Season 1, Episode 16.5 "The Menagerie, Part 2"

"The Menagerie, Part 2"
Production Number: 16
Air Order: 12
Stardate: 3013.1
Original Air Date: November 24, 1966

I come from a service family, so I'd like to give a shout out to friends and family who have been in the service, have given their lives to the service, or are still in the service.

And a poppy for our mates across the pond

*******

So a lot of people argue whether this two-part episode is one episode or two. The DVD lists both parts as production number 16, which is certainly true, because both halves of the envelope were shot at the same time, and then edited together. But one could also argue that it is two, as together, it is two hours long, and required two one-hour blocks to view on television. Frankly, given that it's one episode, split in two, and enhanced with other scenes, one could also make a decent argument for it being three episodes. But just to illustrate how few fucks I give, and to make the blog easier to access and read in order, I'm labeling this episode as 16.5. Deal with it.
So in case you missed last week's post and are too lazy to scroll down and read it for yourself, here's the low-down:
Gene Rod and Co had a budget so tiny you couldn't find it with an electron microscope, and they were forced to utilize the un-aired original pilot episode, which had a completely different crew, and would make no sense when set within the rest of the series. So they cut it in half, wrote some scenes to go around the old material, and made two episodes very cheaply. It's brilliant in both story and budget.
So for the story, Spock has quasi-kidnapped the previous captain of the Enterprise, who is now a  thinking vegetable after being injured while rescuing orphans from a burning building. Spock has also hijacked the Enterprise to take this captain - Christopher Pike - to the planet Talos IV. To go to Talos IV rates one the death penalty within Starfleet, so dude is risking both his career and his neck by doing so. Kirk and a commodore - Jose Mendez - catch up with him and begin to court martial Spock. Spock's testimony for these deeds is shown on a projector in the make-shift courtroom, and is, in fact, footage from that original pilot. When we left off, the Enterprise was still under Spock's control, still hurtling toward Talos IV, and Spock's fate (along with Pike's) rests in the hands of Kirk and Mendez.
*A side note: the un-aired full-length pilot, "The Cage" was aired on television in 1986 under the production number "episode 0", creating a third chronology within the series... because they really didn't hate me enough.

*******

Kirk's Personal Log (because he's been relieved of duty by Starfleet command) 3013.1: Kirk recaps last week's episode, scarcely believing that Spock would act in that way. Mendez is butthurt because Starfleet has ordered no contact with Talos IV, but Spock tells him to suck it up because the Talosians have control over the screen.

We pick up on the broadcast where Pike awakens to find himself in a glass enclosure underground. An elevator in front of his case opens, and some Talosians get out.

I have to mention here what sound the elevator makes when it opens and closes. Do you remember those storybooks for kids that came with records or tapes or CDs or whatever they come with these days, that would read the story to you as you followed along? Do you remember when, at the beginning, the narrator explains that "You'll know it is time to turn the page when you hear the chimes ring like this"? THAT IS THE SOUND THE ELEVATOR DOORS MAKE. THIS MAKES ME IRRATIONALLY HAPPY, AND I DON'T KNOW WHY. Nostalgia is a powerful drug, kids. Yay, storybook chimes!

Wait, I'm digressing: Talosians approaching Pike in the mime box. He's pretty pissed off, and he tells them who he is and that his ship is on Talos IV peacefully. Instead of answering, they communicate telepathically, calling him stupid, and admitting that they lured him in (like a pike, ha!), and trapped him there under an illusion. Of course Pike can hear all of this, because we're using this convo to establish that the Talosians are douchecanoes. They guess what he'll do before he does it, talking about him as though he wasn't there. Then they mention an "experiment".

In the briefing room, the crew gathers to discuss the situation. The surface of the planet is too barren to support life, so the crew is guessing that the Talosians live underground. They also guess exactly what the Talosians admitted to Pike, about reading human minds and creating illusions from them. A young gold shirt with an engineering badge suggests putting the might of the ship behind them to blast through the door in the mountain. The first officer Number One pretty much tells him to Make It So. Number One is a badass. Did I mention that? Yes? Well, not enough. I would totally follow her on an away mission. I would even wear a fucking red shirt, despite the fact that this crew does not wear red.

