ST:TAS Season One, Episode Eleven: "The Terratin Incident"

"The Terratin Incident"
Air Order: 11
Star Date: 5577.3
Original Air Date: November 17, 1973

Sorry for this late posting. My schedule last week filled up in such a way that I wasn't able to find time to do my write-up. Then I got freaking food poisoning. Yaaaaay.

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 Kirk's Log 5577.3: "So the mission this week is to check out some burned-out super nova called Arachna. We're gonna map it and stuff."

While prepping to chart the gas cloud Arachna, Uhura gets a call in that she can't decipher. She puts it on speaker, and Spock reports from the science station that it's just random noise, but then he interrupts himself to say that he is picking up a pattern in a code that hasn't been used in two hundred years. The one word that he can make out of "terratin." Uhura says that the code is being broadcast from Cepheus, a planet nearby that hasn't been explored. She attempts to answer back, but the signal isn't being acknowledged. Kirk decides to go to Cepheus to check it out. Bones tells him it's a damn waste of time to walk away from their mapping project to check out a noise in the dark. Kirk replies that he's going anyway.

Spock does some quick research and finds a little bit of info: basically, it's a class-M planet, and there are crystals everywhere on the surface. When they get in front of the thing, Kirk orders Sulu to put them into orbit. But before he can do so, they receive a very light impulse from the surface. We get a weird bit here and I can't figure out if they're killing time in a short episode, or if they're establishing how the ship works as a whole: Kirk asks around to make sure everything is still functioning normally. The various stations on the bridge check in, so Kirk calls engineering and sick bay. Scotty says his engines are "purring like kittens" and Bones reports back that all is well with the animals that they're experimenting on, which are apparently the ghosts of the mice from The Secret of Nihm.

Christine also chimes in to say that their "halo fish" is doing well, which means that things are okey-dokey, because the halo fish will change color if the environment changes. I guess this is the whole reasoning behind checking in with everyone after that very minor impulse - we have to establish that there is a fish tank in sick bay. Spoiler alert: someone falls into the fish tank later. Spoiled spoiler alert: it's Christine.

Determining that everything is fine, Kirk once again asks that they go into orbit around Cepheus, and that they do scans and sweeps and all that other crap that they do when they show up someplace randomly. Arax starts doing these tasks, and while reporting about lava flows and crystalline structures, there is a steady beam of light aimed at the E, and Arax yells out because he was looking directly at it.

So I guess that beam of light killed them all, because there's a lot of Dramatic music! and everyone becomes a flashing ghost.

Naw, just kidding. Everyone is fine. Kirk does another round of asking about the status of things, and all reports come back okay, but Scotty says the dilithium crystals are completely FUBAR. Kirk and Spock go down to check it out. The crystals look weird, and Spock says that they are falling apart in a spiral pattern. Some woman named Briel in the mess hall calls out over the com system that the people there are now much smaller than the chairs and tables. And then there's this super-sexist line:

Okay, we get it. Shit in there is big. Why isn't it "People are losing rings, hairpins. Some are near panic"? While it's less likely for a guy to lose a hairpin than a girl, anybody can wear a ring, and anybody can panic.

It's the same when Kirk and Spock reach the bridge. They argue whether the ship is expanding, or they are shrinking.

Dramatic music! Commercial break!

Kirk's Log 5577.5: "Well, we're screwed now. We tiny, getting tinier, and we don't have enough steam to get out of here."

Uhura can reach her controls and is having to crawl over the panels to work her station. Kirk calls Bones to see if the good doctor knows what the hell they're looking at. Bones suggests that he come down to sick bay to check out his research on it. I want to briefly call BS on this request: things are going to be easier if Bones just tells them what he has to say over the comm system. If the bridge is at the top of the ship, and sick bay somewhere roughly around the middle, then it will take them some time to get there at normal height. At the severely diminished height they are at, it will take them much longer to get there, and much longer to get back. They have to take a lot more steps in order to get the same distance. They'll take the lift, which will cut out a bunch of that distance, but not all of it.

Anyway, they cut the travel time out of the episode and merely show the trio standing on top of one of the medical tables.

