely un-contacted, not to mention pre-warp. They don't even seem to have any kind of space capabilities at all (Picard tells the Edo their ship is in orbit, but corrects himself to say that they are "circling" the planet). Talking to them is a major no-no as far as the Prime Directive is concerned. If they had stumbled upon the Edo accidentally, this would be one thing, but they found the planet, decided it was nice, then introduced themselves and asked if they could stay.
Since the writers decided to go ahead and film while ignoring that part of the PD in a PD-centric episode, we'll have to do so when talking about it, otherwise we end up having to assign alternate universe status to this episode, and it's way too early in this series to be dealing with AUs. We'll just ignore it, too.
We're dealing with a couple of things here. As well as the prime Directive, we also butt heads with the law and ignorance of it. The mediator is right - not knowing the law exists doesn't excuse you from being punished by it when you break it. While this seems like a shitty argument, the fact of the matter is, if you just let it go anytime anyone claimed that, then the law would be no good. "Officer, I'm sorry you caught me doing 55 in a school zone. I'm from out of town and didn't know!" Naw, dude. Know what the laws are before you venture someplace new. Sometimes it catches you off-guard, but the alternative is that there are no laws, and people can just mow over kids in a school zone.
HOWEVER, the Edo should have been clearer about their law system when they invited the E to stay for a visit. I'm not gonna blame Tasha for turning in an incomplete report on laws and customs, but why did that never come up when she was talking to them initially? Seems like it would have.

Let's hop into our Prime Directive issues. Picard never really followed it. In the end, he decided against it, and made the choice to follow his own rules about keeping his crew safe, despite the costs. And also, despite the fact that the PD would have called for letting the Edo kill Wes. He went a bit Kirk here. I'm not saying it was the wrong decision by any means - any time someone is allowed to escape death, I'm on board - but the PD does call for the culture's wishes to be followed so as not to interfere with development. And here, the Edo now know that appealing to a higher power can sometimes get them what they want, and that each transgression they make can now come with the option of not being punished. That's a crazy-direct violation of the Prime Directive.

One thing that Star Trek does well (really, really well) is to sometimes leave things open-ended. To point out that sometimes, there are no easy answers. Here we get a taste of that. Instead of grabbing onto a plan and putting it into action, Picard sits in his quarters with his head in his hands, lamenting the fact that cultural and moral relativism has him stymied this time. He ended up having to make a decision to break one law over another, but in the meantime, he bounced a lot of ideas off of Data. (Frankly, who better to bounce ideas off of? Data has probably studied a whole library of philosophers on these issues, and he is the most likely to be objective. It's the one time in this episode where I didn't question his utilizing a crew member's abilities.) When he finally arrives back on the surface, he has an outcome in mind (Wesley living to see another day), but not a solution. The solution only arrives when he breaks the PD in favor of saving Wesley, and points out to the Schrodinger aliens that things are never so black and white as the law frequently allows. Even then, it is not strictly a solution, but a compromise: the Edo punishment does not go through, but the Prime Directive is violated as well.
Things are, as Riker put it, never so cut and dry as a rule book.

Fun Facts:

-This episode shows a striking resemblance to the TOS episode "The Apple" in that the E crew finds an Eden-like planet and encounters it's naive people, who are under the thumb of a God-like machine.
- Gene Rod originally wanted the costumes for the Edo to be even skimpier, but they would not stay on when the actors moved, and more fabric was needed to be functional. (What do you want to bet that the actors playing the Edo were "gifted" those costumes when filming was completed? There's no room for underwear of any kind in those costumes, so I can't imagine the costume department saving those to use again.)
- Starfleet's possible policy of just stopping "wherever" for shore leave is crap. Starfleet is patterned after the Navy, which plans things far in advance, and assigns people leave in the same way. There is no "this place looks nice, and the crew is tired," like exists on Star Trek.
- There's a line given by Wesley when being interrogated by the mediators, "I'm in Starfleet. We don't lie," that Wil Wheaton didn't like. He later conceded that it works well enough to point out how naive Wes is.
- This is the first episode since the holodeck scenes in "Encounter at Farpoint" to utilize location shots. Most of the outdoor scenes were filmed at the Tillman Water Reclamation Plant, and the place where Wes falls into the flowers was filmed at the Huntington Library.
- This episode was actually the next to be commissioned after "Encounter at Farpoint" had been written, but went through so many re-writes that it ended up being filmed eighth.
- Filming near the airport meant that many of the outdoor scenes had to be re-dubbed in post-production.