Down on Talos IV, the Talosians are watching Pike on a monitor, because Pike must never do anything that isn't witnessed by at least one or more people. So far, this episode is like a living Rococo painting. The Talosians see the recent Rigel VII mission and decide to recreate it. The background shifts behind Pike, and he's back on the surface of Rigel, which is played by this awesome matte painting.

A girl runs up to him, frantic that they need to get inside the fortress, and she tries to pull him there.

"WTF?" says Pike. "This was like, two weeks ago! Am I still in that damn cage?"

We switch briefly back to Spock, who confirms that the Talosians control Pike's brain and can create any illusion they want, using any or all of his senses. Make a note of this, kids: the Talosians run The Matrix.

Thirteen-years-ago Pike recognizes the girl in the Matrix as being Vina, the crash survivor. A giant scary dude in fur comes out of the fortress, and he and Pike engage in hand-to-hand combat. (I don't know why the execs complained that there was not enough action. We almost got Ripped-Shirt Pike here.) So the costumes are awesome, the sets look hella good, and even the music sounds more expensive. I can totally see why the network execs said "This is fantastic, but way too pricey."

The furry dude goes after Vina, and Pike kills it, only to have the Matrix melt away into the cage again. Vina is in the cage with him, wearing this cute-as-hell dress that I'd totally wear. They're being watched by Matrix agents Talosians.

The screen in the Enterprise  courtroom shuts off, and Spock explains that the Talosians can sense that vegetable Pike is tired, and are concerned about him. I'd like to point out that it was mostly just a good place to put a commercial, but they worked it in as motivation in the plot. Slow clap, writers. Slow clap.

Kirk's Personal Log 3013.2: I guess Pike took a nap or something, because he appears rested. Somebody probably watched him sleep, too. Anyway, the Enterprise is only an hour out from Talos IV.

Getting back to caged Pike, he asks Vina if she's real. "As real as you want me to be," she answers, but he calls her on that shit. She continues to try to sell him on the idea of having any dream he wants, as though she's got them all stashed in a giant trench coat that she's wearing. He asks if there's any way he can keep the Talosians from reading his mind, but Vina keeps her trap shut.

Meanwhile, Number One and some crew members are outside setting up a laser cannon. They turn the cannon on full-blast using power from the E, and shoot at the door in the side of the mountain. There's a cool bit of animated effects here, but the door remains intact. Dr Boyce* suggests that they blasted through it, but the Talosians have implanted the suggestion that they haven't.

(* Last week I identified the doctor from The Cage as being Dr Royce, which I got from the subtitles on the DVD. This is incorrect. He is listed on IMDB and in The Star Trek Encyclopedia as Dr Boyce. My bad.)

Pike and Vina strike a deal - if she answers some questions, he might pick a fantasy that they could act out together. Vina reveals that the Talosians can't make him do what he doesn't want to do, and that he can be punished for lack of cooperation. She says the Talosians moved underground hundreds of thousands of years earlier, when the surface was destroyed by war. It was over this time that they developed their mental capabilities. But their own dreams became stale enough to start a zoo of sorts, where they could relive and feel right along with their specimens. Pike correctly guesses that they need a matching pair of humans to start their own family unit. The head Talosian (Agent Smith) comes in as Vina is admitting that she's human, and they are meant to be Adam and Eve. Oops. Said too much. She screams "Don't punish me!" as she disappears.

Pike is trying to figure out how to break out of the menagerie later when a vial appears at his feet. Agent Smith (using his mouth this time) tells him that it's a "nourishing protein complex". He tells Pike to drink up or he'll be punished. Smith flexes his atrophied muscles, and suddenly Pike is surrounded by fire, his arms covered in what is either maggots or cooked oatmeal. Either way, it's pretty clear that it sucks to be him just then.