So they hand out some explanation about how everything is the same physically with them, but the space between the molecules is shrinking, which is why they are smaller now. Bones says that weight and mass are the same, and the science here goes over my head, but someone on IMDB who sciences more than I do says that this is crap, because the characters are shown moving dials and levers, and there's a bit about weight and mass and stuff. I dunno. All I know is, some of the science on here sounds like pure BS, and some of it sounds do-able. I do know that writers were encouraged to contact actual scientists to make sure something sounded feasible, but this was the early seventies, so the science may have been incorrect then. It's also possible that writers just shrugged that shit off and figured that the fiction part of science-fiction would save their asses. "Nobody will notice the inaccuracy if it's entertaining... unless some dick-ish blogger comes along in forty years and calls me out on that."

*smiles and wiggles fingers at writers in most white girl way ever*                                      

So because everything that's living is shrinking, Christine points out that the caged animals are now too small to fit in the cages, and that the halo fish is now the size of a tadpole, which is a weird way to compare sizes. If I said to you, "That tiger is the size of a sofa," it would work. If all of us shrank down, tiger included, and I said, "That tiger is the size of a house cat," then yeah, that tiger really could be the size of a house cat. But relatively speaking if we all got smaller at the same rate, that tiger to us would still be the size of a sofa.

"Look how small the mice are!" she says, holding the mouse in her hand. The mouse always fit in your hand, Christine. This is not astonishing that you are relatively larger than said mouse.

You know what I actually really like about this episode? The clothing issue is addressed. In pretty much every show or movie or book or whatever where someone either grows or shrinks to crazy proportions, the clothes grow or shrink with them. It's a crapshoot as to whether or not accessories grow or shrink with them. Bruce Banner's clothes shred from his body when he becomes the Hulk, but amazingly, those pants seem to grow with him in the important area, so I guess those are magic. Here, Spock points out that their clothes are made of some kind of organic material, so they shrink at the same rate as the people wearing them. My God, was that so hard to come up with? Take note, other "incredible shrinking whatever" plots: it is possible to address this in logical ways. This is also the reason given for the non-shrinking metal accessories, like the hairpins and rings in that earlier comment.

So now we know that the shrinking thing only affected organic matter, and they explain this with the spiral thing that Spock was talking about in engineering. The spiral thing that was happening to the dilithium is happening to their DNA, which is a double-helix. Bones says that eventually, the DNA will stop winding, so Kirk is confident that they can figure out how small they get if they keep shrinking down.

I awarded points to Star Trek for coming up with that organic clothing thing, but now I must take them away. There is no travel time involved in any of this. First they were on one of the medical tables. Then they were on the floor. Now Spock is standing on the table with the fish tank. At no point in time did they stop their conversation to scale any furniture. Fuck, dude. Hasn't anybody on this show watched anything where the characters shrank?

But then in the very next scene, they take care to show Spock and Kirk on the bridge, and Spock scales his science station chair to get at the console.

Kirk's Log 5577.7: "Shit, son. We're gonna lose control of the ship in 32 minutes, when we become too small to run the controls."

Sulu starts to lose his shit. He insists that if they set the controls right, then they can fire the phasers at whatever on the surface is sending the shrink-ray wave-thing up to the ship. He tries to set a dial to do so, but the arm on the face of it swings around and knocks him off the console, breaking his leg. Despite the fact that everyone else was on other consoles on the other side of the bridge, they manage to dash to his side by the next frame.

So they splint Sulu's leg, and even though we get more time issues, we also get more logical problems that stem from being tiny: they help Sulu to the lift to get him to sick bay, but are now too small to be detected by the sensor that opens the lift doors. We'll ignore the fact that they probably would've wasted most of their remaining 32 minutes getting Sulu across the bridge. Also, the fact that gripping the handles inside the lift makes it go, and there's no way for them to have been able to climb the smooth, rounded walls to activate them.While we're at it, let's excuse the fact that they somehow had to climb onto the medical exam table with an injured man. Let's just skip straight to the part where Christine suggests that the best way to heal Sulu's leg is to use the bone knitter that's designed to be used on the middle ear.

Yes! Yes, yes! A regular bone knitter would probably be too big, but one designed for precision... awesome. Also, it was suggested by Christine, who is hella smart, but who only gets lines like "Yes, doctor" and "Right away, doctor." Two points, Star Trek!

