Season 3, Episode 62 "Is There In Truth No Beauty?"

"Is There In Truth No Beauty?"
Production Order: 62
Air Order: 60
Stardate: 5630.7
Original Air Date: October 18, 1968

Kirk's Log 5630.7: "Gonna pick up the Medusan ambassador from Federation space and take him back to Medusan space. The Medusans are super-wise and stuff, but they have a non-corporeal form that humans can't look at, or they go mad."

Spock beams a dude on board who introduces himself as Dr Larry Marvick.  He was one of the designers of the Enterprise. Dr Marvick is surprised to see Kirk and Scotty in the transporter room. Kirk explains that they will leave, and Spock will put on some special red sunglasses so that he can beam the ambassador onboard. Apparently, Vulcans are not as susceptible to that whole madness thing as humans are, so it's cool for him to be there. He still needs those sunglasses, though. Scotty and Marvick leave, Kirk behind them, and Spock puts on his Robocop sunglasses to beam ambassador Kollos aboard.
They actually do this cool thing here where they cover the camera with a red film to show what Spock is seeing. They'll use more shots later of Spock's point of view. It's nice, mixes things up a bit.

Spock beams up a box and a woman. The woman introduces herself as Dr Miranda Jones. It's... Diana Muldaur again. I don't mind that it's her, because I actually liked her in TOS, and in the previous episode where she was featured, "Return to Tomorrow". But... she played a large role in that episode, and she plays a large role in this one as well. Did they think we wouldn't notice simply because her hair has changed color?

Let's take a quick look at her costume: they did her hair like Kelinda from "By Any Other Name". I have theory about this hairstyle that I'll touch on later. Then they made Dr Jones a sleeveless romper-thing from the same material that was used for Nancy Hedford's dress in "Metamorphosis". I'm actually pretty pleased with both of these things. I like that they used that fabric again, which is nice and kind of futuristic-looking. Points, costume-makers. The sleeveless romper is also nice, with wide-enough legs that it looks like a dress, and I like the high collar. More points. I'm not crazy about that gauzy Bedazzled thing they overlaid her costume with, but it's not the end of the world.

One more brief side-note before I jump back to the story: according to IMDB, the part of Dr Jones was supposed to go to Jessica Walters. Now, I know she wasn't known for those roles in 1969, but imagine Lucille Bluth in space. Being seduced by Kirk. Or Mallory Sterling pulling a honeypot on Spock. I'll pause here while you snort with laughter.

Anyway, Dr Jones gives Spock the Vulcan salute, which he returns, and he introduces himself to her. The ambassador is apparently in the box, the idea of which earns a rare Spock eyebrow raise.

Following the opening credits, Kirk announces to the ship that everyone needs to clear the corridors so they can move the ambassador to his quarters, and Spock and Jones put their Robocop glasses on to haul the box.

In the corridor, Spock congratulates Jones on getting the assignment working with Kollos, and she mentions that she heard Spock was up for it as well, but turned it down. He corroborates the story, and says that his place is on the Enterprise. She then says that her success or failure will hinge on whether or not she is able to mind-meld with the Medusans. He says that, based on mind-melding with other alien species, that it's a fascinating experience.

Spock asks to greet the ambassador, and she stiffly tells him that the ambassador would be charmed. The box opens, and there's some flashing lime green light, and shots of Spock in his Robocop glasses are interspersed with fleeting shots of abstract images. This is what the Medusans look like. It's weird, but a golf clap to Star Trek for attempting to portray a non-corporeal life-form.

Spock tells Jones that he almost envies her, and she says that she sees in his mind that he wishes to take her job.

"Not really," he corrects her. "Were you born a telepath?"

"Yeah, that's why I studied on Vulcan," she replies.

He offers to show her to her quarters, but she declines to help the ambassador get settled in, and he leaves. Then she does something weird - she takes off her Robocop glasses and asks the ambassador what Spock sees when he looks into the box. The box opens, and the flashing green lights appear.

We skip to a welcome dinner, where our boys are wearing their dress uniforms. 

SCOTTY IS WEARING A KILT. And they seem to have been paying attention to which tartan belongs to the Scott clan. Bonus points, costume department.

Kirk, in his sorry attempts to be Jack Harkness, asks Jones why the human male population is allowing her to gallivant in space with Kollos. That's not "Captain Jack", Kirk. That's "sexist asshole." He then asks why, as a human, she can hang out with Kollos when no one else can. She replies that she studied on Vulcan and learned to shut everyone else's thoughts out, as she was born a telepath. She then notices Spock's IDIC pin, which she pronounces as "idic", rather than as an acronym. She rather bitchily asks if he's worn it to remind her that, as a Vulcan, he can mind-link better than she can. He is surprised at her reaction, and says that he wore it to honor her. Kirk steers the conversation back to the Medusans by asking if their awesome navigation skills could one day be incorporated into Federation ships.

And that's it. They don't mention the pin again in this episode, or the ideology that it represents, or what IDIC even stands for. I have to wonder if they wrote more about it in an earlier draft and it was edited for time.