"I was hoping for the kind in the packets with the freeze-dried fruit!"

Pike grudgingly drinks the substance, then runs at the glass of the cage. Smith jumps back and Pike guesses that primitive emotions block mental telepathy. Smith leaves and the Matrix shifts again. Pike is back home, in a clearing with some horses, a picnic lunch, and a freshly-punished Vina. He keeps trying to wheedle info from her, and she keeps trying to make small talk about the weather and living inside dreams. He asks if primitive emotions block thoughts, and she admits that they do, but that it's not possible to keep it up. Girlfriend has been here for 18 years and tried it all. Now she's totally broken it, saddled and looking for a rider. Whether she's fishing for sympathy to win him over, or she actually does feel badly about it, it's effective. He feels for her, and says he's attracted to her. The thing is, the Talosians read her mind long ago, and selected him based off of her thoughts about the perfect man. Then she wonders out loud if he's not buying into the dream thing because  Rigel VII and home are both "been there, done that" situations for him.

Check this out: detailed foreground, cool painted backdrop, and actual horses. In the series that followed, with it's tiny budget, those horses would have been stagehands in horse costumes.

So the voyeuristic Talosians waves their hands and now Pike is an Orion trader. His fellow traders are skeevy, like casting directors with super-comfy couches. And there's Vina, dark-haired and green, as the Orion slave girl, dancing rhythmically to the music. It's probably one of the most often cosplayed female characters, right up there with bikini-top Princess Leia. Pike clearly wants her, and his fellow traders are pretty much egging him on to give into the Talosians.

He leaves out of frustration, and finds himself back in his cage. Green Vina appears behind him, and her look isn't so much "come hither" as it is "praying mantis."

Upstairs, Number One confidently gathers her team. "This could suck a lot," she says, "so if you want to stay here, no one will give you shit later." She's awesome, so no one backs out. But when they try to beam down, only she and a ginger female disappear. The Talosians have beamed them both into Pike's cage, and left the sausage fest behind on the transporter pads. Vina, now blonde and people-colored again, is hella pissed. She knows what's up. Pike isn't taking to her like the Talosians wanted, so they're presenting him with alternatives. Dude, I'd be pissed, too. "We found you the perfect man, but he doesn't seem interested, so we're giving him to some other chicks instead."

(Side thought: what if Vina had turned out to be a lesbian? "Find me the perfect woman to take as a mate. Then go out and find us the perfect donor man." The Talosians would have been so fucked. This thought makes me laugh so hard.)

Pike rips open the away mission jacket of the ginger girl, and she seems surprised. Don't lie, you were, too. We all thought he was gonna pull a Kirk. But he grabs her phaser instead, which doesn't work. Vina starts a bitch fight with the new girls, declaring the ginger to be stupid, and implying Number One is a computer. The irony of that line is delicious, as the actress playing Number One (Majel Barrett) provided the voice of pretty much every computer on pretty much everything attached to the name Star Trek. Smith comes in and tells Pike that he now has more selection with Number One and the ginger girl.

Smith says that Number One would give Pike super-smart kids, and that the ginger girl has "unusually strong female drives" and has recently decided that Pike is do-able. That must seriously suck for the ginger girl. It is not cool for a telepathic alien to announce to the whole cage that you are DTF. Tact: the Talosians lack it. Pike tries to block his thoughts with hate (probably because he's imaging a four-way), and Agent Smith punishes him. In the corner, Vina facepalms.

I think this might be the first recorded ST facepalm. It has since been perfected over the years...

Later, everyone in the cage is sitting around apathetically when Smith slides a panel in the wall open to collect their phasers. Pike grabs him and tries to throttle him, but Smith becomes what I can only describe as South Park's ManBearPig.

The Talosian threatens to destroy the Enterprise. Pike tries to blast a hole through the glass cage to no avail. He then turns the phaser on Smith and asks if he actually blasted a hole in the glass but Smith has covered it with an illusion. "Maybe," says Smith, and the blasted hole appears. They escape with Smith in tow.