She volunteers to get it, and while there isn't enough time for her to climb down, cross the floor, and climb another piece of furniture, we do see her making a bit of a journey amongst unidentified large objects. She grabs a thing that looks like a washer, but on her way back, she trips and falls into the fish tank.

Lots of dramatic music, and Christine yelling for help, despite the fact that she's at the bottom of a fish tank and her mouth is full of water. Hero Kirk somehow makes the journey to her in a split-second, and he tosses some string into the tank for her to grab ahold of before hauling her out. Miraculously, the laser bone knitter thingy is fine to use, despite taking a dunk in the fish tank. Sulu's leg is fixed.

Spock says that he has completed some calculations, and has determined that they'll probably stop shrinking around one-sixteenth of an inch, which is way too small to be able to run the ship.

Kirk decides that he should beam down to the planet's surface to see if he can stop the shrink-ray wave-thing before they become too small. Spock estimates he has twenty minutes left. I guess I'll go ahead and label that as Disable the Ship, but the timing in this episode is completely out of whack, so does it really matter? Kirk uses a huge comm device to call Scotty and request a team in the transporter room.

Kirk's Log, supplemental: "Rehash on the decision I just made. Beaming to the surface because I really don't have any other ideas right now."

Spock has thrown together a communicator that fits in Kirk's hand, and they ask Scotty to do an automatic beam-back in ten minutes. Spock mentions that the transporter has his original physical composition programmed in, and wonders aloud if it will restore Kirk to normal size when he beams down. Kirk is not certain. Scotty has a whole team of guys working the controls on the transporter panel, and they pull as one on the buttons to beam Kirk to the surface.

The hunch that Spock suggested was correct, and Kirk beams down full-sized, with a tiny communicator in his hand. I'm gonna be bitchy here and point out that that communicator should be much, much smaller.

Kirk calls the E and tells Spock that he was right about the transporter keeping his height and everything on file, then he gets a good look around. Shrink-ray beams, outcroppings of crystals, and exploding volcanoes. Spock lets him know that the shrink-ray wave-thing has stopped bombarding the E. There's an earthquake as a nearby volcano explodes, and Kirk is thrown backward. His comm device is eaten by lava, because of course it is. It's a bit of lame danger, though, as the transporter is set to bring him back in ten minutes. He didn't actually need it.

He runs toward the shrink-ray beams, and what the holy hell? A tiny city!

A few moments later, the automatic beam-back goes off, and Kirk returns to the E, full-sized. No one is in the transporter room. He ventures up to the bridge. Empty as well. Then he spots Scotty and three Reds on the floor near the helm. Scotty yells at him not to talk so loudly. Hmmm, points for noticing that a full-sized person would be exceptionally loud to someone with ears that tiny, but points off for not realizing that those Reds could not speak loudly enough to be heard by Kirk unaided.

Scotty yells up to Kirk that everyone is fine, but the bridge crew were transported off the ship a few minutes ago. Kirk sits at communications and tries to contact the tiny city. He's pretty pissed off that his bridge crew were taken, so he issues a threat: return his crew members, or be phasered off the surface of the planet. As a demonstration of his awesome powers, he disintegrates a crystal near the city.

The viewscreen turns on, revealing a dude and a bunch of other people. "Hey," says the dude. "I'm in charge of the Terratin people. Don't phaser me, bro. We have dilithium here for you. Sorry about the mess we made of your ship. We tried talking to you, but our communications are damaged, so we used our shrink-ray thing on you, hoping that you'd get our message. Our planet is dying."

"Yeah, that's awesome," says Kirk, waving them off. "Where are my people?"

"It's all good," says Arax, appearing on the screen. "The Terratins beamed us down. We're here in the city."

"So the Terratins are this lost Earth colony," exposits Spock from the surface. "Terrans called this planet Terra Ten, which is how that name came about. Their ancestors settled this planet, but the shrink-rays occur here naturally, and they were shrunk down to one-sixteenth of an inch high. Now it's just a genetic trait. That means that when Terrans swung by later to check in, they couldn't find the Terratins."

"We kind of screwed here," says the guy in charge. "The planet is dying, and we had no other means of contact. We're hoping you can help us out."

"Yeah, well, you screwed me," says Kirk. "You shrunk my guys, screwed up my fuel, then you kidnapped my bridge crew."

"It's cool, be cool," says the Terratin dude. "I'll send up your people with dilithium. When everything is good, will you help us then?"