The conversation carries forward by Jones saying that Marvick's job is to figure out how to integrate the Medusan navigational info with Federation starship technology. Just in case you were wondering what the hell Marvick is doing on the ship. Which I was. They then launch into a debate about the human failing concerning the notion that good things are beautiful, but evil things are ugly. I guess green flashing lights and abstract images are considered ugly. Makes no sense to me, but whatever. Then everybody but Jones stands and they make a toast to her beauty. This is a smart-ass woman doing an important job for the Federation, but let's talk about hot she is instead.

Bones asks if they, as men, can condemn her to look upon ugliness (the Mesdusans) for the rest of her life, and the guys reply no. She parries with the question of how Bones can spend his entire life looking at the ugliness of disease, effectively flipping that gendered bullshit back around on him. Ha! He finally toasts her by saying, "To whatever you want the most, Miranda," and they all drink. But then she gets a funny look on her face and says that she feels like someone nearby is thinking about murder. It passes, and she excuses herself from the party.

After she leaves, Bones remarks that she's a real lady. Marvick coldly tells the others that they should treat her that way, before excusing himself.

Scotty leaves, and Spock, prompting Kirk to ask Bones about Jones. Bones replies that she seems vulnerable. There's a funny bit here where Kirk swallows the last of his drink, and when they cut to him, his glass is full again. Bones excuses himself as well, and Kirk ends on a pensive moment.

In the next scene, Jones is in her quarters when Marvick shows up. He begs her not to continue her service with Kollos, not to go away. She tells him that they've discussed this many times, and that she's doing it whether he wants her to or not. And here now, we see the real reason why Marvick is on board: the writer needed some reason for Dr Jones' love interest to be on board the Enterprise, so it was decided that he should be the person who will eventually link the Medusans to the Federation. He kisses her. You can see from the profiles that Diana Muldaur is blinking. Jones is not kissing him back. You got no game, Marvick. She's just not that into you.

She tells him that she's always been straight with him, and wasn't lying when she told him that she doesn't return his feelings. He is asked to leave, but then she realizes that the murder thoughts were coming from him. She tries to get him to talk to her about it, to tell her who he wants to kill, but he just gets pissy and accuses her of trying to psychoanalyze him.

"Now I know what it takes to get your attention! You want to treat me like a patient!" (Huh? Is she a psychiatrist? Was that mentioned somewhere and I didn't notice it?) Then we go back to the sexist remarks: "Why don't you act like a woman for once?"

Marvick then runs out into the corridor. Fresh from his tantrum, he stalks down to another door, his face all murder-y. It's like every slasher film ever, when they cute girls decide to check the dilapidated garden shed for their missing friend. 

Marvick goes into the ambassador's quarters. The box opens and the lights flash. Marvick takes out his phaser, but ends up dropping it, and screaming in pain. Told you not to go into the garden shed, you dipshit.

Pretty sure this episode should come with an epilepsy warning: the lights flash, and they keep switching camera angles from third person to first person, interspersing it with shots of Kollos. Marvick is spinning and flipping around the room. he runs out into the corridor and catches the lift.

Meanwhile, Jones notices a disturbance in the Force or whatever and goes to Kollos' room, where she finds the box open and the phaser on the floor.

Marvick stumbles out of the lift and bumps into a random Gold. Instead of saying, "sorry, my bad," he decks the guy. Then he runs into engineering. Scotty had, in a friendly gesture, offered to let him fly the ship earlier. Now, not realizing that Marvick is fucking coo-coo for Cocoa Puffs, he allows him to do so.

Meanwhile, Kirk and our boys in blue move down the corridor with a pair of Reds, looking for all the world like Sharks looking for Jets. They encounter Jones, who tells them that Marvick tried to kill the ambassador.

The Shat, rather than say his lines like any normal human ("Larry Marvick - why?"), puts an extra weird pause in the middle, so it comes out as "Larry? Marvick? Why?"

Jones confirms that Marvick looked at the ambassador, so now he's crazy.

Kirk puts out an APB for Larry Marvick, attempted murderer of ambassador Kollos. Scotty tries to pull him off the E's navigation panel in engineering, and Marvick proceeds to beat the living shit out of him and two other Reds. Apparently, being nuts gives you super-human strength.

Marvick then steers the ship off in some other direction. We see the effect of this on the bridge, as the whole thing tilts and the crew members struggle to stay at their stations. There's a new shot here, looking beyond Bones and Jones' shoulders onto the bridge from the position of the lift. Nice.

Marvick is pushing the ship beyond warp nine, heading God knows where. When they get him on intercom, he yells some gibberish about not going to sleep, and how they'll "suffocate in your dreams." WTF? Kirk and Jones head to engineering with Bones and two Reds. They grab him, but are not able to keep the ship from wandering into some kind of weird light field. Friends, it's hit like this, along with the flashing scenes and rapidly-switching viewpoints, that makes me wonder what watching this show is like while altered. Like on acid or something. Probably either fun, or a really bad trip. Maybe it was written while altered. 1969, y'all.