The screen goes unexpectedly blank, and the court decides to take the opportunity to vote Spock guilty. Dramatic music! Commercial break!

The bridge calls Mendez to let him know they are orbiting Talos IV. Spock tells him the Talosians control the ship now. The screen comes on again.

Pike and the others come through the elevator on the mountain, where they now see that the laser cannon worked. Smart, smart Dr Boyce was right.

"Haha! We wanted you up here!" says Smith. "Now pick a bitch, hit that thing, and then get your asses downstairs to bring up plants to reclaim the planet's surface."

Damn. They have to be zoo specimens and help build their own cage.

"That's bullshit," says Number One. She sets her phaser to overload.

"Wow, okay," says Smith. "Hadn't banked on you choosing death over liberty. You're no good to use in our menagerie. GTFO."

"You're shitting me," says Pike. I guess that was all it took.

Smith tries to give him some kind of "you've doomed our race!" guilt trip, which doesn't make much sense to me, but Pike shrugs it off. 

"Let's get the hell out of dodge," he says.

The make-up budget for this episode must have been awesome. The head Talosian had air bladders just under the skin of the "skull cap" (ha!) to inflate and collapse to show that he was thinking very hard.

Number One and the ginger beam back to the Enterprise. Pike offers to take Vina, but she refuses, and time-lapse photography shows us that Vina is old and deformed. She was an adult when the ship crashed, the only survivor, but the Talosians had never seen a human before, and rebuilt her into FrankenVina.

Upstairs, Pike beams aboard. He tells his crew that Vina has a right to stay where she is, with her glamour intact, and they leave.

The screen goes blank. Kirk thinks for a moment, then turns to Mendez, who promptly disappears.

"Dafuq?" says Kirk.

Agent Smith comes onscreen to tell Kirk that Mendez was an illusion both on the Enterprise and on the shuttlecraft. Essentially, Kirk has been talking to himself for two days. That's fucked up. Smith says that the fake court martial seemed like a good enough distraction while they took over his ship.

Kirk is pretty pissed. "Spock, what the hell? You couldn't just explain? I mean, shit - I'm reckless enough to just agree to go along with it!"

"Naw, cuz then you'd be put to death, too," says Spock.

Then, in what can only be described as fucking convenient, Uhura patches through to read off a message from Mendez at Starbase 11. Given the historical information and Pike's current situation, they've decided to okay Pike's transfer to Talos IV, and nobody will get into trouble. Spock receives no court martial, Gryffindor wins the house cup, and the USS Mary Sue triumphs again.

Spock takes Pike to the transporter room, and far too soon for the transfer to have taken place, Pike is shown on the screen as whole again, going into the mountain with with a young, beautiful Vina.

In The Cage, Pike sees Vina go into the mountain with an illusion of himself, which will keep her happy. In this way, kindness is being shown to Vina. In The Menagerie, Pike is beamed down to become an illusion himself with Vina, and the kindness is done to both of them. 

Agent Smith bids Kirk a kind farewell, and all is right in that corner of the universe.

*******

Today's killer artwork is "Vina (The Longing)" by Isabel Samaras

http://astrocat.com/samaras/new_vina.html

I like that she's holding a photo of Pike. 

Can't afford a Samaras painting? You should get her book "On Tender Hooks", then you can have lots of her paintings!

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/listing/2689813795815?r=1&cm_mmca2=pla&cm_mmc=GooglePLA-_-Book_25To44-_-Q000000633-_-2689813795815

Or, if you're stupid-broke like me, you can get a postcard book. Take them out, tack them up on your wall, and when people ask about it say "I'm an art patron."

http://www.amazon.com/On-Tender-Hooks-30-Postcards/dp/0811866254

*******

And now it's time for a rousing round of "Are You As Awesome As Uhura?"

Champion Uhura

Are you moderately attractive? +1

Are you good at your job? +1

Are you a team player? +1

Do you have a innate sense of style? +1

Do you have a talent? +1

Are you immune to Damsel in Distress Syndrome? +1

Are you sane? +1

The score to beat is lucky number 7.

