ST:TNG Season One Review

I follow Wil Wheaton's Tumblr, and he'll sometimes answer Asks from others who follow him, then post them on his feed. One such person wrote in to tell him that they were big-time TNG fans, and that they had waffled for a long time about buying the large disc sets of each season. When they finally caved, they described "popping the disc into the disc tray and just feeling so much better." Wil's response? He read the comment too fast and thought the fan said that they'd pooped in the disc tray. He then decided that this was an appropriate response to season one.
Ooookay, then.

So it's 1987, and where are we? We're two shows and four films into the Star Trek franchise, with one aborted show that never took off. Gene Rod doesn't really want to do another show, but eventually agrees. He brings back a bunch of Trek veterans to work on his new show, but because they had to give the new show's budget to The Shat so he would keep appearing in films, they have pretty much no money.
Gene, fearing that this show will not live up to his vision for Star Trek, hires a lawyer, Leonard Maizlish to make sure his interests are protected. Maizlish hassles all of those Trek veterans, makes casting changes and re-writes scripts, completely illegal because he isn't part of any of the show business guilds. The lawyer basically drives all of the Trek veterans away by the end of season one, and Gene can't figure out where all of his friends went. No one told him they'd left because of Maizlish.
Star Trek is once again making an hour-long show for pennies. The creative crew are jumping ship. There's a new crew with a new captain, and the loyal TOS followers are not happy because Picard is not Kirk. A lot of the scripts are so-so, as are most scripts for first-season shows.
How the hell did TNG get another season?
Apparently, there was just enough awesome in the mix for some executive to say, "Fuck it, renew the thing."

*******

"Encounter at Farpoint"

Rather than go episodic right out of the gate as TOS had, TNG set things up by having the new captain walk around the new ship, effectively introducing us to both. "This is not TOS. This is 100 years later, and this is how far the Federation has come. Aren't you glad that the walls are not made out of cardboard?"

(Fuck yeah, I am. I have nightmares about that TOS orange.)

"Look at our sexy new warp core. Isn't it fabulous?"

(Again, I'm super-biased here: I find Warp Core Blue to be very calming. It is also one of the colors of Jedi lightsabers.)

What's more, they bookended the show - whether they intended to end it from the outset with that same bookend or not, they set things up in a specific way: Picard and the E crew are put on trial for humanity's crimes against the universe by a douchebag new villain, Q. Even if you don't remember that going forward, technically all of the episodes of TNG are being submitted for approval by the Q Continuum, to later determine whether or not humanity should be destroyed. This is odd, given that the Q plot and the trial were only added to pad out the episode when it was decided to make the whole thing two hours long.

Awesome: Data escorting a very old Bones through the corridors of the new ship. The Q plot, where Picard defends humanity in a trial that will end in its destruction. Solid Star Trek philosophies and ideas there.

Less than awesome: the entire B-plot. It is discovered that the creepy governor of a creepy planet is getting all of the planet's energy from enslaving some jellyfish or something. The B-plot is forgettable.

What else was awesome, by season one standards?

Kind of Awesome

- Data's quote in "The Naked Now" about being "fully functional and programmed in multiple techniques."

- From the same episode: The USS Tsiolkovsky is a Federation ship built in the USSR. Everybody gets to play in space, y'all.

- Excellent use of the holodeck in "The Big Goodbye." The first time we see the holodeck is in TAS' "The Practical Joker," but we don't get to fully appreciate it's interactive capabilities until a short scene in "Encounter at Farpoint." Here, it's immersive, and the science behind it is interesting. Also, the fact that Beverly swallowed the chewing gum offered to her points out what sorts of things we take for granted - it clearly doesn't exist in her world, so she treats it like food, much to the confusion of the man who offered it.

- Data gets a backstory in "Datalore," and it's actually really interesting. It also sets up Lore and Dr Soong's stories for possible further exploration in the future.

- Also in "Datalore": people repeatedly tell Wes to shut up, and he finally tells them to fuck off, pointing out that they would have been taking him seriously if he was an adult.

-"11001001": Riker falls in love with Minuet, a hologram from the holodeck. Admit it. You'd hit that, too.

-Mordock's make-up and breathing contraption in "Coming of Age" were top-notch. The make-up department won an award for that episode, and I'm willing to bet that it was for Mordock.

- Wes' growth and character development in this episode were fantastic. He learns that his greatest fear is based on his father's death, and an excellent conversation occurs between Wes and Worf in the holodeck, where we get not only wisdom, but part of Worf's character development as well. Then bonus - we get some Picard backstory! Goldmine!