*******

Bottle Two of the Third Street Tea:

This time I tried the "lightly sweetened" Black Tea. While not quite as sweet as the Peach tea, this one was still fairly sweet, enough so that it might turn off people who don't care for sweetened tea. It's lightly spiced, but not so much that it's overpowering. I would totally drink this tea again.

https://www.drinkthirdstreet.com/iced-tea/slightly-sweet-black/

Curie and Mo

Season 2, Episode 37 "The Changeling"

"The Changeling"
Production Number: 37
Air Order: 32
Stardate: 3614.9
Original Air Date: September 29, 1967

So wandering the webs for a while now has been a brief article that gives one a glimpse into the Star Trek TOS character Bible. As in, the booklet given to people who might be interested in writing episodes. As much as I like the idea of  a group of writers hanging out around a table offering things like, "what if Kirk gets trapped on a some planet and bangs a chick and saves the day at the last minute?", that's not the full story. Sometimes they asked established sci-fi writers to take a crack at it. Sometimes they used unsolicited materials or bought short stories. Either way, the treatment would then go to their head writers, who would edit or change things, or just ensure that it was keeping with the full flavor of Star Trek. The character Bible gives brief information about the characters, situations, sets available, and who to contact in order to talk about science stuff.
Earlier this week, I was randomly telling Roomie and Dubs how I'd like to have a copy, just for funsies. Unbeknownst to me, Roomie then discovered online that she could get PDFs of each page, to be sent to FedEx to be printed and bound. She returned triumphant that night, telling me that having the booklet in her possession had earned her a nerdy conversation with not one, but two, gas station pump jockeys. Handing it to me, she stated, "I'm doing this for blog cred." Okey-doke, Roomie. You get a Command Gold Star.

And I now have the TOS nerd-cronomicon. Mwahahahaha!

*******

We start out with a mystery - the E can't seem to raise any of the 4 million people in the sector where they are currently located, including the Starfleet science team on one of the planets. Oh, no! Maybe it's a zombie windsock!

Sulu reports that they are being fired upon, and the viewscreen shows a wobbly white fireball making its way toward the ship. They take a hit, and the bridge crew does one of their exaggerated tandem tumbles. This time, though, the fixtures seem even more tilted, the falls a bit less rehearsed. I wonder if they've mounted the bridge set on a platform that can shift as needed... that'd be cool.

When they've righted themselves, Spock reports that the bolt of energy that hit them was the equivalent of 90 photon torpedoes, and that it traveled at warp 15. Kirk asks Sulu for evasive maneuvers, but the helmsman can't comply, as Scotty has diverted power from the warp drive to the shields.

They fire a photon torpedo at whatever-it-is that is firing on them, but the thing just absorbs it. Kirk is astonished. Really, dude? You gave it one where it gave you 90, and you're shocked that there was no damage? My 6-year-old nephew could do that math, and he didn't spend years in Starfleet Academy.

They take another hit of 90, and Scotty reports that they're toast if they take one more, so Kirk decides to try talking. You can't run it, outmaneuver it, or outgun it, and now you're going to try talking. Good choice.

While Uhura works on opening a channel, Spock reports that the thing is heavy, but is only like three feet tall.

"What the hell kind of intelligence could you have being that small?" asks Scotty.

"Size is no indication of intelligence," Spock reminds him.

Yeah, no shit. Ever hang out with toddlers? They're ridiculously smart. Good thing they aren't able to learn quantum physics. We'd be so screwed.

After a few bumps in the road regarding translation, Kirk is able to tell the thing that he's Capatin James Kirk of the Enterprise, that they're peaceful, and mean it no harm. It replies back that it is Nomad, and is also peaceful. Nomad asks Kirk if he will step outside to chat.

"Um, no?" says Kirk. "But you can come aboard my ship." 

"Cool," says Nomad, and Kirk grabs Spock, Scotty and Bones to come with him to the transporter room. They beam Nomad onto the E. I think it's a Kirby vacuum cleaner. That hovers.

 Dramatic music!
Nomad asks Kirk where he's from, and Kirk replies that they're with the Federation.
"No, dipshit," says Nomad. "WHERE are you FROM?"
"Come out and talk to us," says Kirk.
"It's not full of tiny people," says Bones. "It's a machine."
Kirk, why are you so stupid this week? Have you been chugging the Saurian brandy in sick bay?
"Lemme see your star charts," says the thing. It keeps ending every few sentences with "I am Landru Nomad." Maybe it's for Kirk's benefit. Maybe, because Kirk is being so unbelievably thick this week, it thinks it might need to keep reminding the captain of who he is talking to.
Spock says that there was a probe sent from Earth in the early 2000's named Nomad, but it was thought to have been destroyed.

Kirk takes the hovering Nomad to a room to look at star charts, dragging Spock and Bones with him. 

Ha! Pluto is listed on that star chart. I'm just gonna go ahead and declare that, in the future, Pluto has been reinstated. Suck it, IAU. Star Trek says it's a planet, so it is.

Nomad asks Kirk if he is from Earth. When Kirk replies that he is, Nomad refers to him as the Creator, the guy who programmed him. Bones asks what Nomad's function is. Nomad tells Kirk that his job is to sterilize things, to destroy imperfections.

"The fuck?" demands Bones. "You killed all of those people?"

Nomad calls Bones irrational. When Kirk replies, "yeah, kinda", Bones gives him a nasty look.

"How come you keep calling me Creator?" asks Kirk.

"Dude, let him," says Spock.

They leave Nomad with a confused Red, and move into the corridor to talk.