Challenger Number One

Are you moderately attractive?  Yep. She's a bit like Vivien Leigh - classic beauty, with slight Bitchy Resting Face. Also, Majel Barrett is foxier with dark hair, IMHO. For evidence, please access files for Lwaxanna Troi. +1

Are you good at your job?  Hells yeah! +1

Are you a team player? Runs that shit, but accepts suggestions from other crew members. +1

Do you have a innate sense of style? Rocks those Starfleet-issue pants and cowl-necked sweater. +1

Do you have a talent? Leadership skillz. Pike trusts her to run the ship while he's gone. +1

Are you immune to Damsel in Distress Syndrome? She actually offers her away team an opportunity to back out if they need to, while making it clear that she will not. +1

Are you sane? Absolutely. +1

Congratulations, Number One! You are as awesome as Uhura! Unfortunately your prize, as dictated by television executives, is to be demoted to ship's nurse. *sad trombone*

*******

This week's tea came from the Adagio Juicy Slices Sampler ( http://www.adagio.com/teabags/juicy_slices.html ). I tried the Citrus Green green tea, which is available on it's own as well.

http://www.adagio.com/teabags/citrus_green.html

So the tea is pretty light, but the citrus is pretty refreshing. It very loudly says LEMON & LIME, but it's heavier on the lime than lemon, which I liked. (I dunno, sometimes lemon seems super-cliche when it comes to tea. Also: lime kicks ass.) Try this if you enjoy green teas, and when you want something a little less delicate than a white tea.

Season 1, Episode 16 "The Menagerie, Part 1"

"The Menagerie, Part 1"
Production Number: 16
Air Order: 11
Stardate: 3012.4
Original Air Date: November 17, 1966

So it's no secret that I have a love/hate relationship with the budget for this show. It was small enough that the production crew had to get creative. Sometimes the effect was good (in order to make it seem as though there were far more people on board, when there was some sort of crash or accident occurred, voices from "other parts of the ship" would "report in" with damages and casualties). Sometimes it was not ( all of the walls of the Enterprise are smooth and the same color so that they could be moved and swapped out, making the ship look less like a space vessel and more like a government office full of cubicles). And then there's "The Menagerie", one of the best uses of making the most of a tiny budget that I have ever seen. It's fucking genius. Budget, you is a sexy beast.

So here's the lowdown: Gene Rod wanted to make a weekly sci-fi show, and the network execs said it couldn't be done cheaply enough. So he ran off and wrote several scripts to prove them wrong. "The Cage" was selected and filmed. It featured a "wagon train to the stars" theme, with a starship called Enterprise, a captain called Christopher Pike, a female Number One, and a half-Vulcan science officer, Mr Spock. The story revolved around the ship visiting a mysterious planet, and the captain being kidnapped by aliens. It was pretty. It was thought-provoking. It was... still too expensive.
"No thanks," said the execs. "But could you make another?"
They had a list:
- Less expensive... by a lot.
- Ditch the guy with the ears.
- Ditch the female Number One.
- Less talk, more action.

