Series Overview for Star Trek: The Animated Series

This week in Trek news, The Shat has his knickers in a twist because the 50th anniversary for Star Trek is coming up, and the people at Paramount and CBS haven't announced plans for anything or contacted him at all. He wants to do some kind of musical. Anybody else see him suddenly trying to snuggle up to Georgie again?

*******

So here we are, doing another series overview, and it seems like that took no time at all. Probably because it didn't. Back in the day, a season was 26 episodes or there abouts, running on approximately the same schedule as the average school year. Then I found out that cartoon shows have a sixteen-episode season, running September through the end of December, and then January through whenever.

In the last few years, a season runs for however long the maker decides it should run, from the traditional 26 episodes, to three episodes. (Seriously: WTF, Sherlock?) Here, we got one and a partial seasons. And that partial season only existed because the show won a Daytime Emmy. 

(TOS won two Hugos and an NAACP award, but the first Star Trek Emmy went to TAS. By contrast, TNG won 19 Primetime Emmy awards over the life of the show, and was nominated for another 39. The comparison I'm giving here is not so much about the qualities of the shows, but an illustration of what happens in the earlier years of a fandom. By the time TNG arrived on the scene, the fandom was fully established, and had received multiple films, as well as having a good presence at conventions. The franchise was doing well, and CBS was willing to throw money at the new show, as opposed to TOS, which kept having its budget cut.) 

So we got 22 episodes, which is less than a typical season of Star Trek, but more than your average Saturday morning cartoon show. We've talked a bit about how we got this show ("kids in space"? whut?), what got nixed right away (Jimmy Doohan doing pretty much all of the voices, Chekov) and what became the status quo (Jimmy Doohan doing all of the voices, Arax at the helm).

Let's look at the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of the Animated Series, shall we?

First up: the animation

Gonna be blunt: the animation sucks. It suffers from low cell count, which is not just a medical issue. When I talk to people about TAS, they either have never heard of it, or didn't bother to watch, because they heard it was terrible. What's terrible is the animation. It was done by the Filmation animation house, which was known for uber-cheap Saturday morning shows (mostly animated, but some live-action as well). There were often times when they recycled shots. For instance...

This is the most common shot of the series. How do I know? It generally shows up once during each episode, sometimes multiple times. Basically, most times when Kirk is talking to Spock on the bridge. 

The second-most common shot?

It's the same shot, with Bones added in. On occasion, someone else will be standing there instead of Bones, but generally, it's Bones. If the trio is chatting on the bridge, this pops up without fail. It was even used in an episode where Spock passes out, and they removed Spock from the extreme left and placed him along the bottom edge. 

The motto at Filmation seems to have been "quantity over quality," though there were definitely times when you can tell that they were trying harder to make better quality stuff. They rotoscoped some parts, which is an inexpensive way of getting decent animation quickly and easily. (Quick description of rotoscoping: tracing. No, I don't consider this to be cheating. Frankly, I don't consider tracing to be cheating ever, but no one needs to know my strong opinions on tracing. They got the job done quickly and cheaply, so I'm not gonna throw stones at it.)

Kirk and Spock's swimming scenes from "The Ambergris Element"
were rotoscoped from episodes of Aquaman, which was also made
by Filmation.

Something else Filmation was known for: long, panning sweeps across terrains or landscapes. There was no actual animation involved (just moving the camera over a static image), so it was inexpensive and killed some time. This absolutely happened in TAS. Often, shots of the Enterprise were used as a background while someone else gave a log recitation, or to just kill time between scenes. More than once, a scene on a planet surface would end, we would go to commercial, and return from break to a shot of the E... sometimes several long seconds of the E. Then we would go right back to the planet again. Sometimes we would get a tiny bit of animation, where the starburst patterns on the front of the engines would spin, but a lot of the time, it was just static shots of the ship.

The places where the animation would be redeemed were definitely the background and establishing shots. I was floored by the artistry of these shots, and often asked myself if I was watching the same show.