- "Symbiosis": In a move that sets him apart from Kirk, Picard uses the the Prime Directive not only to his own advantage and to the advantage of others, but to the full disadvantage to the Dick of the Week. This is my second-favorite "fuck off and die" moment, after the "competent teacher" insult that Minerva McGonagall lobs at Delores Umbridge in Harry Potter book 5.

- The casual conversation between Picard and Jenice Manheim in "We'll Always Have Paris" felt warm and genuine. I totally believe they had a good relationship at one point, and that the intervening years had smoothed over their estrangement. That conversation provided some good backstory to Picard and added to his character development. It kind of makes up for the fact that Dr Manheim kept asking Picard to take care of her if he died. However, nothing makes up for Jenice's weird-ass outfit.

- Worf (the Nurse Chapel of TNG) finally gets his own episode in "Heart of Glory," and we learn his backstory, how he came to be the only Klingon in Starfleet, and how he feels about his sideways heritage. As backstories go, this was a good one.

- Also in this episode, we learn how Geordi sees, and the bridge crew literally sees the world through his eyes. With a bit of special effects, we learn what it is to be Geordi La Forge.

- "Conspiracy": Remmick fucking died. It was a horrible, glorious thing. I happened to be blogging that scene at work during lunch, and my boss passed by and asked, "What the hell are you watching?!" Death of Remmick: it is beautiful.

- "Conspiracy": Tryla Scott is a badass who owns her success. 

-The fallout from waking up from cryogenic sleep is explored in a non-funny way in "The Neutral Zone," which I like. We see some of it in Futurama, but you're often so busy laughing at Bender's "shiny metal ass" jokes, that you don't realize that Fry had A Moment until later. I like when the backside of science makes it's way into the story.

- "Where No One Has Gone Before." An alien looking to travel the universe accidentally pushes the E into... someplace outside of the universe. Outside of Wesley's awful wardrobe, I didn't have a lot of bad things to say about this one. Not the best episode of Star Trek ever, but not terrible, either.

Interesting Concept, Shaky Execution

- "The Last Outpost." I like that the last of the Tkon Empire is the security system left on a remote planet. I'm into the whole "long-lost civilization" thing, but sadly, this time it was represented much like the old dude guarding the bridge in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail." The guardian in Outpost just asked a bunch of trivia.

- "Angel One." They try to point out in this episode that a matriarchy is just as bad as a patriarchy - that you're gonna have a bad time no matter which gender subjugates the other - but it gets a bit lost here, as they have Riker put on a skimpy outfit and do the woman in charge. I liked the counsel's costumes, though.

-"When the Bough Breaks." They tried to do an episode about holes in the ozone and the problems that that causes. It's lost in the kidnapping A-plot. Eh.

- "Home Soil." Is it life? Is it not? What constitutes life? Who cares? There's a murder plot afoot. The best part of this episode is where the terraformer explains the process. Everything else can be tossed.

- "We'll Always Have Paris." A kind-of interesting plot about time is severely overshadowed by a Picard romance.

I Forget What This Episode Was About

-"Lonely Among Us." Rats and fish attempt to eat one another on the way to a peace conference. The rats succeed. Also, Picard is possessed by some kind of sentient cloud? And it sucks him into space to become nothingness, or something?

-"Justice." A girl in no clothes and a bad wig is terrified when the E shows her "God." They try to execute Wesley Crusher for stepping on some plants.

-"The Battle." In our second Ferengi episode, Picard is forced to relive some skirmish in space. It's all happening in his mind, but also not?

-"Hide and Q." Q offers to give Riker his powers, and John De Lancie changes his clothes a dozen times over the course of five minutes. I mostly just remember this guy:

-"Haven." Deanna Troi is part of an arranged marriage, but the guy runs away to join a plague ship...? This episode is forgettable enough that I keep forgetting that one of my favorite characters, Lwaxanna Troi, makes her debut here.

-"Too Short a Season." A Starfleet admiral ages backward. I think there's a revenge plot?

-"When the Bough Breaks."  Some people kidnap some of the E's kids because they can't have their own. Wes is supposed to bring the kids around and embrace Stockholm Syndrome. As Wes episodes go, it's pretty weak.

-"The Arsenal of Freedom." Some of the senior officers get trapped on a planet where the security system is still in place. Given that Star Trek has done this concept three or four times, you would think I'd remember it. Nope.

Cancel This Show Yesterday

-"Code of Honor." They give Tasha Yar one moment to shine in her own episode, and it's a racist piece of shit. They try to "make up for it" near the end by proclaiming that it also isn't as sexist as you think it is, but it is. The whole thing sucks, start to finish. God awful.

-"The Last Outpost." Barf. Our first look at the Ferengi, and it's crap. They're supposed to be assholes, but currently have no reason to be. They mostly just talk a big game and make sexist remarks.