Quite a bit had to be sacrificed to trim the budget down to pretty much pennies each week, which meant they would have to get creative, and also ask their audience to make the stretch with them that this show was set in outer space in the future. They wanted more action, more fight scenes, and less talking and introspective moments. This seems to be a compromise: we ended up with Ripped-Shirt Kirk, but the story usually includes something to make the audience go hmmmm. "Ditch the female Number One. A girl can't be second in command! She makes our ginormous dicks look small!"
"The guy with the ears has to go, too." Gene Rod told them to take a flying leap. "He goes, I go." Interestingly, he made the same threat when the execs complained about Uhura too. "You can't have a black woman on tv who isn't a nanny or a maid! That's not how the status quo works!" Gene again gave them the finger, and my guess is that they gave in because they realized that seeing Uhura on screen every week gave them plenty of images of forbidden chocolate to fap to later. Score one for equality.
So Gene Rod and Co went back and tried again with "Where No Man has Gone Before". Jeffrey Hunter, who played Pike, was no longer available and was replaced by Bill Shatner. The Guy With the Ears was promoted to first officer. Number One (played by a differently-credited Majel Barrett, ie the future Mrs Gene Rod) was demoted and re-coiffed as Nurse Christine Chapel. The captain wrestles with someone most episodes. And the budget was slashed. Unfortunately, it wasn't slashed enough, and the budget kept getting smaller and smaller, until...
There was pretty much nothing. There needed to be a certain number of episodes, and there was not enough money to quite make it to that number. They needed to use "The Cage", which would make zero sense in the chronology and plotlines of the new show. So Gene did something amazeballs: he got out his scissors. By editing down "The Cage", cutting it in half, and writing what he called an "envelope", he stretched that one expensive pilot into two episodes, and fit it all nicely together to make sense, calling the new episode "The Menagerie" (which is a better title if you ask me). He got two full episodes out of that one, and the envelopes could be produced quickly and cheaply. None of this awesomeness would have existed if Rod and Co had gotten a Michael Bay budget. Sometimes, the best shit comes out of being broke as a joke.

And now, "The Menagerie"...

*******

Our intrepid trio beams down to the surface of Starbase 11, and are greeted in some sort of art garden by a red shirt, who relays that the commodore is puzzled as to why they are there. Kirk replies that they got a message requesting that they divert back. "Wait!" says the sharp reader. "Weren't we just at Starbase 11?" Yep. Kirk was detained and almost court martialed at Starbase 11 last week. But "Court Martial" aired four episodes after this, so technically it looks like this is their first trip to SB11. In the meantime, please enjoy the view:

This commodore is a gold shirt, Commodore Jose Mendez, and Kirk tells him that Spock received a message from his former captain, Christopher Pike. "Not possible," said the commodore, and he leads the others to the medical facility. Seems that Chris Pike was caught in a ship accident involving some Starfleet cadets, and in dragging the kids out, he was exposed to delta rays. (Does this sound like "saving orphans from a burning building", but more... futuristic?) Whoever did the make-up for this episode did a damn good job - that shit looks painful.

The wheelchair thing that he's in makes him look like Davros, and it's iconic enough enough to have been spoofed a number of times on other shows. Unable to speak, Pike controls the chair with his mind, and communicates through a single light on the front of it: if the light blinks once, his answer is yes; twice and he means no. But Pike doesn't want to see them. He allows Spock to hang out, and after everyone has left, Spock tells Pike that he has a plan. Presumably, Pike knows what he has in mind, but doesn't approve. All we get are tantalizing hints like "six days away at maximum warp" and "mutiny". Pike's light keeps stuttering no.

Back in Commodore Mendez's office, Kirk is still insisting they got called back. The computer says otherwise. I'll bet Kirk is sick of this shit. He knows one thing, the computer says something else.Only this time, it's Spock vs the computer, and we all know which one is more reliable.

Spock sneaks into the computer room and pulls a nerve pinch on the dude running the machines before taking a machine apart himself.

In Mendez's office, a red shirt brings in some tapes and reminds Kirk in a friendly way that he's tapped pretty much every girl in the known universe. She gives him some bedroom eyes and the commodore reminds her that this is not a singles cruise. She launches into a speech about how they found no evidence of Pike sending a message to the Enterprise, but that Spock is extremely loyal to his past captain.

In the computer room, Spock alters the voice modulation controls and hails the Enterprise using the voice of the starbase's communications officer. The voice tells the Enterprise that they will be running a top-secret mission, and that the course will be handled by the computer rather than a navigator. Uhura asks for confirmation from Kirk, but Spock has it covered, using a tape of Kirk's voice. In fact, Spock is so badass that when the SB11 chief interrupts him, he successfully wins a fist fight while relaying orders to the Enterprise crew.