"The Ambergris Element"

"The Lorelei Signal"

"Once Upon a Planet"

"The Pirates of Orion"

"The Practical Joker"

"Yesteryear"

Whoever was doing the background and still shots on this show clearly had some skillz - the kind you pay bills with. This was not unusual for Filmation, who seems to have made a regular habit of pairing lovely backgrounds with crap movement. A lot of the credit for that was given to background department head Erv Kaplan, who worked as color director on TAS. (Another TAS alum, as layout artist, is Glen Keane. I'm sure the average reader doesn't care, but I had a squealy fangirl moment when I saw him listed under Mr Kaplan. For those less obsessed with animation than I am, Glen Keane is a lead animator for Disney, and probably animated your favorite Disney film characters.)

The difference between the animated and live shows

There were two things I wondered about going into this series: How would the stories change, and how would the visuals change?

In the first case (story), I wanted to know how a typical Star Trek story could be pared down from 60 minutes to 30. While there is such a thing as a 60-minute animated show, it's not a weekly thing. They generally exist as 30 minutes (weekly show), 60 minutes (holiday specials), and 90 minutes (theatrical release or made-for-tv movies). Why are they always 30 minutes for weekly shows? Because it takes months to produce a hand-drawn, animated show. Theatrical films like Disneys take four years, pre-planning through finish.

So you know that CBS and Filmation were not going to just take whatever completed scripts they had lying around and just animate the action instead. They were also concerned because in moving Star Trek from prime time to Saturday morning, they were banking on an audience of only children. This was not the case, as adult fans of Star Trek were continuing to watch, but now that it was considered to be more "family friendly" certain things were not going to fly.

They could not have Kirk bed every cute alien that came his way.

In the case of Kirk and his extraterrestrial affairs, this went out the window and stayed there, with the exception of one episode: "The Jihad." In the final episode of season one,  a human huntress named Lara suggests to Kirk that they hook up and "make some green memories." Despite her aggressive flirting, Kirk turns her down, and it's actually pretty tame compared to some other Trek fare.

In fact, the only other romantic moment I recall from this series is in the final episode of season two, when Robert April kisses his wife, and it's pretty chaste.

So TAS is TOS minus the overt sexuality.

Okay, what else?

Well, with half the run-time, we missed out on a lot of interpersonal relationship moments. I didn't realize how much I missed the Spock-Bones ribbing until it showed up again, fifteen episodes in, on "The Eye of the Beholder."

Also missed and rarely addressed: the relationships of the bridge crew. There were small moments in TOS where we got to see the others relating to one another without the help of the Golden Trio, and you know they genuinely cared for one another and worked well as a team. There really isn't much of it here, which is a shame, because I kind of liked Arax and I wanted to see how he might have formed friendships with the others. 

Surprisingly, the remainder of the stories stayed intact. They all struck me as very Star Trek, and the plots themselves did not seem to suffer from a lack in time in which to tell them. Some of the unused TOS scripts were even rewritten to fit within the construct of the animated series ("More Tribbles, More Troubles"). True to form, a few of these episodes were fantastic, some really just sucked, but most were okay.

"More Tribbles, More Troubles"

And how about them visuals?

We made out like bandits on the visuals. Because we essentially nixed being uncomfortably close to Kirk's love life, we also ditched most of the ridiculous outfits that the Girl du Jour wears. That's a bit of a mixed bag for me, because while I hated so many of those costumes, I did enjoy making fun of them. But in exchange, we got those gorgeous backgrounds that I was raving about earlier, plus our storytellers were allowed to pretty much write whatever the hell kind of story they wanted, based on the fact that drawing complicated alien cities (and the people that inhabit them) is quicker, easier and cheaper than building the sets and costumes. The Boldly Going was made all the more believable because none of the aliens needed to be humanoid. They didn't even need to breathe air.

Freed from the constraints of a live-action show, Star Trek lost no time in replacing the navigator with an alien with six appendages.

And adding another communications officer.

The very first episode  ("Beyond the Farthest Star") featured not only Arax and M'Ress, but also a ship that could not have been easily produced with models, and a non-humanoid alien.

And they just kept getting better...

"Albatross"

"The Infinite Vulcan"

"The Jihad"

"The Slaver Weapon"

And can we just talk about some of these Gojira-type monsters? Feels like Gene Rod was standing in the background saying, "Can we get bigger? Scarier? More teeth?"

"The Ambergris Element"

"Eye of the Beholder"

"Mudd's Passion"

Variations on this dragon-thing showed up in multiple episodes

"Once Upon a Planet"

"How Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth"

"Yesteryear"

Let's take a look at some actual episodes...