-"Symbiosis." The Just Say No convo between Wes and Yar is probably at the top of TNG's Worst Moments Ever list. It's pretty heavy-handed and feels like padding.

-"Skin of Evil." Tasha Yar dies for no reason in an episode about a fucking oil slick. The parts that don't feature Yar dying are boring as hell.

Arc Canceled One Episode In

This feels like the only time I've had this problem, where an episode should have been expanded and was just dropped at the end like they lost interest. It wasn't a feeling of "that was interesting and I wish they had expanded on it." It was more like"we're gonna keep going with this idea - nope, never mind." Worst of all, these episodes aired back-to-back at the end of the season. Two cock-teases in a row.

-"Conspiracy." Cries of  "the aliens are coming!" are met with shrugs by the end of this episode. Are they coming or not? Nope.

-"The Neutral Zone." Outposts are missing, the Romulans return, there is an imminent threat... aaannnnd, who cares? It's the last episode of the season, so you expect a cliff-hanger, but no. They finally come back to the idea, but it's half-way through the second season when you've forgotten about this episode.

DIIIIIIICKS....IIINNNNN....SPAAAAAAAAACE

Now, I love me a good unapologetic dick as a villain, but there has to be a reason.

I also want to slap smug people, and generally, these people are smug as shit.

Q will later become funny and sarcastic
and a bit pitiable, but now, he's just a douchebag.

Lutan: he really, really wants to watch Yar and Yareena wrestle in Jell-o.

All three of the Ferengi from "The Last Outpost" were giant assholes.

Kosinski acted like he was the shit, knowing that The Traveler
was doing all the work. By the end of "Where No Man Has Gone Before,"
he's a whiny little boy, unsure of himself or anything else.

Bok might get a pass because you feel bad for him, knowing that
his revenge plot is based on grief. But even his crew thinks he's a dick.

Fucking Lore. Fucking, fucking Lore.

Radue wants to put you in charge of telling a bunch of kids that
they love it here. Kidnapping is great! We love you!

Armus is an oil slick who kills people for fun. -____-

Remmick spends all episode in "Coming of Age" treating
people like shit, then asks to transfer to the E. When we see him
again, dude is housing a giant bug in his gut.

Pretty sure the direction given with this pair was "Just be a douche."

Season One Counts:

Red deaths: 5

Gold deaths: 4

Blue deaths: 0

Obnoxious Wes moments: 1

Legitimate Wes moments when he should have told someone to go fuck themselves: 5

Sassy Geordi moments: 6

Sassy Wes Moments: 2

Sassy Worf Moment: 4

Sassy Riker Moments: 4

Sassy Yar Moments: 1

Sassy Picard Moments: 5

Sassy NPC Moments: 4
Sassy Data Moments: 2
Sassy Crusher Moments: 1

Number of times that it is mentioned that Data is an android: 16

Number of times that Troi reacts to someone else's feelings: 19

Number of times that Geordi "looks at something" with his VISOR: 5
Number of times when Data gives too much info and has to be told to shut up: 3

So this count isn't totally complete, as I only started doing it ten episodes in, but some patterns are emerging:

-Wes actually gives the crew way less reason to bitch at him than he has reason to bitch at them.

- This crew is sarcastic as hell: I counted nearly thirty sassy moments between the holodeck NPCs and the main characters.

- If you're not aware that Data is an android, and Deanna Troi is an empath, then I don't know what show you're watching.

- The gold death count seems about right, but the red count is so high because so many of the people involved in the alien bug takeover plot were command.

So what's the bottom line?

Is Wil Wheaton's poop analogy correct?

Eh...

I counted 12 episodes on the "Kind of Awesome" list, and 17 episodes combined in the other, less-awesome categories. That's too many episodes, but there are overlaps, places where the same episode ended up in both lists... a mixed bag on multiple episodes. Even in the episodes that mostly went right, there were still some places were complaints were valid. Maybe a scene or two turned out well in an otherwise iffy episode, such as "We'll Always Have Paris" or "Home Soil." While the "Awesome" category contains the most entries, it's cherry-picking parts from each episode, rather than praising the entire thing. 

The next largest category? The "I forgot what this was about" list. With 8 entries, that's almost half of the "not so awesome" list. Eight out of 26... almost a third. That's really lousy.

I suppose it's worth mentioning that most first seasons of any show are kind of crappy, especially when compared with later seasons. There's a new cast to establish chemistry with, a new writing team to coordinate together, and money that must be spent on new costumes and sets. Later seasons are able to build off of earlier character development, costumes and sets. And the first season of TNG saw all of their veteran writers and crew leaving, thanks to Leonard Maizlish.