Kirk watches Pike on a monitor. (Seriously, everyone watches Pike on monitors. I wonder if it makes Pike paranoid as hell.) The light on the wheelchair is repeatedly blinking no. Bones comes in and rants that it's BS medicine - Pike's body is a vegetable, but his brain functions perfectly. Kirk is pissed as hell that something isn't right on his ship. He suspects Spock, and Bones surprisingly defends the Vulcan. But then the voice of the comm officer for SB11 pages Bones back to the Enterprise. 

"Probably a hangnail," he grouches. I love Bones. Did I mention that? 

Kirk is ordered by Mendez to read a top secret document. It talks about General Order 7, which is that no ship may go to the planet Talos IV. It carries the sentence of death. The only ship to visit there was the Enterprise, under command of Pike, who had a science officer named Spock. Then, in one fell swoop, it is discovered that both Pike and the Enterprise are gone. Dramatic music!

On the bridge, Spock announces that Kirk has been ordered on medical rest leave, and that he is in charge.

"The hell you say!" yells Bones.

"It's all a secret," says Spock, and leads him to Pike.

He then plays a tape for Bones, wherein Kirk asks him to care for Pike but not ask any questions. Pike, meanwhile, has been blinking no this whole time. It's pretty much the most orderly tantrum ever.

On the bridge, the helmsman reports that they are being followed by a shuttlecraft, which is hailing them. Spock forbids contact, then asks the computer how long until the craft only has enough fuel to make it back to SB11. The computer replies that the shuttle is already past that point.

"Well, fuck," says Spock.

Kirk and Mendez are obviously in the shuttle, now dead in the water with two hours of oxygen left. Kirk half-hopes the Enterprise won't come back for them, as Spock will be court martialed for stealing the ship. Mendez reminds him that if Spock goes to Talos IV, he'll be put to death. I wonder how Starfleet executes people...

Out of options, Spock puts the brakes on the Enterprise, and tractors in the shuttle. Then he calls armed red shirts, puts the helmsman in charge, and tells Bones that as the senior officer, the good doctor must have him arrested for mutiny.

"Dafuq?" says Bones, and has him confined to quarters rather than tossing him in the brig.

Kirk and Mendez come aboard, and Kirk gets his command back, but the helm can't disengage from computer control until they reach Talos IV. Clever Spock has cross-circuited that shit with life support.

Kirk's Log 3012.4: The Enterprise is stuck going to Talos IV, and they have to do a hearing on Spock. Kirk laments that this sucks mandrill butt.

At the hearing, Spock requests immediate court martial. When Kirk protests that they are short one command officer, Spock points out that Pike is still active duty. Mendez admits that no one wanted to retire Pike after rescuing those orphans cadets.

"He's got it all planned out," says Mendez in admiration of Spock.

Of course he does. Whether it's brushing his teeth, conducting a science experiment, or fucking you sideways with a katana, Spock knows how to run shit.

Kirk's Log 3012.6: Court martial convening. Spock has waived his right to counsel and plead guilty. He is aware that, as a consequence of his actions, he faces the death penalty.

The dress uniforms come with these little triangle patches on the chest. My guess is that they're Girl Scout merit badges. Mendez has the ones for fire-building and knot-tying. Kirk has badges for dramatic pauses and seducing fellow scouts.

Spock requests that they turn on the viewscreen so that he can explain himself fully. They do so, and Spock fires up the Way Back Machine to talk about 13 years earlier, when Pike was in charge of the Enterprise.

The Enterprise of old has come across a distress signal, sent out from the Talos system. The call numbers match a Starfleet science ship, and they guess that the ship crashed in that system 18 years earlier. Pike decides to skip an investigation and move on, as they have more pressing matters.

A fancy-pants corridor on what is clearly Casual Friday.

He goes back to his cabin and pages the ship's doctor. Pike wants a second opinion about skipping the distress signal to care for their own personnel. The doctor concurs and pours Pike a martini.

"The hell?" says Pike.

"Sometimes," says Dr Royce, "a man will tell his bartender things he won't tell his doctor."