Command Gold Star Awards

"Yesteryear"

Kirk and Spock discover that something has been changed in Spock's timeline, so he uses the Guardian of Forever to go back in time to fix it, posing as his own older cousin. When little Spock runs off in the wilderness to prove himself, his pet sehlat is fatally injured and he makes the tough decision to put him down. The network thought the outcome was too dark and wanted to change it to a happier ending, but Gene Rod put his foot down. He felt to alter it would cheapen the episode and insult the intelligence of the audience. He was right. The episode, though feelsy, is excellent because the ending was allowed to stand.

"The Slaver Weapon"

This is the second time that an episode of Star Trek has felt like a good science fiction story was translated into Star Trek terms (the first being a TOS season one flop, "The Alternative Factor"). The earlier episode felt as though the story existed by itself, and Trek characters had been slotted it. It also translated to a live-action show in the worst way possible. Here, the feeling of solid, non-Trek science fiction is the same, but a better job was done in making the two mesh. Writer Larry Niven had a series of stories with characters similar to Spock, Sulu, and Uhura, and simply altered things to make them fit. In the episode, our trio encounters a hostile race that takes them hostage, and a mysterious weapon with a mind of its own. Three of my favorite characters get to take center stage in an excellent story.

"The Ambergris Element"

This one was not quite as good as the previous two, and it did have some issues, but I like the fact that Star Trek decided to do an episode that featured an underwater environment. It lent itself nicely to several special effects lenses that have been used in other episodes with less success. It has a large monster, a sunken city, and some sketchy surgery that leads to Kirk and Spock living in a large water tank on the E. It ends with a bit of interplanetary politics and some iffy science, but there were more things that I liked about this episode than not.

"Are You High, Star Trek?"

The episodes that I hated the most in this series all seemed to surround stories too off the wall to work, or visuals that looked like bad acid trips.

"Bem"

Some a-hole alien is onboard the E, observing how Starfleet operates in action. He gets them kidnapped by hostile Prime Directive aliens, and is later revealed to be a "colony creature" or, lots of dudes stacked one on top of another, like Vincent Adultman from Bojack Horseman. From the start, I hated Bem. Not only is he a complete dick from the start, but them he breaks into different parts to pick-pocket Kirk and Spock, setting them up to fail in the freakiest way ever. I wanted to punch Bem the whole time. Even at the end, when he suggested that he commit his people's version of suicide.

"The Infinite Vulcan"

I really tried to like this one. I really did. It's written by our beloved Chekov, and it starts out pretty good. But it was plagued by constant rewrites, and Gene Rod bugging Walter Koenig to include things that he wanted. What we ended up with was two stories stitched oddly together.

The E ends up on a planet inhabited by plant people. They have mostly died out due to plague, but were rescued by some human dude who turns out to be one of those meglo-maniacal assholes from Khan's sleeper ship. He intends to use the plant people as his army, and will wage war over the galaxy. But first he kidnaps Spock and makes a giant copy to use as some kind of general or some shit. This episode was a mess. I look forward to getting Chekov back and never having to watch "The Infinite Vulcan" again.

"The Magicks of Megas-Tu"

This is my least favorite episode of this series. They wanted to do a story about the E meeting God, which had been pitched to TOS and nixed by the network, so they tried it again for TAS. Also nixed. But the network said they could meet the Devil. And thus did this episode become "the one where they meet the Devil." So why do I hate this episode? It's ridiculous, start to finish. The E encounters some hole in space or something, which is then followed by several minutes of visual vomit that probably are really cool when viewed on mushrooms. The crew meets the Devil. Then it turns out that his people are aliens who went to Earth a long time ago, and were then put on trial in Salem for witchcraft. The E crew is then put on trial as well. The whole thing is just awful.

So what's the bottomest of the Bottom Lines?

Again, when I mention this show to people, they either don't remember it, or think it's awful and don't bother to watch the whole thing. It could for one of many reasons, or it could be all of them. Its differences to TOS and its descendants may point to the reason why no one watches this series:

- It was relegated to Saturday mornings, so unless you were a fan of the original, were a kid at the time, or made the time to tune in then, you probably didn't see it.

- The animation sucks. Like, a lot. Trust me, I do not watch shitty animation, and if your show boasts a low cell count, I will turn it off. So I understand that complaint.