"Been looking up stuff in the computer," says Spock. "I think the Nomad was damaged in a meteor collision and repaired itself. It has mentioned an accident, and the Other. Also, I think Nomad thinks that you're the guy who made him, Jackson Roykirk. It's destroyed memory banks probably picked up your name, thinking you were Roykirk, and that's why it stopped firing on us. Nomad was designed to be a thinking machine, and to seek out new life-forms. But now it seems to be seeking out perfect life-forms, and destroying everything that doesn't meet its higher-than-high standards."

"Awesome," says Kirk. "It'll kill us all."

Mr Singh, the Red that was left with Nomad, gets a comm call from Uhura. While he's fetching her information, she sings "Beyond Antares" to herself. Nomad goes off in search of her when Singh turns his back. Can't say I blame Nomad. If you had the chance to hear Nichelle Nichols sing "Beyond Antares" in person, wouldn't you?

Scotty quietly calls Kirk to tell him that that weird vacuum cleaner is on the bridge. The OT3 heads off in that direction.

Nomad confronts Uhura, demanding to know what she's doing. Uhura attempts to explaining singing and music, but Nomad gets impatient, and scans her head instead.

"The fuck?" yells Scotty. And in an action of chivalry and grave stupidity, he grabs Nomad. Nomad then blasts him backward.

A dazed Uhura is hauled off to sick bay while Bones looks over Scotty. Apparently, he's dead, Jim.

"Nomad, what the hell?" asks Kirk. "I needed him!"

Nomad keeps referring to the crew members as "units". It thinks Kirk built his crew, like Dr Korby. Silly Nomad. If Kirk had built his crew, none of them would look like Scotty. They'd all look like Andrea. They'd probably be (un)dressed like her, too. (Although the female crew uniforms certainly look as though Kirk picked them out.)

"I can fix the unit Scott," says Nomad. "It's super out-of-date, though."

They upload all of the tapes on human physiology, and Scotty in particular, to Nomad's memory banks, and it follows Bones back to sick bay.

There's a cool shot here of the camera following Nomad as it follows Bones. I like this. It mixes things up nicely. Always welcome when they take a chance on a new camera angle.

Down in sick bay, Christine scans Scotty while Nomad hovers nearby. She tells Bones that there isn't any change, and he snottily replies that he can see that for himself. Christine treats him to the briefest eat shit look before all of Scotty's vitals shoot up. Scotty wakens and asks how the hell he got to sick bay.

Kirk tells Nomad to repair Uhura, but Nomad replies that she is undamaged. It just "wiped her memory banks".

Spock suggests that Uhura just needs to be re-educated. Kirk asks Bones and Chapel to do it, then tells Nomad to go with the nice Reds to the "waiting area" in the brig. Goodbye, Reds.

Later, Spock is trying to scan Nomad for information, but it refuses to allow him to do so. Kirk orders Nomad to drop it's shields and let Spock look at it. So far, Nomad has told Kirk that all of his biological units are chaotic, irrational and unpredictable. It calls Spock "well-ordered". Spock decides to take the compliment, which is to say that his eyebrows go up. Nomad agrees to the probing.

Meanwhile, Christine is teaching Uhura to read. I like that when Uhura gets frustrated, she lapses into Swahili. But I hate the wig that they put on Majel Barrett. It looks like a ratty tribble, and it's not even the same color as her hair.

Spock isn't getting anywhere with his scans. There's too much buried and inaccessible. He suggests a mind meld. Kirk tells Nomad that Spock is going to communicate by touch. When Spock talks during mind melds, he typically tosses out words or phrases that have to do with the other person. This time he mentions the name Tan Ru, and he struggles to disconnect from Nomad, even when he steps away. Kirk has to bark at Nomad to let go. Stepping out into the corridor to talk again, a shaky Spock tells Kirk that Nomad was damaged in a meteor collision, and encountered another probe (Tan Ru), whose directive was to sample and sterilize soil samples from planets, probably with the idea of colonization in mind. (Yes, Tan Ru is Wall-E. Heh.) Tan Ru and Nomad helped repair one another, merging programs, so that Nomad's new directive was to seek out life, and sterilize "biological infestations".

Kirk compares it to the mythological creature known as a changeling, wherein a fairy replaces a baby with a fairy child, and the new creature grows up as a human. "The only thing that's been keeping us from being "sterilized" is the fact that it thinks that I'm it's mother." They take off down the corridor for no reason other than to progress the story.

Nomad breaks through the force field in the brig and starts to float off down the corridor. When the Reds fire on it to get it to stop, of course it vaporizes them. Two down.

It floats down to engineering, ignoring Scotty yelling at it.

"Your ship is inefficient," Nomad tells Scotty. "I'll fix it." It interfaces with the control system and begins pushing the E to warp 11. The engineers are not able to stop it.

Kirk, who has been alerted to the situation by an engineering Red, strides into the room and demands that Nomad stop. When the robot replies that it is making the ship more efficient, Kirk replies that the E can't take the stress of warp 11 and will break apart. Funny that this stupid machine couldn't figure that out.

Spock comes in and reports that the other Reds from the brig are missing, and presumed dead. Nomad tells Kirk that his biological units are inferior. In his dumbest move of the episode, Kirk shouts back that he is a biological unit, and that he is the creator. Nomad pauses. Kirk makes a great "oh, shit" face as he realizes what he's done. Spock gives Kirk a look that says he'd like to slap the captain upside the head.