But sometimes the cards are stacked against you, and you're still offered a second season, in spite of everything. There was enough of an audience, and enough episodes in that "awesome" list to warrant giving this new Star Trek another season.

Guess we'll keep on Treking, friends.

Season 3, Episode 59 "The Enterprise Incident"

"The Enterprise Incident"
Production Order: 59
Air Order: 57
Stardate: 5027.3
Original Air Date: September 27, 1968


I went to a new doctor this week, and we were going over intake paperwork, and she asked how I dealt with stress.
"Recently, I put Next Gen on in the background while I do stuff," I replied. "I find it relaxing."
She printed up a paper with medical emergency numbers on it and advice for dealing with stress. At the top she wrote "watch Star Trek."

tl;dr: Doctor says I control the Netflix now. It's for my health. I have a note.

*******

Chief Medical Officer's Log 5027.3: "Kirk is being a bigger dick than usual. Kinda concerned."

Dude, I love that we start out with one of Bones' logs. That never happens. We don't get a lot from Bones, and it sets the scene nicely, as it's overlaid with Kirk coming onto the bridge and barking at Chekov that he needs to fucking do his job right. Chekov walks away looking frustrated and kind of hurt. Then he yells at Spock for not giving him an update since his last update, which sounds like it was given like ten minutes ago. He then proceeds to yell generally at the bridge crew, who are simultaneously trying to keep their heads down and not let Kirk see how annoyed they are that he hasn't taken his Midol this morning.

Bone's log continues: "I dunno what the fuck is wrong with him, except maybe he's been out to sea too long or something. He won't come in for a medical eval."

Kirk gives Sulu some new coordinates and Sulu concernedly reminds him that that would steer the ship into the Neutral Zone. Kirk barks back that Sulu should STFU and take them there. Scotty enters the bridge and overhears Sulu announcing that they are leaving the Neutral Zone. The engineers asks Uhura in a whisper when the order came in from Starfleet to enter the Neutral Zone. She whispers back that it didn't. Kirk yells at them for talking shit about him behind his back. Spock announces that they are now surrounded by Klingon ships, and that the Romulans are now using Klingon designs. Good job, Kirk. Dramatic music! Opening theme!

IMDb trivia: a production assistant stepped on and broke the
Romulan warbird model just before shooting this episode, so
they used Klingon cruisers instead and claimed that the Roms were
adopting Klingon design.

Kirk orders Uhura to send all logs thus far to Starfleet, and she alerts him that they are being hailed. The Romulan on the screen introduces himself as sub-commander Tal and asks if he is Kirk. He wants the E to surrender or he will blow them out of the Romulan sky. Kirk puts the screen on mute to talk to Spock. They agree that Tal probably wants the E, or he would have fired on them before this.
"Fuck you," Kirk tells Tal. "If you board us, I'll blow the ship up."
Tal is very interested in Spock. He gets a call from his commander, and offers the E an hour to surrender.
"Starfleet knows of this situation," Kirk says.
"Bitch, I know how subspace communication works," Tal replies. "It'll take three weeks for Starfleet to get your messages."
Seriously, Kirk. Those that travel in space are aware of how much time it takes for messages to travel, you numbnuts.
I was trying to figure out why Tal's appearance seemed so strange to me. I think it's because these are OG Romulans, and they don't yet have the textured forehead and straight black hair of the TNG Romulans. Tal has wavy hair. Also, I'm pretty sure he's the lovechild of Peter Capaldi and Ben Stiller.

Kirk calls a meeting in the briefing room, and it appears this meeting is open to more than just senior officers, because there are random crew members leaning against the walls. Spock says he thinks the Roms are using cloaking devices that make them invisible on the sensors. Scotty comments that the Roms took them by surprise. Kirk dickishly asks if Scotty has anything helpful to say. He then states that they have three choices: surrender, destroy the E, or fight and be destroyed. Scotty points out that giving them the E would allow them to find out what kinds of tech Starfleet has.

"Bitch, you got us into this mess," Spock tells Kirk. "What are you doing about it?"

"Wait - the fuck?" asks Bones. "This is your fault?"

"GTFO," Kirk tells him.

Bones stalks out of the room. Uhura comms in to say that Tal is hailing them again, and Kirk takes the call there.

"My commander wants to talk to you and your first officer in person, over here," says Tal. "We'll send two of our guys to your ship in exchange."

Yeah, that doesn't sound fishy as hell.

"Why should we trust you?" Kirk demands.

"You entered our space," Tal points out. "Why should we trust you?"

Kirk agrees to the swap.