- The animated series was denounced as canon at the end of season one TNG, despite the fact that some of that TAS canon was cherry-picked to keep. However, in 2006 it was reinstated as canon. The idea doesn't seem to have taken right away, but things mentioned in TAS started showing up in Voyager and Enterprise, and it is considered canon by Memory Alpha, the Star Trek wiki.

"Soooo, should I watch this, or what?"

YES!

Despite the shitty animation quality, the stories are just shorter Star Trek faire, often with the same kinds of themes and campiness. Guest stars from TOS episodes pop up from time to time, including Mark Lenard as Sarek and Roger Carmel as Harcourt Fenton Mudd, There are some irksome things (why does Spock become the Magic Vulcan?), but it retains most of the charm of the original series,  is good for a few laughs here and there, and includes some scenarios that would not have been possible on TOS.

If you want to skip the crap and just view the best of the animated series, check out "The Slaver Weapon" and "Yesteryear," as those seem to get the best reviews across the board. Everything else gets mixed reviews at best, and be sure to check out my votes for worst if you're in the mood to scream "WTF, Star Trek?" at your viewscreen.

Next week we start films, so grab your popcorn, because that shit is a roller coaster.

*******

So a few weeks ago when I bought that first Teas' Tea, I bought another flavor, the green tea. I was excited. I love green tea. Much like "The Infinite Vulcan," I wanted to like this tea. I really did. But it was not good. Being that it was unsweetened, I added sugar. That did not help.

"Oh, that's my favorite tea," said Roomie cheerfully.

"It's gross," I reported.

"I'll take the rest," she volunteered.

She took a pull... then she pulled a face. "That doesn't taste right. Maybe it's a bad bottle."

Bottle looked fine. She drank the rest and did not get sick, so we guessed it had not gone bad.

This week I bought another bottle from a different store entirely.

I took a sip. "Same. Not good."

"Bad batch?" suggested Roomie. "New recipe?"

"Possibly," I replied. "Either/or. Do I keep buying bottles at different stores, hoping that someday it'll taste better?"

"Dunno," said Roomie.

So, I don't recommend this week's tea. Maybe it is just a bad batch and I'll get a good bottle later. I really don't have a good answer.

http://www.teastea.com/

Uhura and Bratty

ST:TS Season Two, Episode Two "Bem"

"Bem"
Air Order: 18
Star Date: 7403.6
Original Air Date: September 14, 1974

So last week I was "sick" in that my mouth hurt so bad that I wanted to kick a puppy in the times between being medicated. I was not having any of Kirk's shit, but more than that, I couldn't stand the thought of spending hours with Bem again. I'm gonna go ahead and spoil this for you right now: Bem is the Jar-Jar Binks of Star Trek. Only where Jar-Jar was dumber than a bag of rocks, Bem is smug as fuck. Like more smug than when the Enterprise encounters some smart alien race and they tell Kirk that humans are stupid, and smug Spock smugly agrees. Seriously. Try to watch this episode without shaking your viewing device in frustration. I dare you.

*******

Kirk's Log 7403.6: "We're doing our thing out in space, but now we have this observer dude with us, Ari Bn Bem. He's from the planet Pandro. Right now, we're gonna do a check-out-and-check-in mission for Starfleet on this planet called Delta Theta III, which has primitive people living there."

There's a brief scene in the conference room where Kirk tells the away team that they're mostly there to plant monitoring devices and then GTFO. They don't want to do anything risky, and if anything goes wrong, they need to beam up right away. They agree, and head to the transporter room.

Bem is surprisingly at the transporter controls. He and Kirk get into an argument.

"Um, hey, Bem," says Kirk. "You wanna tell me what you're doing here?"

"This one has decided to accompany the away mission," replies Bem. 

That's how he talks. First person, but never "I, me, mine." He refers to himself as "this one." It gets old quickly.

"Yeah, no," says Kirk. "You were supposed to be observing us, and you've been hanging out in your quarters for the last six missions. Now you wanna come on this hella dangerous mission? Naw, bro. You stay here."

But Bem manages to talk him into it, and when Scotty steps forward to set the coordinates, Bem says he already did it. Dude has been fucking with the transporter equipment. Scotty confirms that coordinates have been set, and he decides that it's good enough, so they all hop on the pads and some Red works the transporter.