So the bridge crew beams back on board with some crystals, and Kirk orders the remaining crew to beam down to the surface and back again in groups, to restore them to regular size.

Downstairs, the ground is cracking all around the city. The guy in charge asks the final batch of crew shrunken members if they will ask Kirk if he's going to save them or not.

Ex-squeeze me? Kirk has been using their transporters to make his crew right size again, and he hasn't even given the Terratins a straight answer as to whether or not he'll save their entire society, or even any of it at all? Damn, that's pretty douchey. I know he's pissed off, but shit, dude.

Up on the bridge, Kirk has the helm set course for Starbase 23, which instructions to get them the hell out of there.

"Um, hello?" asks Spock. "Tiny people on the surface, depending on our kindness? Hello?"

"Phaser the city," Kirk tells Sulu.

So we see phaser fire going off around the area surrounding the city, then it disappears, and reappears on the transporter pad. Kirk and Spock have miraculously made it down to the transporter room by the next frame, and Spock has had time to set up a macroscope.

Kirk uses the macroscope to tell the Terratins that they have a new planet picked out for them, ten days away.

"Cool, thanks," says the guy in charge. "We'd like to name your crew members honorary Terratins for helping us."

"We came pretty close to it being permanent rather than temporary," notes Spock.

"Yeah," says Kirk. "About..."

Wait for it...

Wait for it...

"...one-sixteenth of an inch close."

Ba dum tissssss.

Kirk's Log, supplemental: "Random rehash of everything that was just said in the previous scene, because the episode was a few seconds short."

This episode was kind of boring, to be honest. Normally, I enjoy a good miniaturization story line, but this was not terribly interesting. The good parts of those kinds of stories generally come from seeing the characters very tiny amongst things that are supposedly normal-sized. And frankly, an animated series is perfect for this kind of story, because no new sets need to be built. They can actually use background shots and stock footage from other episodes, then add the tiny characters on top. The thing is, part of the style of Star Trek is to do a lot of close-up shots, most likely in order to hide the fact that their budget was microscopic, and they were forced to phone it in on more complicated shots. So even though what you want to see in this episode is tiny Kirk against a backdrop of huge furniture, you're not going to get as much of that as you'd like.

Tiny Christine walks among the supplies on the shelf. What those
supplies are, we never learn. They only appear as giant orange columns.

Kirk in his chair at a half-way point.

The most interesting part of this episode came near the end, when we find out about the Terratins and their plight. I was really more interested in that story than the "how do we cope with this shrinking thing?" scenario. So out of a twenty-five minute show, I got about twenty minutes of "why are we shrinking?" and five of "this is why, and also lost colony of tiny people, and please relocate us." It was kind of along the lines of "bored, bored, bored, oh cool! Wait, it's over." Maybe it's the amateur archaeologist in me, but when Star Trek gives me an ancient civilization and then forces me to walk away immediately, I get annoyed.

"Hey! I was enjoying that! No, don't roll the credits - tell me more!"

Also, did anyone else notice a weird plot hole with the transporters? Maybe we were meant to fill in the blanks ourselves, or maybe it was explained in some earlier draft of the script and then eliminated, but when Kirk beams down to the surface, the transporter automatically corrects for his size, and beams him there at normal height, right? Not so for the bridge crew. The Terratins beamed them from the E into their city, at that one-sixteenth height. Are we supposed to fill in the blank, and assume that they had adjusted for the height differences ahead of time? And assuming that this was the case, what about all of the other crew members? They would have to be beamed from the E's transporter room onto the Terratin transporter pads rather than allowing the E's transporter chiefs to do it. Kirk set a whole crew in the transporter rooms once the bridge crew returned, so were they just there to supervise? What's more, it would have taken a chunk of time to restore the full crew to size. A complement of 430 crew members, around four transporter rooms with six pads in each room... that's 18 groups of people passing through the transporters, not once, but twice, and with dilithium in tow on the return trip. Seems like they should have run out of dilithium, time or both.

Lots of science this week, but with an extra dose of fiction to round it out.

Bratty discovers the joys of the heating pad.