"Um, I need to think about some stuff before I return to the launch point," says Nomad.

Kirk orders him to go with another pair of Reds, who are now rethinking their choice to get dressed and report for duty this morning. The camera follows Nomad again as it heads through the engineering doors, toward the waiting Reds, who are backing uncertainly into the corridor.

"That was kind of the dumbest thing ever," says Spock. "It now views you as inferior. Also, it probably figured out how to get back to Earth based on those star charts, which means it'll kill everyone on the planet. Good job, moron."

"Yeah," Kirk admits, "that was a pretty dumbshit move." Knowing is half the battle, Kirk.

Kirk's Log 3614.9: "In my infinite wisdom, I set a killing machine loose on my ship and let it know that Earth is full of innocent people ripe for the picking. It would have been better not to come to work high today."

Nomad gets off the lift with the Reds. It starts to wander off on it's own, and the Reds call it back. When it doesn't respond, they shoot at it. It then vaporizes them. Reds are dropping like flies this episode.

Nomad takes a Jeffries tube down to sick bay. Kirk and Spock are paged there, and when they open the doors, Nomad strolls out, ignoring Kirk's orders to stop. Bones tells Kirk and Spock that it got into the medical and personnel files, and shocked Christine when she tried to stop it.

"It probably looked at your files and figured out that you're full of shit," Spock tells Kirk.

Scotty calls Kirk to report that life support systems are going out all over the ship, and manual override is blocked. Kirk tells Scotty to meet him in engineering with anti-gravs, then high-tails it down there himself.

Nomad is there. It tells Kirk that, by switching off life support, it can get rid of the biological infestation without harming the ship, which is not perfect, but can be made so. It is also refusing to answer to Kirk anymore.

This is, of course, where Kirk gives Landru Nomad an existential crisis, because that is how one handles a sentient machine hell-bent on killing you. Someone should have told Sarah Connor. That would have been helpful.

He says that, as an imperfect being, he created Nomad, but how can something imperfect create something perfect? (Let's hope Nomad is completely unaware of Renaissance art, shall we?) Kirk also reiterates that Nomad must destroy things that are not perfect. Kirk yells that he is not Roykirk the Creator. Roykirk is dead. This means that Nomad made a mistake in identifying him as such, and another in not recognizing it. Two errors makes Nomad imperfect. The fact that he then did not sterilize himself means that he made a third mistake. Nomad loses it's mind, screaming in helium-laced tones that it is in error, and must sterilize, and analyze.

Scotty and Spock rush forward to slap anti-gravs on Nomad, and haul him up to the transporter room. You know, when moving between decks during an emergency, I always wonder about un-filmed scenes in the lifts. 

Spock and Scotty hauled the anti-grav'd Nomad into the lift with them, struggling to keep it centered and balanced. Kirk bounced in after them, barking at the computer to close the doors post-haste.

"Transporter room! Now!"

The computer, sensing the urgency in his voice, propelled the lift in that direction, bars of light sliding past the frosted window panels. The men grabbed the handrails to keep from falling over.

"Error, error!" chirped Nomad. It did not struggle in the anti-gravs, but Scotty could smell a distinct burning scent wafting from the inner workings of the metal beast. He tried to focus on something else other than the impending explosion of Nomad and the possible destruction of the ship and everyone on it. He zeroed in on the music playing faintly through the lift's speakers.

"Which song is this?" he asked, more out of the necessity of having something to do than out of interest.

Spock paused, directing his hearing at the speakers. "I believe that is a slow, instrumental recording of "Carry On My Wayward Son" by the Earth band Kansas. The original is not quite this apathetic, however."

Scotty nodded. The song that he recall included guitar solos that spoke of youthful rebellion rather than a skip through a meadow. There was another pause, long and painful, as the lift made it's way forward, and the air continued to fill with the sound of dying machine and the smell of frying circuit boards.

"Captain," he said suddenly, "have you had your hair cut recently?" 

Kirk touched the back of his head. "Yes, um, last week. A little shorter than usual, but I thought maybe if I cut it shorter this time, it would be a little longer before I had to schedule another."

"Efficient," said Spock.

The others nodded, and time stretched out before them. The bars flashed past the window panels, but they seemed to be no closer. Scotty had decided that he hated this song.

"Soooo..." Kirk fished for something to say as Spock and Scotty shifted Nomad between them. "Spock, have you spoken with T'Pring lately?"

Spock's illogical human half wanted to ask Kirk why the fuck he would ask about the woman who had been screwing around on him and had forced him to kill his best friend so she could get him to divorce her, but his Vulcan half recognized Kirk's effort to pass the time. "I have not," he replied. "I assume she is well."

In another moment, the lift slowed to a stop and the doors opened, the computer announcing the deck. All three tumbled out as though they had been trapped inside with a gaseous Vogon poet.

"Slow-ass fucking lift," they each thought silently.

They haul ass into the transporter room and dump Nomad on a pad. Kirk eggs it on a bit more to commit suicide, and they beam it out into space, where it explodes.

I in no way received deja vu from this scene in comparison with last week's episode, where they beamed Piglet the Ripper out into space in order to keep him from killing everyone on board the ship as well.