So they materialize on a cliff face. Or rather Scotty, Sulu and Bem do. Kirk and Spock materialize in thin air, and fall into the water below. So friends: who was the asshole here? Bem for setting those shitty coordinates, or Scotty for approving them? Gonna say both, cuz while I like Scotty, he had one job here.

Somehow, even though Kirk and Spock have materialized in the
same spots, Scotty, Sulu and Bem have all switched places.

So Bem hops in the water and immediately offers to help them. And - are you paying attention? - while he's offering assistance, this motherfucker splits in two, and his legs pickpocket Kirk and Spock. Do you know how stupid I feel typing that sentence? I wish I was shitting you, but I can tell you with certainty that this is bullshit.

Bem's legs have arms and hands. He has hands in his pants at all times.
I'm having a hard time not making alien masturbation jokes.

Out of the water, Kirk lectures Bem about not dicking around with the transporter. Uhura calls to say that Arax has found something like a stasis field off to the west of where they are. They discuss whether it's the primitives, or something more technologically advanced, or just some kind of environmental thing. They decide to check it out.

While walking, Bem says he senses someone else nearby, and Kirk says they need to avoid the natives, but then Bem turns and runs the fuck off.

Sigh.

So Kirk tells Scotty and Sulu to stay put with the equipment while he and Spock run after their errant observer. Babysitting. They are babysitting this dumb alien, and the motherfucker runs off like some shitty kid in a supermarket.

Bem runs ahead, and when he hits some brier, what does he do? He breaks into pieces. Again. And his parts float through the foliage.

He pulls himself together on the other side, so that when Kirk and Spock arrive at the brier, they can see him whole again and running away.

"The fuck?" asks Kirk. "I don't know how he got there, but we have to go around."

They do, and guess what they find on the other side?

Bem has been taken hostages by the natives, who are like, pink Gorns or something.

"Looks like a food-gathering party," says Spock.

"And the food they've gathered... is Bem!"

Dramatic music and commercial break!

... but who gives a shit? That guy was annoying and robbed you outright. Leave him the hell behind. Say he unwisely went on an away mission and ran away and got himself killed. Are the diplomatic proceedings with this guy's race so important that you'd really put up with this crap?

Upstairs, Uhura calls Scotty to let the away party know that the stasis field thing is expanding. Scotty reports that Bem took the fuck off, and that Kirk and Spock ran after him. Uhura says she can't raise either men. (Hint: it's because that bag of dicks and his detachable legs replaced their comms and phasers with non-working units.) She says that she's going to have to beam Scotty and Sulu back.

"No way," says Scotty. "We can find them."

"Bitch, did I stutter?" she asks. "Those weren't the orders given, and in case you forgot, I'm sitting in the big chair this week, so you and Sulu are coming back."

Scotty gives in because he knows it's futile to argue with the Ship Goddess.

She beams them back.

Meanwhile, Kirk is trying to raise the E through comms that don't work because that asshole Bem swapped them out for dummies. Spock examines those and the phasers and declares them to be excellent, non-working copies.

"The hell?" asks Kirk. "We've had these on us since we beamed down."

"We could go get Scotty," suggests Spock.

"Naw, those natives are hauling off Bem, and we have to follow them so we can rescue him, even though he's a giant dickasaurus who sabotaged this mission by running off into the forest."

So they follow the natives, which is good, because Scotty isn't there, anyway.

They stop outside the natives' settlement to check it out. Bem is in this primitive little wooden cage in the center of town.

Kirk and Spock wait until nightfall to go break Bem out. But the little dillhole tells them that they're fucking up all of the shit, that he got himself kidnapped on purpose to observe the locals.

"That's bullshit," says Kirk.

It is bullshit. Dude spent six previous missions hanging out in his quarters, then picks a dangerous observation mission to join the away team, sabotages it, and gets himself kidnapped. Because he says he's observing the natives. 

I thought you were supposed to be observing the Enterprise, you douchecanoe.

So Kirk and Spock get caught springing Bem, because he decided to argue with them, and now everyone has his very own primitive cage.

The conversation that follows is the most meta discussion that has ever occurred on this show.

"I assume that's a rhetorical question, Captain, not requiring an answer," responds Spock.