ST:TAS Season One, Episode Ten: Mudd's Passion

"Mudd's Passion"
Air Order: 10
Star Date: 4978.5
Original Air Date: November 10, 1973


Check it out, friends: according to Netflix, this show is "exciting", but should only be viewed by tweens. Interesting how the prejudice that prevailed when the show came out has continued on 40+ years later, despite the fact that animation is now considered to be for adults as well.

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Kirk's Log, 4978.5: "So this incident took place like, eight months before the last, but looks like I forgot to file those logs away with Starfleet. Oopsie. Anyway, we're orbiting this planet called Motherlode, and we're pretty sure that Harcourt Fenton Mudd is down there now." 

We cut down to the surface of Motherlode, and of course Harry Mudd is there, peddling his bullshit wares to the miners. (Role is reprised by Roger C. Carmel, who played Mudd in the live-action series.) You remember the first time we saw him, right? Dude talked about how space miners, way out in the middle of nowhere, made good money mining, but had nothing to spend it on, so this was the place to be and the people to deal with when you want to sell snake oil.

Kirk and Spock beam down to catch the show. Turns out, Mudd is not selling space fruit snacks that make you more attractive, but it's so close as to almost be the same damn thing. No, he's selling love potion crystals. (He calls them crystals, but refers to them several times using liquid terms, so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt here, and say that these crystals are like Gushers fruit snacks, and are liquid-filled. You break the crystal shell and rub the liquid on your skin.) The crowd thinks he's full of crap, and they're angry that he would try to sell them worthless shit for 300 credits a pop, but then some blonde chicky appears on stage and begs him to return to the ship with her.

"I broke a crystal, and touched this girl, and now she wants me," he says to the crowd. He notices Kirk and Spock in the crowd. "Did you guys want to buy some crystals, too?"

"Nope," says Kirk. "We're playing Space Police today, and we're here to collect you for fraud and other illegal shit."

The look on Kirk's face here is fabulous as he listens to Mudd's spiel.

"Yeah, too bad this planet is independent, and doesn't recognize Federation law," Mudd replies.

"Mind your own beeswax," says one of the miners. He appears to be angry with Mudd, and wary of his selling tactics, yet he's barking at Kirk and Spock.

"Okay, then," says Spock. He aims his phaser at the blonde and fires, and I have no idea what setting that is, but the blonde disappears, and the whole thing is revealed to be an illusional hoax. Some kind of alien Gila monster waddles away in place of the blonde.

Kirk says they can't arrest Mudd here on Motherlode because of the law thing, but he can go with them voluntarily, something he takes advantage of when the crowd gets pissed off about the lizard thing and starts throwing rocks at him.

They beam up to the ship.

Up in the transporter room, Mudd tells Kirk that he cost him his ship, all of his belongings, and his love crystals.

"I'll sue your ass!" he yells.

"Fine, go ahead," says Kirk. "I have zero fucks to give for your dumb crystals."

 A few minutes later, Kirk is in the brig with Spock, Christine, and Mudd.

Christine tells Mudd to suck it up, because he only got bruised from that stoning he received.

"How the hell'd you get off that planet with the clones?" demands Kirk.

Seems Mudd stole a ship, flew to a new planet and, upon encountering the populace, fucking sold them Starfleet Academy. No wonder this guy wears baggy pants. How the hell else would his giant balls fit in there? 

So, using his Academy money, he flew to yet another planet, where he found the love crystals, and sold them to those people, who promptly got sick. Mudd then skedaddled, because what the else are you gonna do when something you sold makes the populace of a planet ill?

They leave, and Spock asks Christine to do a medical write-up for his arrest report. She agrees and tries to flirt with him by saying that he was super-clever in trapping Mudd.

*sigh* I really don't ship them, and frankly, I'm annoyed that we keep having to encounter it. Rather than root for them t get together, I end pitying Christine. I guess we're supposed to feel bad for her because we know that, as a Vulcan, he's unlikely to return her feelings. But I feel bad for her because I think they'd be a shitty couple.

Spock shoots her down by saying that she's exaggerating, and instructs her not do so in her report. I suppose that sounds cold, but he's right: he didn't really do jack.

Once Spock walks away, Mudd comes to the forcefield to mess with her in his weird, suggestive way. He lays it on thick, saying that Spock is bangin' but emotionless. Then he waxes poetic about Christine's nursing skills and how feminine she is, blah, blah, blah. Then he's all, "I want to say thank you, and give you a gift." 