Scotty can't figure out where they hell they've stopped, but Marvick yells that they're beyond the barrier of the galaxy, and that they're safe now. Bones tries to hypo him, and he freaks out, yelling about sleep again. He sees Jones standing in the back and is excited.

"My love, you're here!"

She tries to be nice, because that's what one does when confronted by a crazy man, but then she gets worried because she can see his crazy-ass thoughts. Then he loses it again, yelling at the others that they shouldn't love her. He attempts to strangle Jones, then collapses.

He's dead, Jim.

Kirk's Log 5630.8: "According to the viewscreen, we're in somebody's bad acid trip. Probably the special effects guy. The problem is, we're so far out of our own galaxy that we have no reference points, so no way to navigate. So we're just kind of sitting here. Marvick totally Disabled the Ship."

Bones enters to the bridge to report that he can't figure out why Marvick dropped dead. Spock reports that they experienced sensory issues when they crossed the barrier, and will have troubles if they try to warp back across it; however, they can't get back across unless they use warp. 

"Let's ask the ambassador," suggests Kirk.

"That could work," says Spock. "I could mind-meld with him. But Jones will be a problem. She's kind of a jealous bitch about Kollos. We have to keep her occupied."

"I'll do it," volunteers Kirk.

"God, are you gonna try to seduce her?" I asked the screen the first time I watched this episode.

Yep.

Imagine how crappy a Choose Your Own Adventure book based on Kirk would be. At every junction, your only choices would be "do something reckless that endangers the crew" or "seduce a sexy female." It doesn't matter what you choose, because you'll always end up at page five, where you'll win the day automatically because you're Kirk.

He takes her to the conservatory, where they examine and smell flowers. She gets pricked by a rose thorn, and he fawns all over her. Then comes the argument that every asexual everywhere has heard a million times over: "But you're so young! You're so pretty! Someday you may want companionship, blah, blah, blah." She counters him well: "Bitch, did you not hear me say a bunch of times that I have trouble shutting out the thoughts and emotions of others? I like the Vulcan way. Too much unwanted input from others makes my head spin, so back the fuck off already."

Haha, you found a girl you can't seduce, Kirk. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

They move back to the ideas of beauty versus ugliness again, and he kind of insults her, then says he meant no disrespect.

Remember the fact that I pointed out that Miranda Jones has the same hairstyle as Kalinda, the emotionless girl from "By Any Other Name"? This is apparently the way you wear your hair to alert Kirk know that he has zero chance of seducing you. Gonna be on the look-out for this hairstyle in the future so I know who to root for from the beginning.

Realizing that he isn't getting very far, Kirk doubles down and says, "Hey, baby. This place is romantic. I was wish there was moonlight. You'd look so hot by moonlight." He tries to kiss her. What the fuck is up with guys forcing themselves on her? No wonder she likes the Medusans.

"I can see you're a very complicated man," she tells him, pushing away. Her tone says that she's clearly thinking the opposite.

Unfortunately, Kirk's insincere attention is not enough to hold her attention, and when she realizes what Spock is doing, runs out of the conservatory.

She and Kirk rush to the ambassador's quarters and meet Spock and Bones outside.

"Sorry," Spock tells her. "I know your mind-link powers are better than mine, but you can't pilot a starship. I have to do it."

"No way! You can teach me! I can memorize it instantly!" she protests.

"Not gonna happen," says Bones. "You can do most things that a sighted person can do, but you can't fly the ship."

Wait. HOLD THE MOTHERFUCKING COMM BADGE.

Girlfriend is blind? That's a pretty sneaky plot twist, Star Trek. Turns out that gauzy Bedazzled thing she wears over all her clothes? A sensory net to feed info into her brain. And nobody noticed because people just wear weird shit like that in Star Trek. It's cool that she's a human working with Medusans because the madness that comes from dealing with them is tied into being able to see them. She's a blind telepath with Vulcan training, making her awesome for the job.

She tries to convince them that she's still the one to mind-link with Kollos and fly them out of there, but despite the fact that her sensor-thing gives her accurate information, they still think Spock is a better choice.

"How come you didn't tell us?" he asks.

"I hate pity," she replies.

Makes sense. She goes into Kollos' quarters to communicate with him.

"Dude, how come you didn't say anything?" Kirk asks Bones.

"It was none of your fucking business," Bones answers. Respect for Bones, yo. It was none of Kirk's business.

There's a scream from inside Kollos' quarters, but rather than rushing in to see what's going on, the boys just kind of stare at the door until it opens and Jones comes out.

"Spock will do the mind-link and fly the ship," she sighs.

Kirk nods. The lighting on him in this next shot is freaking weird as hell.

Kirk's Log, supplementary: "We put Kollos' box behind a screen on the bridge so Spock can meld with him and navigate us the hell out of here."

Spock does his melding, and steps from behind the screen, grinning.

"This is delightful!" says Kollos. He greets the bridge crew, quotes some poetry, and gets down to the business of navigating the ship.

The Enterprise moves through some more of that wavy colored light, and there's actually organ music added to the regular score. It's not quite "Whiter Shade of Pale," but it might as well be.