On the bridge, Spock congratulates Kirk on his logic of using the same damn plan that he used against Landru. Kirk jokingly suggests that Spock didn't think he had it in him. Spock truthfully replies no, and it takes Kirk a second to realize what Spock just said. Bones enters the bridge to say that Uhura's education just hit college-level, and she should be back to work in a week.

Spock remarks that it's a shame that they had to lose Nomad, which was a cool instrument.

"Meh," says Kirk. "It was going to exterminate us all. Besides, why are you crying? That thing thought I was it's mother, which makes it my son. I should be sadder than you. It showed promise as a doctor when it fixed Scotty. My son, the doctor."

And Spock makes a face that clearly says that he wishes he had gone with Nomad, rather than continue to be trapped on this tin can with these weird-ass humans.

Death Toll
Red deaths this episode: 4
Red deaths this season: 1
Gold deaths this episode: 0
Gold deaths this season: 2
Blue deaths this episode: 0
Blue deaths this season: 1
Total crew deaths this season: 8
Total crew deaths thus far: 24

There were two Reds down in engineering in that last scene, but I'm counting them as knocked out, because when Nomad killed the previous 4 Reds, he completely disintegrated them. Also, Kirk is seen taking one man's pulse, and then other Reds rush in and try to revive them.

*******

Took a trip to a restaurant this week where they served Numi tea, which I haven't found anywhere else. It must be other places, though, as you can order it online. I tried the Orange Spice, but the leaf base was white rather than black. The difference is pretty small, but with the white, which is less bitter, the spice and orange citrus flavors were a little more pronounced. It was nice. Bonus: it was pretty late, and I didn't want to be awake all night, which I would have been with a black base. Also, it's organic. Niiiice.

http://shop.numitea.com/Orange-Spice/p/NUMIS-10240&c=NumiTeaStore@Teabag@White

"I help you iron?"

Season 1, Episode 10 "What Are Little Girls Made Of?"

"What Are Little Girls Made Of?"
Production Number: 10
Air Order: 7
Stardate: 2712.4
Original Air Date: October 20, 1966

Kittens go in for surgery Wednesday. Just so that I can say I did my part for fundraising, gonna leave this here: http://www.petcaring.com/animal-rescue/rescued-vulcan-kitties-need-surgery-/35765

We're trying to raise a little extra so that we can pay it forward to other kitties with eye problems :)

******

We start this episode with the Enterprise in orbit over some blue planet (no, not our blue planet) and Nurse Christine Chapel is on the bridge. They've changed her hair so that the front is now a light blonde instead of the silver from before. It's much more flattering. Kirk says something about her giving up a career in bio-research, and she replies that she knows "he's alive down there." Kirk says that "his" last message was 5 years ago. Turns out they're looking for Dr Roger Korby. Two expeditions have failed to find him, but because this is the USS Mary Sue Enterprise, they'll totally find him. Unless, of course, dude radios in right after Uhura announces that she's been getting no response from the planet.

Captain's Log: 2712.2 They're orbiting planet Exo III. The Enterprise has been contacted by Dr Korby, who has been living in underground ruins with other survivors.

Korby requests that Kirk beam down alone, as he has made important discoveries of a sensitive nature. Kirk says that he's beaming down with Christine, and Korby sounds excited. Seems they've been engaged this whole time. Kirk is only acquiescing to Korby's weird request because Dr Korby's work is required reading at the academy. He seems to have a man-crush on Korby. Just before Christine leaves the bridge with Kirk, she catches an "I'm so happy for you" hug from Uhura.

Here we have two women who are friends and talk to one another, who have names,
but this hug is about a man. Bechdel fail. *sad trombone*

The pair beam down, but Korby is not there. As a precaution, Kirk calls up and requests a pair of red shirts. They leave one at the beam-down and take the other, Mathews. The trio makes their way through the caverns where they're greeted by Dr Korby's assistant, Dr Brown. Unfortunately, the red shirt falls to his death while no one is looking. They rush back to the ledge and Kirk stupidly asks if there's a path down there. No, dude. The bottom of this bottomless pit is lined with memory-foam mattresses and the sort of soft, freshly-laundered towels that the Snuggle bear likes to jump in. Maybe if Mathews subscribes to the Alice theory, he'll fall straight through the center of the earth and come out the other side, where people walk upside-down.

Christine calls him Brownie. Why do all guys named Brown end up with that nickname?
Do they secretly hate that nickname?

There's a furtive shot of some mysterious big guy, and - holy shit, you guys! It's Lurch! He disappears down some tunnel. Clearly in this Whodunnit, he dunnit.

Brown remarks "Aw, well. Sucks to be that red shirt. Who the hell are you, now?" Then he says "Oh, yeah. You're Christine. Let's go see Korby." Kirk is suspicious of Brown and radios the other red shirt to check in every hour. As soon as the red shirt signs off Lurch grabs him from behind. 

While Brown takes them to Korby, he talks about how the former inhabitants of Exo III were forced underground as their sun dimmed and the planet iced over. They became super-mechanized.