In the transporter room, Kirk tells Scotty that if the Romulans being sent over try to to take the E, they should fight and possibly blow up the ship. (Speaking of which, where are they putting these Romulans? Pretty much everywhere but in quarters would  reveal Starfleet technology, and tossing them - even temporarily - into the brig would ruin the good faith action of sending the Romulans to the Enterprise in the first place. Quarters it is. Imagine being those Romulans, trapped in quarters for hours. "So... this is a Starfleet flagship... the decor is tacky. Wish we'd brought a deck of cards.") Kirk and Spock beam over at the exact moment that the Romulans beam onto the E. Good thing they picked specific pads to beam onto, otherwise we would have ended up with another fun transporter accident. The Romulans step forward menacingly with their weapons drawn, but Scotty makes a stern face at them.

Kirk and Spock are shown to the commander's office, and the chair spins around. Holy shit - it's a chick! YEEESSSS!

Dear Terrans of the late 1960's,

As you can see, war-mongering aliens from the future are more socially advanced than we are now. Do something about that, won't you?

Love,

Star Trek

The commander seems just as interested in Spock as Tal was, but she asks him to leave so that she can question Kirk privately. Once alone, she asks why the E is in Romulan space. He gives her some bullshit line about how their navigation equipment failed, and they found themselves in Rom space before they could fix the problem. They were then surrounded by Romulans before they could leave. She sees right through this crap and accuses him of espionage. He gets his panties in a twist over this, and she asks how it would be handles if a Romalan ship "wandered" into Federation territory, which is a good point. She then calls Spock in, admitting surprise to his being on the Enterprise. 

Kirk asks why they seem so taken with Spock, and the commander puts on her "It's a pointy-eared thing. You wouldn't understand" t-shirt. She cites the common ancestor that Vulcans and Romulans share.

"I hear Vulcans are incapable of lying," she says. "Tell me why you are in Romulan space."

"I claim the fifth," he replies, which she takes as proof that they aren't just dicking around in Rom space, like Kirk said.

She and Kirk get into a shouting match, and she ends by smoothly suggesting that she intends to use torture to get the information from Kirk. Spock tells the commander that this would not be a good idea, as Kirk is already half-broken from stress. Kirk angrily calls Spock a liar.

"Kirk is out of his mind," Spock continues. "In order to protect the Federation and the Enterprise, I'm gonna tell you the truth: Kirk ordered us into Romulan space on his own volition, and nobody on the knows why the hell he did it."

"You bitch, I'll kill you!" Kirk rages at Spock. Two Romulan guards hold him off.

Romulan photobomb!

The commander connects to the Enterprise PA system and announces that the Empire is charging Kirk with espionage, and that Spock's testimony about the ordeal says that the Enterprise is in Romulan space on his own command rather than that of Starfleet or the Federation. Because the ship's crew was just following orders, she isn't going to charge them. She wants Scotty to follow them back to the nearest Romulan starbase, where they will be processed and turned over to the Federation. That's actually pretty decent of her. She could have insisted that they were all spies and then tortured the crew as captives.

In retaliation, Scotty orders the two Romulans be moved to the brig, and then Uhura opens the channel to the commander.

"Dude, fuck you. We don't take orders from anybody but Kirk, and if you try to board us, we'll blow up the ship and take a bunch of you with us to hell," Scotty answers.

"Spock, you fucking traitor," rages Kirk. "Scotty's a real man. Scotty didn't betray us."

The commander has him pitched into the brig, then sets her sights on Spock. "I don't know how you work with humans all day," she says, lounging in her chair. "You're smarter than they are - why don't you have your own ship?"

"I don't want a ship," he answers. He admits to having been in Starfleet for 18 years, and for being half-human, but thinking of himself as a Vulcan.

"You should switch sides," she suggests. "The Romulans could give you your own ship."

Ma'am, do you have wax in your pointy ears? He just said he didn't want one.

"You only want the Enterprise," he accuses her.

"Yeah, it would look hella-awesome if I showed up at some starbase with the Enterprise in tow," she agrees.

Meanwhile, Kirk is tossed in the brig. He gets off the floor and tries to run through the barrier, but he's quickly dropped like a sack. Dumbshit, did you not think there would be a forcefield in place?

Bones is paged over to the Romulan ship to examine Kirk, where he tells the guard that Kirk needs medical attention. The guard pages the commander, and she asks Spock to come with her.