Job done, Kollos gets up and begins talking about how awesome it is to experience life through another life form. He then remarks that, while the different senses are cool, being in separate bodies is kind of lonely.

"Hey, you wanna maybe switch back?" Kirk asks him. "Kind of need Spock."

"Cool," says Kollos. He hops behind the screen and pops the box open to do the transfer.

Then Sulu points out that Kollos didn't put the Robocop glasses back on, so Spock's brain is getting fried right about now. Oops.

Dramatic music! Commercial break!

Spock stands up, wild-eyed, and we see the bridge from his point of view, sort of fish lens. He fights everyone on the bridge until Kirk stuns him with a phaser and two Reds carry him to sick bay.

Kirk Hamlets outside of sick bay while Bones tells him not interfere. Jones is in with Spock, doing a mind-meld to draw his mind back out. Despite Bones telling Kirk not to go in there, Kirk decides that it would be best if he yelled at Jones. When he gets in there, he sees that sees working without her sensor net thingy, trying to mind-meld with Spock.

"His mind is pretty far gone," she says.

He starts yelling at her that she's a nasty jealous bitch who only wants Spock to die, and isn't helping him at all because of it. He grabs her and shakes her, tells her that she's ugly on the inside, and nearly brings her to tears. Then he stumbles out into the corridor.

"Um, I may have just fucked up all the shit," he admits to Bones.

"Good job, asshole," snorts Bones.

In sick bay, Jones decides to double down on her efforts, attempting another mind-meld. He partially wakes up, and we get a weird montage of strange POV shots, quickly interspersed with shots of Kollos in his box form and fish-eye lens scenes from Spock beating the crap out of the bridge crew. Even the music is strange. Spock puts his hands on Jones' face to meld with her as well. Spock comes out weak, but okay. Somewhere in there, through Spock, she is able to mind-link with Kollos.

Kirk is in the transporter room to see her off. He brings her a rose, and she is nice to him.

"Not sure you'd talk to me," he says in surprise.

"Those horribly abusive things you said to me gave me the strength to be able to link with Kollos," she says, which I don't buy at all.

Spock is wearing his IDIC pendant on a chain, and they exchange pleasantries about combinations and diversities, but not in any way that you'd think to tie them together with the pendant. (Frankly, I want to know how she was able to see that he was wearing it, either time. Her sensor net thing seems to be able to relay some information, but not all of it. When Kirk handed her the rose, she said "I suppose it has thorns," meaning that she obviously had some limitations. The IDIC pendant should have fallen into the same category, as the sensory net does not seem to function in the same way as Geordi LaForge's VISOR or implants.) Spock tells her that he is glad that she has been able to link with Kollos, and wishes her well.

She gets on the transporter with the box, and she and Spock exchange Vulcan farewells before he puts on the Robocop glasses and beams her off the ship.

Unfortunately, Kirk neglected to leave the transporter room and wasn't wearing any frickin' glasses, so he lost his mind, piloted the ship to an unknown portion of space and dropped dead in engineering after declaring undying love to all of the female crew members. The end.

I'm placing this episode somewhere in the middle. Not terrible, but not the best, either. The story was okay, but I was irked by the random sexism that kept showing up, and by Kirk and Marvick's insistence that Dr Jones needed human companionship. No, quit trying to fit everyone into a neat little box. I'm also annoyed as hell that Kirk yelled nasty stuff at Jones, admitted right afterward that he shouldn't have done that, and then she thanked him for it later. It seemed like the writer was just trying to make Kirk out to be the good guy when he had clearly done something douchey.

Things that worked out: I always give props to Star Trek when they attempt to portray different forms of life that don't involve humanoids. It's a little weird that they contained him in a box. I kept thinking that in order to see Kollos, Jones or Spock would first have chant "Mecca lecca hi, lecca hiney ho" before the box would open. 

The costumes didn't suck. As per the usual, whenever Leonard Nimoy is called upon to portray a character living in Spock's body, I buy it. And the addition of new camera angles and POVs was intriguing.

Which leads to the weird part, which is neither good nor bad: said POVs were mixed with flashing lights, abstract images, swathes of light and color, and different angles. Points to the film crew for trying out new stuff to mix it up. It was fairly effective when trying to convey that someone had lost their mind. But there were times when it seemed like too much. It was a bit like watching the final project of a multi-media artist, just with a more-coherent storyline.

With all of these things, now I'm curious: what the hell does this look like when viewed while "on" something? I mean, Lady Archon doesn't condone drug use, but let's say you had scheduled a time to take some LSD or do some shrooms. How about, instead of watching Fantasia for the millionth time, you watched this instead? With a buddy. Then report back. For posterity.

Death Toll:

Red deaths this episode: 0
Red deaths this season: 3
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: 3
Total crew deaths thus far: 45

No crew deaths. Just Marvick. And whoever was being suffocated when he sleeps.