The trio enters a cavern full of furniture and they stop to wait. But when the door slides open, it's not Korby. It's a young dark-haired girl. She's wearing the same overalls a Brown, but without a shirt. The straps on the overalls serve as a shirt. It's a bit like a more-covered version of female game characters' costumes, and most definitely like something you'd see cosplayed at a comicon. I read a smallish interview, years ago, with one of the costumers of this show, who said that conveying sexiness was not about how much skin was showing, but where. It was about exposing skin that would usually be covered.

This new girl introduces herself as Andrea. Dr Korby comes in, and seeing Christine, immediately begins to make out with her. He introduces himself to Kirk, who asks him to list the items and personnel he needs to beam aboard the Enterprise. 

Korby is played by Michael Strong, who is one of those guys who's in everything. I swear I know him from somewhere, but typically, when I look him up, it turns out that the only thing I've seen him in is the thing I've just finished watching.

Kirk tries to contact his other red shirt, who is not responding. He goes to call the ship, but Brown pulls a weapon on him and forbids Kirk more contact. Korby agrees. He insists that his work is crazy-important, and then orders Andrea to grab Kirk. But the captain ends up grabbing her instead, and not in the way that seems part and parcel to his character. Turns out she had a little hand weapon, which he steals. He pushes her away, and when Brown won't back down, Kirk fires on him. Lurch rushes in and disarms Kirk. Christine screams. There's a hole in Brown's torso filled with smoking wires and burned machinery. Oops. Robot city.

Kirk supposedly checks in with the ship, telling them that everything is fine, but when we cut back to the caverns, we see that Lurch has thrown his voice to sound like Kirk. Korby warns Kirk that if he struggles, Ruk may hurt him. (I guess Lurch's name is really Ruk.)

Ruk is played by the awesome Ted Cassidy. While I'm sure he didn't get many "leading man" roles, dude had the market cornered when it came to giant, scary guys with deep voices. IMDB also says that he did the voice of Balok's puppet on The Corbomite Manuever.

None of this, of course, explains why Ruk is dressed like a Golden Girl on steroids. He's already huge, and they padded out the top of his costume. He's wearing what I can only describe as a lavender floor-length robe over a pink patterned dress. They went to the trouble of getting a big intimidating guy, then put him in bad drag.

Korby has Ruk imitate Andrea's voice, somehow thinking that this will convince Kirk that he is trustworthy. Korby is unaware of the definition of non sequitir. Ruk imitates Korby next, and finally, Christine. Korby gets pissed off at this last one, and chastises Ruk. He tells Ruk that he is not to imitate or harm Christine and a quick-thinking Kirk adds that Ruk should follow her orders. Korby pauses, then agrees.

Kirk demands to know what happened to his red shirts, and Korby admits that Ruk was programmed to protect his experiments, and killed the both. The captain then asks if Ruk is an android like Brown, which seems to offend Ruk, who declares himself superior to Brown and states that he was left behind to tend to the machinery built by the "Old Ones". Korby used Old One knowledge to reprogram Ruk, and build Brown. Kirk declares him nuts and tries to escape, but Ruk picks him up like a fucking rag doll and throws him across the room. Korby keeps Ruk from killing Kirk.

Andrea is confused as to why Christine is unhappy, seeing as how she's gotten her man back. Andrea uses the name "Roger", which appears to piss off Christine, and Korby requests that she address him formally as "Dr Korby".

Korby gets down to explanations. Andrea is an android. Andrea the Android? How terribly Stan Lee. He tells them that Andrea is a marvel, that she has a life-like pulse and physical sensation. Christine replies sarcastically that he built one assistant and one "mechanical geisha".

You live with a half-naked girl, and you can't figure out why your fiancee is pissed off.
For a smart guy, you're a dumbass, Korby.

Yes, let's talk about mechanical geishas. There's a conversation in season 2 of The Big Bang Theory that sums it up nicely:

Sheldon: Okay, then, riddle me this: Assuming all the good Terminators were originally evil Terminators created by Skynet but then reprogrammed by the future John Connor, why would Skynet, an artificial computer intelligence, bother to create a petite, hot, 17-year-old killer robot?

Leonard: Skynet is kinky? I dunno.

Sheldon: Artificial intelligences do not have teen fetishes.

Now, I know this is kind of a one-shot throw-away gag, but Sheldon has a point. Why would anyone bother to make a hot android if the point wasn't to seduce someone (ie, the Fembots from Austin Powers or the "machine man" Maria from Fritz Lang's Metropolis), or to get some robot-lovin'?

Built for sexy times (and killing)

Built for killing

Built for seduction

Built for innocently helping Dr Korby with his work

I mean, it would be one thing if Korby had made two assistants, one male and one female, and made Andrea average-looking. Is it bad that she's attractive? No. But it seems like a waste of time to make her extra-attractive if you're only going to be treating her like an assistant. 