Let's pause to look at her outfit here. By TNG, Romulan costumes have become big and very boxy, but here they are still following the guidelines of "alien Romans." The scarves are only given to higher-ranking officers, but here the scarf is made to be part of the commander's dress/tunic thing. It's sewn to the front of her tunic and is slipped under her belt in front. It hangs loose down her back, and the right sleeve of her tunic is made from the same material, which is interesting. But it's the length that catches my eye. It isn't quite long enough that you can't see her underwear. Front, back, it doesn't matter. It's visible from either side. She's then given thigh-high black boots. I can't tell if she's the ship's commander, or a Romulan go-go dancer. She's supposed to have greater status than anyone on this ship, yet she looks like one of Vivian's friends on Pretty Woman.

While walking down the hall, the commander tells him she wants him to report to her for dinner, then she pauses and rephases it into a request. He sarcastically asks if the guards are invited as well, and she dismisses them before he replies that he would be honored to attend a dinner with her.

He starts down another corridor, at the end of which is an imposing-looking door guarded by some Romulan soldier, and she warns him that anyone not wishing to die a terrible death is forbidden to go down that corridor, because that's where she keeps her three-headed dog. He apologizes and they start back toward the brig.

Bones confirms that Kirk is not doing well and is off his rocker. She asks if he's unfit for command.

"He is now," says Bones.

"Killer," says the commander. "So now Spock is in charge of the Enterprise."

Kirk comes out of his stupor long enough to shriek, "You traitor! I'll kill you!"

He runs at Spock, who... grabs his face. Kirk sinks to the ground.

"WTF?" demands Bones.

"I wasn't prepared for that," admits Spock. "I used the Vulcan Death Grip by accident."

"You're dead, Jim," Bones tells Kirk.

Dramatic music!

Kirk is lying on a bed in sick bay when Christine comes in. He opens his eyes once, and she yells for Bones. With her prerequisite one-line-per-episode, she tells him that Kirk is alive.

He turns on the equipment and explains to her that Spock gave Kirk the Vulcan nerve pinch, making him appear dead to the Romulan doctors, then they transferred him back to the E. Apparently, there was a secret command from Starfleet to fly into Romulan space to commit espionage, and he didn't know it until recently. They wake Kirk up, and he explains that everyone is being kept in the dark so that nothing will be tied back to the Federation or the Enterprise. Then he tells Bones to prepare for surgery.

Bones pages Scotty to sick bay a bit later. Scotty grudgingly complies, and finds this:

And I choke on my own saliva at the face that Scotty makes, and the sheer and utter idiocy of how Kirk looks. Do yourself a favor. Stop laughing at this long enough to scroll away from it. Do something else for a moment. Then scroll back and continue to laugh. Just... God.

"WTF?" demands Scotty, which is the correct thing to say when someone is surgically altered to look like a Romulan and this is the result.

"Go steal me a uniform from one of those Romulans in the brig," Kirk tells him.

Scotty practically skips there.

Spock shows up at the commander's quarters for dinner. Because this is 1969, she's got strings of beads hanging floor to ceiling which totally helps me to stop thinking of her as a go-go dancer. Spock notices that she has Vulcan food for him, and they raise glasses of Romulan ale.

Kirk beams over to the cruiser and encounters a Romulan flunky. Because he's wearing a centurian uniform, he can order the dude around, which he does right away, saying that he's just escaped from the E with an important message for sub-commander Tal. The guy buys it, because apparently, he doesn't know the centurions on this ship well enough to recognize that Kirk is a complete fucking fake. Are you kidding me? I'm sure this ship is large, but when you're an underling, you know exactly who the bigwigs are, because you don't want to screw up in front of them.

The commander pours Spock another drink and starts talking about how she could offer him a lot of cool shit if he defects to the Romulans, and then she tells him that Romulan women are not sterile and logical like Vulcan women. Lady, Vulcans are kind of asexual. You're really going to take the seduction route? She suggests that he would study this as a Vulcan, but appreciate it as a human. Okay, I guess she is going there. Good luck to you, madam. Surprisingly, he leans in and tells her that he does appreciate it. Huh?

She tells him that he should re-board the E and together they will venture into Romulan space. He suggests that they wait an hour. She's getting some Girl-O-Vision here, but instead of the Pretty Girl music, it's overlaid with an exotic music. Pretty Girl music is for when Kirk decides to mate with another human. Exotic music plays when Spock considers mating with an alien. He refers to her as commander, and she tells him that she has a first name, whispering it in his ear. He says it's beautiful but doesn't match up with her soldier persona. She goes into the other room to slip into something more comfortable. Please, please, don't let it be shapeless and floaty. So tired of that.

Spock takes the opportunity to call Kirk and tell him that the cloaking device is in the room at the end of the three-head dog corridor. Unfortunately, some flunky on the bridge sees that someone on board is sending communications from somewhere on the ship.