*******

So my sister is on this candida diet. You can get candida a bunch of different ways (my friend got it after developing non-curable Lyme's), but there's really only one way to get rid of it: medicine and this awful diet. Seriously, she can only eat like, quinoa, vegetables and nuts for six months. It's pretty much the worst thing ever. And some people have to be on this diet for the rest of their lives. I think I'd rather take a phaser shot to the knee.
Anyway, she can't drink coffee on this diet. She asked if I wanted some chicory.
"What the hell is chicory?" I asked.
"Like coffee, but not coffee. It's made from a root."
"So it's like tea?"
"Meh, not really."
She gave me a bit in a cup that ironically had a coffee logo splashed across the front, and added some almond milk.
It tastes like coffee, but the almond milk did not cut the bitterness. It gave it a slightly toffee aftertaste, but it was still bitter as all get-out. I added sugar. Like, a lot of sugar. Still bitter. I'm pretty sure that if I carefully painted my tongue with agave syrup that that chicory would still be bitter.
If you like a good bitter drink, you should give it a whirl. If you're like me and like your drinks mostly sweet, you should stay far, far away from chicory.

These are the two reasons why I never get anything done.

Into Darkness Podcast

Hey, Trek fans!

I was asked to join a podcast called the Nerdstitute,

and we had a roundtable discussion about

why Into Darkness sucks furry

Tribble balls.

"What do you mean, you liked that film?"

http://nerdstitute.com/episode-13-nerd-trek/

Season 3, Episode 61 "Spock's Brain"

"Spock's Brain"
Production Order: 61
Air Order: 56
Stardate: 5431.4
Original Air Date: 9-20-68

Soooo, "The Undiscovered Country" is a suspenseful movie, but "Wrath of Khan" is Children and Families? Sure, Netflix. Can irritated parents call you when their kids wake up screaming because they had nightmares about alien bugs crawling into their ear canals?

*******

The episode this week starts out with the Enterprise being approached in space by a Play-Doh frosting extruder spaceship. It's kind of a nifty little model. I love it when they make new models.

The E crew is at red alert, trying to figure out what kind of ship it is and why they won't respond to hails. The writers needed to round out the episode to 50 minutes, so at least one of those minutes is spent with the bridge crew staring at the viewscreen, watching the ship approach. Maybe they were trying to build tension, but it's a little like watching your cat stare at the wall.

Spock tells Kirk two things: there's one humanoid on board, and the ship uses ion-propulsion, which is beyond Starfleet's tech. Scotty's about to wet himself with excitement.

A chick beams onto the bridge. Her costume is atrocious. Shiny purple halter thing with a minishirt in a purple tweed (?), plus a ruffle and some kind of purple shiny boots that are combination footwear and garter belt. She keeps this fake-ass smile pasted on her face throughout this whole scene. It's creepy when people smile too much. Stop it, Garter Belt Boots.

Nobody says anything. She gets the Pretty Girl music because instead of being an intruder who randomly beamed onto the most vulnerable part of the ship, she must be a welcome guest. A pretty one. Kirk starts to politely introduce himself, rather than demanding to know who she is and why the hell she beamed onto the ship, probably because he hopes to boff her later. Two level-headed Reds storm from the lift to take out Garter Belt Boots (because they recognize that she's a fucking intruder), but she presses a button on this ugly-ass wrist cuff she's wearing, and it knocks everybody the hell out. Like, ship-wide.

*sigh* It's not even cute from the back. It looks like she's got a
romper on backward.

GBB smiles that creepy smile and walks around the bridge, checking everybody out. Then she puts her hand on Spock's head. Dramatic music! Commercial break!

The lights come up, and the bridge crew spring to their feet and get back to their posts with astonishing ease. Spock is gone. Bones pages Kirk to sick bay urgently. Upon arrival, Kirk sees Spock in a bed.

Christine delivers her one line: "I found him on the table!"

"What's wrong with Spock?" asks Kirk. "Why is he on full life support?"

"He's worse than dead!" says Bones, which really just burns more screen time and tries to build anticipation, when instead you want to yell just fucking tell us already! Quit being vague. "His brain is gone!"

Sorry, what?

"That chick on the bridge stole Spock's brain!" Kirk tells Scotty.

"He can live for about 24 hours without it," Bones says.

Sorry, what?

"You have to devise a way that Spock can come with us," Kirk tells him. "We're going to search for his brain!"

Kirk's Log 5431.4: "For the last 15 hours we've been following the ion trail of the bitch that stole Spock's brain. We only have nine hours left to find her, get it back, and re-weld it into Spock's head. Oh, and Bones has to learn how to do it, as he's assured me that medical science has no idea how to do that yet."

They lose the ion trail, but decide that the ship has gone into a nearby system, and based on the fact that Garter Belt Boots was breathing the air on the E, she probably lives on a class-M planet (smart deduction). There are three in the system, and they briefly debate which one is the best choice. This is probably another way to fill time on this episode, but I actually really like this: Kirk is actively seeking opinions from his bridge crew. None of these planets has tech advanced enough to support an ion-propulsion ship, but they are getting a similar scan from a planet that is mostly glacial.

Kirk's Log 5351.5: "Rehash. Rehash rehash rehash, rehash, rehash Spock rehash rehash. Rehash."