Now we come to the question, "Why do androids exist?" If it's a machine, and an intelligent one, why make it look like a person and not, say, a Cyberman? Comfort. People are more comfortable in dealing with AI when it looks like themselves (ie, Data from Next Gen). Okay, I get it: Korby wanted assistants that would be palatable to others. Would Christine have the same reservations about Andrea if she were fully-clothed and wearing a lab coat? Possibly, but it seems like her complaints would be fewer if ANDREA WAS WEARING A FUCKING SHIRT. I mean, damn - Korby fully-clothed Brown. He couldn't be bothered to find a shirt for Andrea? Like this, she offers "easy access", and being an android, she's probably programmed to just let you have it. Christine is suggesting that Korby is kinky like Skynet. I agree. She straight-up asks if he fucked Andrea. Korby replies that she's incapable. Bullshit. I'll bet she's fully functional and programmed in multiple techniques. (Yeah, I know. He meant that she's incapable of love, but you know he's playing semantics to sidestep Christine.) 

Korby tries to make his point by ordering Andrea to kiss Kirk, then slap him. "She only follows orders. She's totally logical." No one is convinced, so he takes them to the lab.

...Very innocently

"This is how you make an android," Korby announces. The lab has some machinery, but instead of an operating table, there's like a playground merry-go-round. A creepy dummy is strapped down on one side. It's lumpy and green and has no features and lacks the bottom half of it's limbs.

Asked and answered: this is what little girls are made of.

A naked Kirk is strapped down on the other side. (We got no shirtless Kirk last week, so they made up for it by featuring a naked Kirk instead.)

Hey kids! You too can have your very own android! Simply strap your friend to a piece of
playground equipment, add a foam dummy, and spin!

While the machine spins, making another Kirk, Christine complains that old Roger wouldn't have done this, that he considered life to be sacred. Korby completes the process by syncing New Kirk to the mental synapses of Kirk Classic. "I could replace the captain and no one would know," says Korby cheerfully. Kirk makes a rude, derogatory statement about Spock (really? Spock?), and to prove they are the same, the android repeats it.

They switch scenes. Chapel is sitting down to a meal served by Andrea, who declares that she is now programmed to please Christine as well. "Great. Could you put on some clothes, please? kthxbye." Kirk comes in and they sit down to talk. Christine is convinced that Roger is really Roger, that he's just acting oddly. Kirk broaches the subject of her possibly having to choose between Korby and taking orders from her captain, and she admits that she'd rather go hang out with Mathews than chose between them. Kirk pushes away his plate and declares that androids don't eat. 

Oh noes, you guys! Christine got duped!

The real Kirk comes in with Ruk and Korby, and he sits down next to himself. They've put New Kirk in the Starfleet uniform and Kirk Classic in their ugly coveralls. The two Kirks have a pissing contest about gastronomic delights, and Kirk Classic grills New Kirk on details of his own life. New Kirk answers correctly and Korby dismisses him.

Then Korby starts monloging, which is how you know he's the villain in this piece. He tells Kirk that he has the ability to transfer consciousness and soul into an android so that essentially a person could live forever. He needs "raw material", and wants Kirk to drop him on a planet with a smallish population so he can secretly churn out androids. That's why he was being subversive - he felt simply showing up on the Enterprise with his android-making kit would get him tossed into Bellevue.He wanted to give Kirk a demo and an explanation. He wants to do this crap in secret because he feels that if he introduces his plans too soon, there will be backlash from "uneducated minds". Now, I have to agree with him in part here. If you're going to introduce something new to a population, it's best to do so slowly and offer up information along the way. There will be some backlash, but you won't have wide-spread panic. This is the correct method for introducing new things. BUT it is not how one takes over a planet with androids. Especially when dealing with a race that prizes uniqueness.

See, kids? You can paint pretty much anything with the logic brush, but the crazy shows through in the end. This is why you find yourself nodding along half-way through Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal", but growing more disturbed the longer you think about it.

While Korby is talking, Kirk has unwound a piece of braided twine from the base of the chair he's sitting in, and he pretty much says "Yeah, fuck you, doctor," before lunging at Korby and trying to garrote him. They struggle and Kirk runs out into the cave system. Korby sends Ruk after him.

Christine is torn. Roger is injured, but Ruk is going to kill Kirk. She runs through the caverns screaming at him not to harm Kirk, and reminding him that he agreed to obey her. Lady, Ruk has zero fucks to give for you or the captain.

In the caverns, Kirk has hidden behind a wall and is pondering a stalactite. After some thought he snaps it off with a loud crack. You can't disguise this thing, you guys. It's a big pink schlong. And it appears, however subtly, to be anatomically correct. I have to wonder... did William Shatner piss off the writing staff? The prop guys?

Anyway, Ruk hears the noise and calls to him in Christine's voice. Kirk gives his position away and Ruk sneaks up on him. They struggle, and Kirk stumbles down a precipice, hanging on with one hand. Ruk considers him for a bit, then pulls him up.

Back on the Enterprise, Kirk struts down the hall and into his quarters, surprising Spock, who was not expecting him back so soon, and who follows him. Kirk gets some stuff from a safe. The first officer asks him a simple running-of-the-ship question, and Kirk barks out the derogatory statement from before: "Mind your own business, Mr Spock! I'm sick of your half-breed interference!" Shit, dude. I know that bros rag on each other, but damn. Spock takes it in stride, but is suspicious enough to order a security landing party to beam down after Kirk.