The conversation is cut short as the commander (no, we never learn her name) comes out of the bedroom. This... this is fantastic. It's not floaty or shapeless or unflattering. I would wear this! Her earrings are cool, too. Commander, are you the only woman in the known universe with cute lingerie?

He tells her that not only is her attire more appropriate, but that he thinks it will stimulate their conversation. I... is he flirting? He makes the Vulcan hand salute, and she does as well. They actually start stroking each other's faces and necks with their hands held this way, and I have to say, it's fairly erotic. This is way hotter than any of the shit that Kirk pulls on this show. Kirk stuffs his tongue down girls' throats. Spock gives carefully-measured compliments and almost ritualistic touching. Whoooaaaa.

Kirk finds the Forbidden Corridor and is immediately questioned by a much-smarter flunky, who isn't blinded by Kirk's centurion scarf. When he demands to see Kirk's clearance, Kirk starts an altercation and drops the guy, of course.

Spock and the commander are continuing their slow exploration when they're cock-blocked by Tal, who says they intercepted an alien transmission coming from her quarters. She takes a short, sort of devastated look at Spock, who holds up his comm as a confession, and she rushes out of the room with the guards and Spock in tow. She knows that they are after the cloaking device.

Kirk gains entry to the Forbidden Room at the end of the Forbidden Corridor, where he encounters another smart soldier, who doesn't buy Kirk's distraction of "there's someone on board who is trying to get the device!" Kirk is forced to kick the guy in the face to get rid of him. He then grabs the cloaking device, which was made from parts scavenged from Sargon (the ugly lamp-globe thing) and Nomad (pretty sure that's Nomad's head). Good on ya, Budget.

I half-thought Kirk was gonna try to walk out of there with that big-ass device under his shirt, but he actually calls Scotty for a beam-out. Transporters are awfully convenient sometimes. You know, when they work right. Upon appearing in the transporter room on the E, Kirk tells Scotty that he has 15 minutes in which to figure out how the device works, hook it up to their own technology and try to make the two compatible. Seriously, if this was any other show in the world, Scotty would have a snowball's chance in hell of coming up with tech compatibility like that.

The soldiers burst into the Forbidden Room with Spock and the commander, who is barefoot and still in her skivvies.

Despite the fact that the cloaking device is huge, it takes multiple Romulans to realize that it's gone.

"You're not gonna find it," Spock tells the commander.

"Who the hell do you think you are?" she asks angrily.

"First officer of the Enterprise," he replies, totes letting her know that he was playing her. The truth sinks in, and he slaps him. Then he asks her what the Romulans' current form of execution is. Dramatic music!

Kirk's Log 5027.4: "Once again, I've asked my chief engineer to do the impossible. Good thing he works on the USS Mary Sue, or I might be worried."

Kirk strides onto the bridge and politely but firmly issues orders to his crew. They can't decide if they're excited because he's not acting as big a dick anymore, or if the find his current appearance hilarious. Maybe a combination. With that deep widow's peak, he looks like Eddie Munster.

The commander tells a foot soldier to start the taking of the Enterprise, and that they should destroy the ship if there's resistance. She then tells Spock that the execution will be painful, and that it will take place right after he's charged. He asks for a Right of Statement, which is Romulan tradition. She gives him a recording device, and he admits to sabotage. He says that the new cloaking devices are a threat to Starfleet, and that he carried out his orders as such.

On the E, Scotty reports that the cloaking device has been installed, but he isn't sure it's going to work. Chekov gets Spock's coordinates fed into the transporter, and they try to beam him out. Unfortunately, the commander sees that Spock is being beamed off of her ship, and she grabs onto him. They both transport over, which Kirk and Uhura find funny. Kirk gives the command to warp the fuck out of there, and calls Spock to the bridge. He and the commander arrive.

The commander is pissed as hell. Kirk opens the comm to the Romulan ship.

"What up, pointy-eared homies? We got your commander."

The commander yells at Tal to destroy the E, and Tal orders weapons trained on the Enterprise when they come into range. Scotty throws the switch on the cloaking device, and the E disappears.

"Crap," says Tal. 

But Tal plays Space Invaders, and he knows to figure out where the enemy ship will be, and fire there instead. Sadly for Tal, the cloaked E turns and flies past the cruiser. The commander closes her eyes, and you that Tal is so getting a flogging when she gets back to Romulan space. A whip may be involved as well, depending on her mood.

Kirk tells her that they'll take her to Federation space and drop her at a starbase so she can hitch a ride home on a Fed ship. He's also going to assign her quarters rather than toss her in the brig. That's probably the least he can do. Barefoot, in her jammies, maybe wearing her best push-up date bra, and now she's been quasi-kidnapped after thinking that she was about to ride triumphantly into Romulan space with Starfleet's flagship. The commander is having a shitty, shitty day.