"I was just expressing my curiosity at our ability to get into the kind of situations," Kirk muses.

"Fate, Captain. Fate."

Yeah, no. Generally, it's because Kirk barreled into something without checking first. But sure, go with fate if it makes you feel better.

Kirk then suggests that Spock try to get them out of this mess using the Vulcan nerve pinch.

"I'm just a Vulcan," he replies. "I have limits."

Okay, so once again, a character (usually Kirk) suggests that the magical alien Spock can fix something with his alien powers. And so far in the animated series, the writers have responded by having Spock do something miraculous and magical. But here, he shuts that shit down: he isn't going to sprout some power that he's never had before and will never have again.

Thank you, episode. That doesn't make up for you forcing us to spend 25 minutes with Bem, but if we could work it in more that Spock isn't some kind of Vulcan wizard, that would make me a much happier viewer.

Kirk tells Bem that it doesn't look like they'll be able to rescue him, and Bem responds by being a bigger dickwad than before.

"You're a shitty captain. Starfleet said you were the best. My people are going to be pissed off."

"Bitch, you got us into this!" Kirk yells. "You took off, you didn't listen to orders, and I'm pretty fucking sure that you replaced our tech with fakes!"

"Fuck yeah, I did," says Bem. "You rely on those too much."

"I could fix this shit if I had them!" Kirk argues.

"Calm your tits," replies Bem. "I have them." He pulls the real comms and phasers out of his pocket.

"If you had them," growls Kirk, "why didn't you fucking use them? We could have gotten out of this mess!"

"I don't like violence," says Bem smugly. "But if you guys want to demean yourselves, then go for it."

And his fucking legs deliver the comms and phasers to Kirk.

"Dude," says Spock. "That guy is a colony creature."

Again, Kirk is pissed off. "If you could do that, why didn't you escape?"

"Why would I deprive you of the opportunity to rescue me and prove your value to my people?" asks Bem.

THIS ASSHOLE THINKS THAT THIS IS OKAY.

"Bitch, that is not okay!" yells Kirk. "You can't just randomly test people like that on dangerous planets inhabited by primitive people! So arresting you when we get back to the E!"

And he phasers his way out of the cage.

Upstairs, Arax has been scanning for Kirk and Spock, but can't find them. Uhura says that the weird stasis field anomaly thing has now expanded to cover the whole northern continent, and no scanning that they do will be able to get through that mess.

Downstairs, Kirk and Spock have determined that they aren't getting out of here without being seen, so they set phasers to stun just in case. The natives notice them out of the cages, and there's a pause before anyone does anything.

There there are some flashing lights and the disembodied voice of Nichelle Nichols says, "Dude, no violence."

So everyone is frozen in stasis, and the voice tells them that they are not going to inflict violence on her "children." She asks who they are, and Kirk introduces them. (This is actually the first time that he says that his middle name is Tiberius. I guess it was established in the Star Trek writer's guide several seasons earlier, but not mentioned until now.) She asks what they're doing there.

"We're checking this planet out, to classify it," he replies.

This pisses her off. "The fuck? You can't classify my planet! I'm taking your weapons!"

The phasers disappear.

They're surrounded by natives.

"At times like these," says Kirk, "I think I should have been a librarian."

"The job of librarian is no less challenging," replies Spock.

As someone who has been a librarian, I would like to offer Mr Spock a high-five.

The natives grab Kirk and Spock by the arms, and that little shit Bem grins. I have to remind myself that I need my laptop for other things, and that punching the screen is not an appropriate way for me to express what a nasty little motherfucker this guy is.

Upstairs, Scotty asks Arax if he's found Kirk and Spock yet.

Arax responds with a wordy reply that sounds heavily military-based and would not be out of order in keeping with Starfleet lingo.

"What'd he say?" asks Uhura.

"I think he said maybe," Scotty replies.

It's actually a pretty good joke.

Scotty issues the command to put together an away team with phaser rifles.

Back on the farm, our heroes and their accompanying dickpunch are back in the wooden cages.

"You fucked up all the shit again," Bem tells Kirk. "You're an idiot."

"Yeah, well, you're a dickpunch," Kirk replies. "And I only came back here to rescue you because I wanted to keep the diplomatic lines open with Pandro. I don't actually like you."