On the planet, Kirk gives Korby the stuff from the safe and says that he's located a planet with a small colony that will fit the doctor's needs. I'm creeped out by the fact that Korby refers to people as "raw materials". Also, his plan has holes. In a small colony, does he think that no one will notice that gradually, everyone will have a doppleganger? Or is he planning to dispose of those "raw materials" once he's made each duplicate?

So of course the one on the ship was New Kirk, who is still wearing the command gold uniform. I want to say that his calling Spock a half-breed wasn't so bad because he's an impostor, buuuut... Kirk Classic said it first.

Stuck in his cavern quarters, Kirk Classic decides to seduce Andrea. She pushes him away, telling him that she wasn't programmed for him. He kind of forces a kiss on her, and she escapes just as Ruk comes in to intimidate Kirk.

Ruk admits that saving Kirk was illogical, and he's clearly pissed off that he had to follow Christine's orders. Kirk decides to fuck with Ruk's head. He asks about the Old Ones and Ruk recalls that the emotional creatures that built androids like himself became fearful of them and began turning them off. He admits that he destroyed what was left of the Old Ones, but that Kirk brought this new chaos, not Korby. Then Ruk has a revelation: survival cancels programming, and Korby invited Kirk into their world. Korby must be destroyed rather than protected.

Speak of the devil, Korby and Christine enter. Ruk prepares to kill Korby, but the bad doctor pulls out a hand weapon and disintegrates Ruk. Remember in The Man Trap when Dr Crater was talking about the salt monster and an ancient Earth animal? Yeah, Ruk was another space buffalo.

There's s truggle between Kirk and Korby, and some skin is scrapped off the back of Korby's hand. Christine screams. Ba-ba- BUUUUUMMMMM! Korby's an android. Show of hands: who's surprised?

Korby tries to convince them that he's the same dude but Christine isn't buying what he's selling. His impassioned plea is interrupted by an alarm and he pages Andrea to get a weapon and deal with it. She meets New Kirk in the corridor and offers to make out with him. When he refuses on the grounds that it's illogical, she vaporizes his ass. Interesting. We completely skip the "I want to live" speech given by the double this week because... he was offed by another double first.

(Aside: if they need an original person to make an android, and Brown was made from the first Brown, and Korby from the first Korby, where did they get Andrea's "raw materials"? Was she part of Korby's original team? She doesn't seem to have the same... depth as Korby. Korby mentioned that his own "raw materials" were dying when he was "saved". Was the original Andrea already too far gone for soul and consciousness transfer? Was she already dead?)

Andrea bursts in and reports that she killed New Kirk, thinking he was Kirk Classic, and Kirk Classic gets self-righteous on Korby, saying that his image of perfect beings is flawed because his machine men are running around killing others. To prove that he's not a machine, Korby challenges Kirk and Christine to test him, but all he can come up with are computations and transmissions. #androidfail

Feeling broken, Korby gives Kirk his weapon, but Andrea refuses to do the same. In her weird, convoluted way, she tries to tell Korby that she loves him, but he tells her that she is not a human and cannot love. That was kind of a dick move. I feel bad for Andrea. Presumably the first female she's ever met is bitchy to her (though for a good reason); Kirk tries to force himself on her and confuses the hell out of her in the process; and when she admits that she loves a guy, he tells her that she's incapable of such a thing. They kiss, and he pulls the trigger on her weapon, vaporizing them both.

Technically, as an android, you're not capable of love either, you asshole.

Christine sobs. This has been a shitty day for her. She gave up a promising career to join a starship in the hopes of going to the planet where her fiance was last seen. She miraculously finds him only to discover that he is some kind of freakish self-aware robot who makes out with a mechanical geisha before committing suicide in front of her. If that doesn't give you intergalactic PTSD, nothing will.

Back on the bridge, Christine tells Kirk that she's staying with the ship rather than pursuing that aforementioned career. Good. I like Nurse Chapel. She has gumption. Actually, most of the women on this show have some kind of backbone. (Yes, even Rand. Sometimes.)

Spock confronts Kirk about his use of the phrase "half-breed". He calls it an "unsophisticated expression", which is Spock-speak for "You're a douche-weasel, Jim. Don't talk shit about me again or I'll put your head through the communications console."

 They prepare to leave, and I am once again wondering what Kirk's reports back to Starfleet look like. I bet half the time they assume that he made that shit up.

******

This week's tea is Wild Sweet Orange by Tazo Teas. I think it's available in grocery stores. I had mine at an eclectic restaurant known for their cocktails and unusual cuisine. It's not super-heavy, but plenty flavorful. However, if you're looking for a hint of orange flavor, this is not your tea. But I would like to say that it's not Tang, either. I tasted a bit of lemongrass mixed in, and just the right amount of licorice (the right amount being "barely present"). It's available online as well if you can't find the one you want in-store. http://www.starbucksstore.com/tazo-wild-sweet-orange-filterbag-tea/000151598,default,pd.html?&srule=Featured&start=0&sz=16&prefn1=teaForm&prefv1=filter-bag&cm_mmc=Tazocom-_-WhereToBuy-_-BuyOnline-_-Evergreen&cgid=tea