Kirk beams down with Scotty, Chekov and a pair of Reds. This set is a re-dress of Triacus from last week. Good job, Budget. Kirk accidentally calls Scotty "Spock." It's an adorable Spirk moment. Scotty scans for lifeforms and finds five humanoids nearby, but no cities or anything. The away team is then attacked by fur-wearing cavemen, who throw rocks at them. Kirk stuns one. I think that might be Count Rugen.

When he wakes up, the caveman tells them about The Others, who "bring pain and delight", and who sometimes come for them.
"Do they come for the females, too?" Kirk asks.
"WTF is a female?" the caveman asks.
When Kirk requests that the caveman take him to The Others, the caveman pushes him down and runs away.
Chekov comes running up and says that he has found a cave with structures that are really old, and giving off all kinds of signals. No, seriously: is this Triacus? Is the cave full of demonic children?
No, it's full of food and tempered metal tools, with some kind of motion-sensor beam. Kirk, Scotty and Chekov determine that it is a trap for the cavemen, and they decide to set it off to see what happens.
Hopefully, buzzsaws don't descend from the ceiling and slice them up. Maybe there's a rancor waiting to eat them. Possibly Amazonians are hiding around the corner, to kill them by way of snu-snu. Pain and delight, y'all. Kirk is terribly optimistic that this will go well. We should all take a note from his book. Perhaps the IRS is contacting you to congratulate you on your excellent number-crunching. It's absolutely not an audit.

"Good job with your itemizing, sir. I commend you."

In preparation, Kirk asks Bones to beam down, and tells Chekov to stay outside the cave with the Reds. Chekov's "aye, sir" is said in such a deflated tone that you know he's disappointed about having to babysit a pair of security guards.
Bones beams down with Spock. Remember when Kirk said he was going to take Spock with him? Yeah. Apparently, he thinks Spock should be present when they find the brain so that McCoy can drop everything that he is doing and perform surgery right there to reattach it. Also, we are made to believe that they crammed all of Spock's body functions and motor control into the device that is on his head.

Let's science for a bit, shall we? According to Dr McCoy, Vulcans have a slightly different physiology, so his organs can do some functioning on their own with less input from the brain than humans require. Okay, fine. It simplifies things to slap a Post-It note marked "alien" on this problem and move on. But Bones now controls Spock's movements through a remote control, the receiver of which is attached to his head, and if  you've been paying any kind of attention to this episode (though I wouldn't blame you if you just wandered off at some point), you know that said head is completely empty. That device is sitting on top of what amounts to a flesh-covered hollow bone-ball. With eyes that have miraculously stayed in place, against all odds (and medical science). Now, the remote will need to tell his muscles how to move and when, and which other muscles to interact with, and in which sequence. If Spock had a brain that was not functioning properly, one could possibly open things up and stimulate the parts of the brain manually, but it would take some practice to get the coordination right. Think of a toddler leaning to crawl, then walk. You can see the wheels turning in their little over-sized heads as their brains figure out how to make that work. They fall. A lot. Supposedly, Bones has had time to figure out which buttons to press at which time to make Spock move and stop at the appropriate times. And also to build some kind of machine that regulates said movements. He had 15 hours in which to do this, and test it out on Spock to get the coordination down. 

Maybe Bones should get him a leash so he won't wander off.

BUT WAIT! I'm not done complaining!

Said device is sitting on top of his head, which, as we all know by know, is fucking EMPTY. Putting it on his head if his brain was not functioning properly would make sense, as the device could be hooked up to send impulses to the brain to get it to make those movements, but there's nothing there. The device is broadcasting into said empty bone-ball. It would make far more sense to slap the thing on his spinal cord, to which the muscles for his legs and arms are connected through arteries and nerves and shit. Right now we have the equivalent of an old desktop computer, with a monitor, tower and keyboard. There are symbols on the keyboard, and I want them to appear on the monitor, but someone stole my tower, so no matter how hard I bang on the keyboard and turn the monitor off and on, I will always be missing the thing which tells the keyboard to move the symbols to the monitor. It's not going to work.

Sadly, this Spock-robot is not even close to being the most ridiculous part of this episode.

"Look, Jim! I've finished building the Vulcan model! I'm thinking
about adding racing stripes."

While I'm on this obnoxious line of thought, do you suppose Bones added in some functions to take care of bathroom issues? Is Spock going to pee his pants at some time, or will Bones find a bathroom, and then have to carefully "walk him through it"? 

"No, Spock. You have to shake again. Shake again, dammit!"

See what you make me think about, Star Trek?

Kirk, unnerved by the empty-headed Spock, directs Bones, Spock and Scotty to get into the cave so they can set the trap off. As soon as they do, a door closes on the cave, there's a whining noise, and whoever is working the camera shakes it back and forth to simulate that the cave is some kind of elevator, taking them down. It's not my favorite effect ever, as it's reminiscent of shaky cams, but it's a quick, easy way to get the point across that they've being shuttled downward without having to build a lift set. A gold star to you, special effects team. It's low-tech, but effective.