"Meh, Pandro doesn't give a shit about me," Bem responds. "But they do care that you fucked up all the shit."

And he disassembles like some kind of grotesque living Lego minifig, and walks right out of the cage again.

"Bye, Felicia." And he takes off.

"Maybe we can contact that disembodied voice and talk it into letting us go," suggests Spock.

Kirk gets out his communicator, which is weird, considering the fact that I'm pretty sure that he could just yell into space for her, and she'd talk to him. They didn't need communicators before.

It doesn't work. Spock suggests connecting the two communicators to boost the signal, and he tries again.

This time he raises her.

"So, hey, we're gonna leave and not come back. We didn't know this planet was under your protection. Our bad. Cool?"

"Yeah, cool," replies the voice.

She unlocks the stasis field anomaly-thing, and he calls Uhura, asking for an away team to beam down with tricorders set to scan for Pandronian lifesigns.

They beam down and let Kirk and Spock out.

"Look for that asshole Bem," Kirk tells the Reds. "He's probably in three parts."

"Say fucking what?" asks Scotty.

"Yeah, also, don't hurt the natives. We have to get Bem and go."

So the natives have Bem, and they don't really want to let him go. The Reds have to shoot their phasers at them to get them to release Bem.

"Um, I fucked up all of the shit," says Bem quietly. "I feel kind of dumb."

"Agreed!" says Kirk. "You did indeed fuck up all the shit, and on a planet that we're declaring as Prime Directive protected."

The voice and lights come back.

"The hell? You said you were leaving. I'm pretty pissed off that you're still here."

"Yeah, we're going," says Kirk. "We couldn't leave this asshole behind, because he's our responsibility, and because he'd continue to fuck up all of your shit."

"Good," says the voice. "GTFO."

"I feel like shit," says Bem. "I was supposed to judge you guys, but it turns out I was the one who sucked ass here. I should disassemble, and not be joined together anymore."

"Um, are you suggesting suicide, kind of?" asks Kirk.

"No, don't," says the voice. "If you fuck up all of the shit, then kill yourself, then you won't learn from your mistake."

"I shouldn't be punished?" he asks.

"Nope," she replies. "Punishment is for lesser beings. Now seriously, get the hell out of here. You're talking about stuff that my children are not ready to hear, and you're going to further fuck up their development."

Back on the E, Kirk instructs Sulu to take them out of orbit, and that they should classify this planet as quarantined. Spock thinks it's interesting that a higher intelligence is guiding another race into development, like a god. I don't know why he's in such awe. It's not like they haven't seen this before. It is, in fact, almost exactly like "The Apple".

The voice contacts Uhura, and she puts it on the PA: "Go in peace."

"Cool," says Kirk, and they leave.

So I managed to make it all the way to the end of this episode twice without punching my screen, which is excellent. At least Bem actually admits to being a giant asshole at the end, though it really doesn't make up for the fact that I had to sit through most of an episode of his smug bullshit. 

You know what's crazy? They had considered this story for season one of the live-action show. I don't know if the colony creature aspect existed in the script then, but I have no idea how they'd even attempt disassembling on camera. My guess is that that part was added when they were like, "We can do anything with animation, so lets make a guy who can take himself apart, and float in different directions!" Honestly, in order to prove that the writers for this show were on drugs, all I would need were stills from this episode and the one where they meet the devil.

I kind of hope that Bem returned to Pandro, and they laughed in his face. "You were arrested by the starship captain that you were supposed to be observing? No, some random disembodied voice does not have jurisdiction here, and we're disassembling you. Bye, Felicia."

*******

So my friend is doing this "Snacktober" thing, and I thought I'd get in on it. I'm not as dedicated to it as he is, but I figured I could add in one just to be fun. I saw one of those "secret Starbucks menu" articles about butterbeer frappuccinos, and I was curious, so I went in and asked for one. they aren't trained to make those, so you have to give them the recipe. It has a frappuccino base, toffee nut syrup, caramel syrup, whipped cream, and more caramel on top, so if you don't like sweet drinks, it's to be avoided. if you do, try one - it's excellent!

I think the recipe is different if you want a hot one. Googling should bring it up.

http://starbuckssecretmenu.net/starbucks-secret-menu-butterbeer-frappuccino/

"What nip? I wasn't playing with nip!"