And guess what he offers her? Yeah, a fucking love crystal, the creeper.

So let's put this into perspective: a cop arrests a con artist and asks another cop with a lower rank to do a write-up on the perp. The perp then offers the lower-ranking officer a gift for a job well done. That lower-ranking officer isn't really going to take that crystal meth, right? RIGHT?

She tells him to blow it out his ass, and he tells her to think about it.

He tries to convince Christine to take his stupid drugs, saying how cool it would be for Spock to be in love with her. He explains that she rubs it in her skin, then touches Spock, and he'll be totally hers for the taking, because this liquid crystal thing cause love between males and females, but only friendship between members of the same sex. So, specifically heteronormative love crystals. Okey-dokey. Then he appeals to her as a scientist:

"You can totes take it and run your own "experiment." Pretty cool, huh?"

Sadly, that's the bullshit line she buys, and she drops the forcefield just long enough to accept the crystal from him.

Dammit, Christine. Haven't you studied up on your twentieth-century American drug campaigns?

McGruff the Crime Dog wants to know how you can be that fucking naive.

On the bridge, a decision is made to check out an uncharted M-class planet. The E goes into orbit. The scans show no intelligent life on the desert planet, and it sounds like the sort of thing they might want to explore.

Back in the brig, Christine says she will run lab test on the crystal, and report back to him with the results, like Mudd gives any shits about science. 

"You should just take it the way it was meant to be taken. You know, break the crystal and rub it on your skin. Then, when Spock is in love with you, you guys should buy pacifiers and glow sticks, and track down a rave. Best time ever," he suggests. He calls her M'Dear and Darlin' a lot. It's not creepy at all.

So she stupidly breaks the thing in her hand, immediately starts to feel woozy, and is caught in the corridor by Mudd. There's some real quick animation here, where you see him take something from the random belt that she's wearing that she's never worn before and will never wear again.

But she starts to feel better immediately, and scolds him for being out in the corridor. He dutifully steps behind the forcefield again and suggests that she go look for Spock. When she walks away, he uses her stolen phaser to turn off the forcefield. How, we never find out. Interesting how a defense weapon has so far during this episode been used to change a girl back into a Gila monster, and turn off the forcefield in the ship's brig. Somehow, the lowly phaser has become a Sonic Screwdriver.

Mudd then makes for the nearest computer console, and after doing some fancy typing, inserts her pilfered ID badge, which is spit out a moment later with her clearance information and name, but his photo.

Just a heads' up, you guys: identity theft in the future is super easy, so make sure your ID badges are laminated and shit.

Christine takes Spock her report like a normal person, but then proceeds to sit in his lap. The WTF look on his face is accurate: what the fuck, Christine? Mudd said you just needed to touch him, not give him a lap dance. Just place your hand on his arm or something.

Spock gives her the benefit of the doubt by asking if she's injured, like she tripped and fell.

She gives an awkward "Um, no, sorry," and when he thanks and dismisses her, she asks if he'd rather she stayed. Spock replies that her assistance is not needed, and she stalks off to kick the ass of Mudd.

His face kind of says it all here.

Christine feels stupid, and is certain that she got screwed over by Mudd. But when she arrives at the brig to tell him off, she finds him gone. For whatever reason, she checks her belt thing, and finds her ID and phaser missing.

We cut to a new scene, one where Mudd inserts Christine's ID into a slot, and the door into the shuttle bay opens for him. Then we get this terrifying image:

Spock is adding Christine's medical report to his arrest paperwork, and he refers to it as "Nurse Chapel's sweet summary." Then he smiles and starts telling the empty room about how lovely she is, and I settle in for another lousy episode where an altered Spock acts out of character, but it's okay because he was under the influence of some kind of something or other, and drugs immediately make you a new person the instant they hit your system.

So Mudd is sneaking around the shuttle bay when he gets a karate chop to the neck and hits the deck. 

Fuck yeah! Christine is channeling Number One! Go, girl!

But then she reveals that she's pissed off at him for giving her crappy product. Okay, if customer satisfaction-driven rage is all you're gonna give me, then I guess I'll take it. But come up with something better next time, Star Trek. 