Spock and the commander climb into the lift.

"Sorry you got dragged along for the ride," he tells her. "We only wanted the cloaking device."

"You got it," she replies bitterly.

"Yeah, but... kinda like you now," he admits. Back in her quarters, he told her that he was affected emotionally by her, and you assume that he's screwing with her, because it's part of the mission. But saying that now brings him nothing. He actually likes her.

"It's our secret," she says quietly. She checked the Yes box.

I... I think I totally ship this, you guys.

On the bridge, Kirk is paged to sick bay to have his ears fixed.

"You don't think they're hot?" Kirk asks Bones.

Spock gets out of the lift. "Fool, get your ass to sick bay. You make the pointy-eared community look bad." 

And the bridge crew laughs after he leaves. Because they should. 

Romulan Kirk looks like a twatwaffle.

Heh, twatwaffle.

Death Toll:

Red deaths this episode: 0
Red deaths this season: 1
Gold deaths this episode: 0
Gold deaths this season: 0
Blue deaths this episode: 0
Blue deaths this season: 0
Total crew deaths this season: 1
Total crew deaths thus far: 45

You guys have no idea how excited I get when a good episode of Star Trek follows several crappy ones. There's a tiny dance of joy involved. This episode feel like those cool espionage episodes of Next Gen that we get later, the ones where someone in Starfleet ends up going deep undercover and has to be surgically altered to perpetuate the ruse. I'd like to think that this episode was the inspiration for those later ones. And passing over Kirk's ridiculous appearance as a Romulan, the actual espionage was good. Spock's involvement seems to have been accidental, but he played his part well. I also like the fact that his part seems to have been to just keep the commander occupied, but that he ended up falling for her, and she for him. Had Kirk been the one to seduce the commander, I would have rolled my eyes again, because it's so cliche for him to play the honey pot. For Spock to do it, do it well, and then falter at the end only adds to his character development. And despite the fact that the commander does not get a name in this episode, she feel well-rounded. She offers Spock a place in the Romulan space program, moves in to seduce him, and ends up getting caught up in it. When the dust clears, it's obvious that she still likes Spock, but is also concerned about her career and how to save face. She believes in fair play, despite the fact that she threatened to have Kirk tortured at the beginning of the episode. I like her. I wouldn't be sorry to see her again.

*******

This week I sprang for some bottled tea that I had been eyeing in several stores but had not actually tried. I had been turned off by the fact that, while this particular tea utilized cane sugar, it also uses stevia, which is one of those "sugar alternatives," that my system doesn't like at all. I figured I would give it a shot anyway, as there may be some reader out there who doesn't mind stevia, and would be glad to hear of this tea. The company is called Tea of a Kind, or TOAK, and one of the first things that you notice when you pick up the bottle is that the liquid inside is clear. I wondered if it was like Crystal Pepsi or something, where the taste is added, but the coloring is not. How could they eliminate the coloring from tea? I decided to try it anyway, and twisted the cap without reading the bottle first. The bottle expanded in my hand while the cap made a hissing noise, and I jumped. Too many years of having sodas explode on you will give you that kind of reaction. When I checked again, the tea was... tea-colored. I pulled the cap off. Or up, rather. There's a cylinder attached to the inside of the lid that apparently holds the liquid flavor of the tea, and when you twist the cap, the flavor is released into what I was now pretty sure was just bottled water. The bottle label talks about how things like flavor and nutrients are lost over time in regular bottled teas, and how keeping these things separate ensures that none of it is lost.
 I don't know how true that is. There certainly wasn't a taste difference that I could tell. The bottle that I opened was Peach Ginger Black Tea, and there was a nice balance of tea flavor and peach. I didn't taste a lot of ginger, to be honest, but that was okay. I feel like ginger is the salt to the fruit world. You add it to pies and fruit-based stuff to bring out the fruit flavors. The thing about the taste was the stevia - for me, it tastes fake, and way too sweet. In this case, the role it played was obscuring the slightly bitter aftertaste that one gets from black teas. I know from experience that regular sugar can do that as well, but it typically takes a lot of sugar to do that, and there wasn't a lot of stevia in there, if you believe the caloric read-out on the nutrition label.
Bottom line thoughts on this tea: the flavor is good, minus the stevia. I don't know about the science experiment that the cap presents, or if the price of $3.49 a bottle is worth the idea that the flavors and nutrients need to be held elsewhere until just before you drink it, but I guess it's kind of fun.
When checking their website, it seems that TOAK is not sold in too many brick-and-mortar places, though you can buy it on Amazon in cases.

http://teaofakind.com/

"I iz help you put dishes away?"