Up top, Chekov fires his phaser at a rock to warm it so that he and the Reds can be comfortable while they wait. They look bored as hell. I have to give props to whoever came up with that "red hot rock" idea, too. It was used previously in season one episode, "The Enemy Within", when Sulu and some crewmen got caught on the surface of a very cold planet. I like the idea of it, and the prop they made to go with it, a rock that glows red when a phaser is aimed at it.

In the lift, Scotty confirms that the power he's getting from his scans are ion. The door opens, and there's a chick in a corridor. She's dressed the same way as Garter Belt Boots, only in gold. Alarmed, she tries to press the button her ugly arm cuff to make them pass out, but Kirk stuns her first.

Bones hypos her awake after Kirk takes her ugly arm cuff. Then Kirk shakes her, demanding to know where Spock's brain is. This girl is super-confused, not knowing what the hell Kirk is asking for when he uses the pronoun "him" to describe a leader. She also doesn't know what a brain is. Bones scans her and says she is telling the truth. 

Wait, when did a tricorder become a polygraph test? Does Bones now have Betazed blood?

She says her name is Luma, and Bones tells Kirk that he isn't going to get very far with his line of questioning because Luma has the mind of a child.

Scotty, who has been scanning the corridor, comes running back with his comm. Spock's voice is broadcasting out of it.

Kirk tells Spock that they are going to come find him. But as they round the corner with Luma in tow, they come across Garter Belt Boots, with two well-groomed cavemen. GBB hits her arm cuff quickly, and everyone hits the floor besides Luma and Spock.

Kirk's Log 5431.6: "We've been kidnapped, which is a totally new experience for me. The cavemen warned us about the bringers of pain and delight, and I guess these chicks are it."

When our away team comes to, they're sitting in some kind of council chambers, and they're all wearing ugly belts. So are the well-groomed cavemen guarding the place. GBB asks who they are and why they are there. She's actually fairly pleasant about it.
Kirk gets up and he's all "Rawr, rawr, rawr, what have you done with Spock's brain rawr rawr?"
GBB is confused. She's also confused about the gender question. We're supposed to believe that these people have no concept of gender, but they do: guys are morgs, girls are eymorgs.

GBB doesn't know what Kirk is talking about when he accuses her of entering the E's bridge and taking Spock's brain. Through roundabout conversation, we learn that GBB is the leader, and that Spock's brain is running the computers that run the underground facility. But Bones points out that she doesn't seem smart enough to do brain surgery. GBB gets angry when Kirk asks to see the Controller, the thing that runs the facility. One of the other girls yells at her "Do not take them to the Controller, Kira!"

Kira presses a button on her ugly arm cuff, and the away team doubles over in pain. She and the other girls leave the team with the well-groomed cavemen.

Sulu's Log, supplemental: "Rehash. Things that happened when you tuned out."

The boys get up off the floor again and marvel at the pain brought on by the ugly belts they are wearing. They're prevented from leaving by one of the morg guards, and another morg guard keeps them from collecting their comms. So they start an altercation.

The morg are bigger and stronger than they are, but Kirk is there, so... you know how this ends.

Bones gives them some knock-out juice and our boys collect their stuff, Kirk attempting to call Spock. When he is able to raise the Vulcan. Spock asks what he is currently.

"A disembodied brain," Bones replies.

Spock has a bit of an identity crisis, but it mostly manifests as his typical "Fascinating."

He then asks why they are there to get him, seeing as how it is not possible to reconnect a brain.

"STFU, you're being negative," spouts Kirk.

Spock beams them a signal to find him, which is terribly convenient. As they go, Kirk asks Spock to find out about their pain belts. Spock is Wikipedia now, I guess. He tells them a moment later that they need to hit the red button on the ugly arm cuffs. Isn't it nice when your best friend's brain is wired into the facility of where you are being held prisoner?

The beam directs them through a door to a room with a bank of computers along one wall, an ugly round lamp-thing in the middle, and a worried-looking Kira. She notices them and hits the green button on the arm cuff.

While they're writhing around on the floor, Bones notices and pants to Kirk that Spock doesn't seem to be feeling any pain. Of course not. Some numbnuts forgot to put Leonard Nimoy's belt back on.

Anyway, Kirk grabs the remote that controls the ol' bone-ball, and he manages to get Spock to grab Kira and press the red button. There's a comical "boi-oi-oing" sound and the belts go flying.

"You can't take the Controller!" yells Kira. "He is young and handsome and will live 10,000 years!"

"That is flattering," says Spock, which is one of the good lines of this crappy episode.

Kirk describes the container that Spock's brain is being kept in, and recounts that Spock said that he felt like he was breathing air and pumping blood and regulating a temperature, and could Spock be controlling the atmosphere in the facility? Probably. Spock is now climate control. Lovely.

Spock and Kira reveal, in bits and pieces, that Kira got the knowledge to remove Spock's brain from The Teacher, a helmet left by the ancient builders of the facility. She and the others are pretty dumb, but putting on the helmet makes them smart. She isn't supposed to unless it's preordained by the builders, though, and her screaming and struggling as Kirk forces her into the helmet makes me more than a little uncomfortable.

You're such a fucking asshole, Kirk. Go soak your head.