So this show typically has a bunch of short cut-scenes (sometimes 15 seconds or less) interspersed with longer ones to show how things are happening in real time. I typically group them together so that I'm not writing one sentence descriptions over and over again, but the tiny cut-scenes in this episode are pretty epic, so I've been tossing in a few as they've played out in the script.

Spock enters the bridge and looks around. We see the bridge from his point of view and hear his voice as he's speaking so we can see the reactions he gets.

"Captain... doctor... I wish to report a, ummmm... a number of very... strange, um... emotions."

Bones, who is sitting at a console near the turbo lift, turns and gives him a look. "What?"

We don't see Kirk's reaction, but his voice has the same "The hell?" quality to it as Bones.

Back in the shuttle bay, Christine has her phaser trained on Mudd, who is trying to cover his ass by saying that the coldness of Vulcans may take a moment to melt through, and maybe her potion just needed more time to work. But Christine is embarrassed, and has no time for his shit. She's calm enough to be sensible, and informs him that her phaser is only set on stun, and it sounds like her plan is to take him back to the brig rather than stomp on his face with her Starfleet-issued high-heeled boots. he tries to offer her more drugs, saying that the one he gave her was possibly defective. She knocks them from his hand, where they burst against an air vent grate... and get sucked into the system. Because of course they do. She sets off the alarm. There's a scuffle. He grabs her wrist, and she... faints?

Come on, Star Trek: are you shitting me with this? I'll go ahead and buy that the karate chop to the neck will knock someone out, but he's grabbed her by the wrist twice now, and she's fainted. I mean, attacking pressure points can get you those results, but he's just grabbed her wrist. Are people in the future so delicate that you can take them out that easily? How the hell do they make more humans if they keep fainting like that?

Anyway, Mudd plans to use her as a hostage.

Up on the bridge, the officers are trying to determine why they've gone to red alert, and Spock conveniently notices some CC footage of the shuttle bay, where Mudd is disappearing into a shuttle with Christine's unconscious body. Spock refers to Christine as "my love." All of the others look at him like, "what did he just say?" and Arax actually lets out a low whistle.

He talks about how he loves her, and wants to hold her in his arms and protect her, but there's a struggle in his voice. he buys that he cares for her, but cannot figure out why.

Somehow, the shuttle is allowed to leave. A cut scene of the cockpit shows an alert Christine sitting in the passenger seat while Mudd pilots the ship and tells her that he plans to drop her off on the planet and then leave when they go to rescue her. Hey, Christine - how about taking the shuttle back from him? You're not gonna struggle? Like, at all? No more Number One? Alrighty, then.

On the bridge, Spock has decided to beam down to the planet to rescue Christine. Kirk & Co are weirded out by Spock's love confessionals, but he declares that he will accompany his first officer to help. Bones starts to protest because Spock is not himself, but Kirk shrugs it off.

Um, I'm seeing a plot hole here concerning timing. Mudd is flying the shuttle to the surface in order to drop off Christine, in the hopes of being able to take off again while the crew is busy getting their nurse back. But it takes time to fly a shuttle to the surface, and even though he's had a head start, Kirk and Spock are planning to just beam there. Kirk and Spock could actually arrive first, ensure that Christine is safe, and send the E after Mudd. They could possibly all beam back before the E goes after the shuttle. I know beaming in this century is clunky and not as precise, so the odds of them being able to beam onto or off of the shuttle are not that great. But Mudd's timing issues are kind of paramount to his escape, so he's taking a big risk here.

After the boys leave, M'Ress and Scotty briefly discuss how weird it is that Spock claims to be in love with Christine. Then she sniffs the air, and we see something wafting from the air vent. There's an odd camera sweep around the bridge for no discernible reason (I guess maybe they wanted us to be afraid for the bridge crew who are left?), and we get some random

Dramatic music! Commercial break!

Kirk's Log, supplemental: "Rehash."

Kirk and Spock are down in the transporter room when Bones comes in to report that a search team found some of Mudd's crystals in the shuttle bay, and that several had been broken against the vent. Kirk says it's a good thing that Mudd only sells crap that doesn't work, and Bones replies that he isn't so certain anymore that the crystals are useless, because a bunch of crew members are acting like Spock. Spock is actually pretty antsy to get down there, angry at the thought of Mudd "harm[ing] a hair on her pretty head." Kirk asks Bones to make a report about the crystals, then he and Spock beam down.