Ooh, smart man. Is this guy Bones' predecessor? I like him a lot. He guesses that Pike is thinking about a fight on Rigel VII, where several crew members went red shirt.

Pike is tired of decision-making, and is thinking of retiring, possibly moving back home to ride horses. Or of becoming an Orion trader.

"You, trading in green animal slave women?" asks Royce.

Foreshadowing, you guys. It's so thick you could cut it with a knife.

Spock pages Pike to let him know there's a follow-up message to the distress signal. Pike decides to check it out, and they switch course.

You know how during "Court Martial" I complained about the ship's visual log miraculously being able to record Kirk's flipping the "alert" and "jettison pod" switches? Mendez starts bitching about it now.

"How the Hello Kitty did you get this recording? The ships don't record like that!"

"It's a secret," says Spock.

Mendez accuses him of making it up, but Pike's light indicates that the Vulcan is telling the truth.

Pike decides to take an away team down to the Talos IV crash site, and leaves Number One in charge of the ship. The away team beams down in swanky matching jackets that should really have a team name ironed on the back, like "Enterprise Enforcers" or "Pike's Pumas" or "The Wesley Crushers". A big deal is made of the beaming process, which actually seems kind of cute now. The surface set is fairly complicated for this show, with a matte backdrop and fancy plants.

Dude, don't smile. It's creepy.

The away team stumbles upon a make-shift encampment full of old people... and one young woman. The old guys introduce her as Vina, born almost as they crashed. Vina sets her sights on Pike. But suddenly, we're seeing this scene through yet another viewscreen, one which is being viewed by small people with large craniums. Trek-ception!

As they're preparing to beam up the survivors, Royce reports that everyone is in perfect health. Vina tells Pike that there is a secret to their awesome health, and leads him to a small mountain to show him. When he doesn't see anything, she and the survivors disappear. A door opens in the mountain and the cranial Talosians file out. They shoot him with some kind of knock-out gas, dragging him into the mountain, just as the away team comes running. The team shoots at the door in the mountain, to no avail. Spock pages Number One to tell her that the whole thing was a trap, and that they've lost the captain.

The screen fades, and Uhura pages Mendez to tell him that Starfleet has detected that the Enterprise is receiving transmissions from Talos IV. Starfleet command is relieving Kirk of his command of the ship. Spock admits that he was aware of the fact that the records being shown at his court martial were coming from Talos.

"Dude," says Mendez, "you just got yourself the death penalty, and you've fucked up your captain's career. Good job." 

He requests that Spock relinquish control of the ship. Spock declines, and Mendez calls a recess to the trial. The room empties and Spock turns to Kirk.

"You have to watch the rest," he begs. "It's important."

"You just fucked me sideways with a katana!" yells Kirk.

The now not-so-much captain orders Spock locked up, and Kirk is left to Hamlet by himself in the make-shift courtroom.

DRAMATIC MUSIC!

*******

I hope everyone had a Happy Halloween, a Blessed Samhain, a Happy New Year, and a wonderful El Dia Los Muertos. If none of those applies to you, I hope you had a great week!

This is what happens when you interpret "street cred" to mean "proving you're the biggest nerd on the block".

*******

This week's tea also came from the Adagio sampler pack. I tried the Fruit Sangria, which is herbal. It brewed up blood red, and the best way to describe both the smell and taste is to imagine brewing a cup of it, then just as you lean forward to smell the steam rising in swirls off the surface of your tea, a big burly guy comes barreling into your kitchen, punches you in the face and yells, "FROOOOOT!" Unsweetened, it's a bit like berry-flavored Vitamin Water.

http://www.adagio.com/teabags/fruit_sangria.html

So my tea-whispering cousin Agent K alerted me to a "free sample" offer from Twinings: three free bags of tea, of your own choosing. They won't get there tomorrow (order says it takes 4-6 weeks), but it's at least three free cuppas, right? And the selection is pretty good.

http://pantry.twiningsusa.com/