When Kira takes the helmet off, she uses her now much-larger vocabulary to tell Kirk that he is correct in his assessment that the helmet makes people smarter, and that this is how Kira removed Spock's brain. Unfortunately, the helmet also made her smart enough to figure out how to use a phaser, which she pulls from behind that giant ruffle on her skirt, which is probably why that thing was added to her costume in the first place. It's set to kill. The phaser, not the skirt.

Dramatic music! Commercial break!

Kirk and Kira have a brief argument over the philosophical reasons for killing someone, then Scotty lamely falls backward with an "Oh!" and when Kira turns to look at him, Kirk grabs the phaser. Really, all that did was provide a bit of drama around which to frame a commercial, and they didn't need it after two minutes, so they got rid of it.

Kira admits that the knowledge gained from the helmet only lasts 3 hours, and Bones estimates that it's just enough time to put Spock's brain back. Okay, it's never been done before, so how the hell would you know, Bones?

She refuses to cooperate, so Bones volunteers. He says that, being a surgeon already, he might be able to retain the information, which would then benefit the world. Sorry, which world? There are many. Also, do you foresee this happening again, Bones? Someone stealing someone else's brain and installing it on their own planet because their air conditioner is broken?

Bones puts on the helmet, and it turns on, and he collapses when it's done. But he's now saying the surgery is no longer difficult difficult lemon difficult.

Kirk's Log 5432.3: "Bones is performing brain surgery on Spock, just in case it's not obvious from the scene in which this voice-over is being overlaid."

Kira is all concerned because there will no longer be a brain controlling everything. Kirk takes her aside and gives her that same lecture that he gives to all civilizations when he sweeps in and takes away their tech: that they'll develop on their own and live full lives the way they were mean to, blah, blah, blah. This is a pre-warp civilization, Kirk. You just broke the fucking PD. Again.

Unfortunately, while Kirk is being all sanctimonious off to the side, Bones' knowledge wears off, and he makes that face that I would make in math class when I would flip the test over, scan the problems, and realize that I had no way of figuring out how to get any answer, let alone the right one. But instead of quietly sobbing over the test like I would, he rants to Kirk that he can't do it. Kirk convinces him to soldier on, which I'm pretty sure is a bad idea when we're talking brain surgery.

Kirk's Log, supplemental: "Everything that has just happened in the last 30 seconds, plus now I've told Bones to connect Spock's vocal chords."

This is where this episode gets face-palmingly bad. Spock rasps that if Bones will reconnect his speech center, he will help guide him through the surgery.

Number 1: your speech center is connected, otherwise you wouldn't be fucking talking.

Number 2: you yourself have said several times that reconnecting a brain is not possible, because medical science has not figured it out at this point, yet somehow you have enough knowledge of the way it should work that you're going to walk Bones through it.

That's right, boys and girls: Spock intends to tell Dr McCoy how to perform brain surgery. On Spock's brain. While it is happening. Now, I know that brain surgery is frequently performed while the patient is awake, because consciousness is important to the process. But never at any point in history (unless I missed that giant news item) has anyone walked a doctor through their own brain surgery. I think they usually talk about boring, banal shit just to make small talk.

So Bones finishes up, and they test some things going along, and Spock sits up, just fine, zero scars or blood or any kind of incision. He's not even missing any hair. McCoy waved a magic wand over it and reconnected the brain with sleight of hand. 

Spock immediately begins telling Kira about the fascinating history of her people, about how they had a very advanced civilization, and a glacial age destroyed a lot of it, and how they built an underground facility for the women while the men stayed up top, and the civilization has been sliding backward into a more primitive culture ever since.

"I knew I shouldn't have reconnected his mouth!" says Bones grouchily, completely interrupting the only interesting thing in this whole damn episode.

Everybody laughs.

No, fuck you, Star Trek. This episode sucked, and you left the explanation for this scenario until the last ten seconds, and then you interrupted it. Bite me.

Congratulations, friends. We've officially made it through the episode that always comes up on every fan's "worst episode ever" list. I bet you don't even have to guess that hard to figure out why. In the end, they didn't even kill any crew members out of courtesy.

Death Toll:

Red deaths this episode: 0
Red deaths this season: 3
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: 3
Total crew deaths thus far: 45

*******

Last flavor in the Tea of a Kind (TOAK) brand was Citrus Mint Green Tea. I... tasted no mint. In fact, it tasted surprisingly like a white grape Fruit Roll-Up (I don't think they even made such a thing). Also, I have no idea how citrus mint becomes white grape. It wasn't terrible, though. I liked it better than the acai-pomegranate. The thing that I really like about green-based teas is that they tend to be light. In fact, when I stumbled out of bed in the middle of the night, throat as dry as the Mojave desert, I grabbed the remaining tea in this bottle and chugged it rather than grab a glass of water. It was light and refreshing, with a bit of flavor, but not so much that I woke up the next morning with a gross taste in my mouth. I think I would recommend this to people who like greens and are okay with stevia. You're not gonna get the mint, if that's what you're looking for, but you will get white grape.

http://teaofakind.com/

This is how Uhura keeps her whites their whitest.