On the bridge, Scotty makes jokes about Spock's condition. M'Ress decides that she'd like to hook up with that.

Surface-side, Mudd tells Christine that he plans to get her set up here on the planet before taking off. Exactly how long does he think she's going to be there? We get a sweep across the landscape, and of course that giant rock formation opens one eye, because why wouldn't it?

After Kirk and Spock beam down, we get a tiny cut scene that shows the liquid crystal steam wafting into the transporter room. Then we get another tiny scene that shows the bridge crew kicking it at their stations. Arax plays some kind of green guitar while Scotty lounges in the captain's chair with his feet up over the arm rest.

Down on the surface, we get the most Spirk scene ever: Spock slips in some snow or loose dirt or something, and Kirk catches him and hauls him back up.

"Thanks, Jim! You're a good friend."

"No problem, buddy. I feel the same way about you!"

While most of the fandom is yelling "Just kiss already!" it's not going to happen, because those crystals are all heteronormative, remember? They're just really good friends.

So that rock formation wakes up, and it's pissed that there's no more coffee because it's roommate forgot to go to the store yesterday to buy more, so it smashes the empty shuttlecraft. Two tiny dudes come rushing forward to two other tiny creatures, and three of the creatures fire weapons at the rock guy. And the alarm on his phone didn't go off, so he's probably late for work, and now he'll have to explain this shit to his boss. Really? Why can't he catch a damn break? No coffee, tiny things in his bed, and now they're trying to harm him? WTH?

Spock grabs Christine, and calls her darling, much to her surprise. Kirk attempts to call for a beam-up, but remember that tiny cut scene where the crystal steam wafted into the transporter room? Yeah, now the female and male officers are dancing. And this dancing bit includes some of the worst animation I've ever seen. It's like they drew a pair of connected torsos, glued it to popsicle sticks, and just moved it around behind the console. I'm sure they save money on animation by not having them move beyond the console, but it's seriously awful.

Anyway, no one is paying attention to Kirk's call because they're all too busy with each other. The ship has been disabled by lurve.

Now the rock guy's roommate has woken up and is pissed off about all the yelling and lack of coffee, and our human characters duck behind another rock formation that is hopefully just rocks. Only now we have another problem, in that Kirk is all jealous of Spock and Christine, and he yells at them to keep their hands to themselves. Okay, seriously: if Kirk and Spock are just really good friends, and Kirk does not want Christine, then why is he flipping the hell out that Spock can't keep his hands off of her?

It's fine, you know? There's nothing between Kirk and Spock. They're just super, super platonic.

Spock realizes that their anger at one another is only furthering the effect of the crystals, and he and Kirk both try to remain calm. in the meantime, Mudd is excited because he didn't think those dumb crystals actually worked, and he's now calculating how much he can charge for them in the future.

We get a weird cut scene here where Bones tells some brunette Red about how he's saved everyone on the ship at one point in time or another, and that if the Enterprise had a heart, he'd save that too. Then he says "Now, let's talk about your heart."

Smooth, Bones. Smooth like Tumblr.

Meanwhile, Kirk cannot raise anyone on the ship, and he suggests that they distract the cranky rock guys.

Spock replies (verbatim), "That is an outstandingly stupid idea."

Heh.

Kirk asks Mudd if he has any more crystals left, and Mudd says he has two, though he's loathe to give them up, because he can make a nice profit off them. Then he sort of comes to his senses and realizes that he's not getting out of there alive with those damn crystals.

Up top, the bridge crew all have hangovers.

Scotty complains that he feels like shit, despite not having had anything to drink. M'Ress tells him to STFU. Oops, honeymoon's over. Christine manages to get through, and Christine M'Ress picks up the call for emergency beam-up.

This overhead shot cracks me up. Arax can cross one leg over the other two,
cross his arms in defiance, and hold his chin in his hand at the same time.

So Kirk's plan is to throw crystals into the rock guys' mouths, and I dunno, make them fall in love, or something? And then what? Christine already made contact with the E. They can be beamed up now. Plus, I have to wonder about the chemical content of those crystals. One works on your average humanoid, but these monster things are like skyscrapers. Seems like you'd need several hundred crystals at least (if not more) to have any kind of reaction. I mean, it looks like ten or so crystals got aerosolized and affected the whole ship, but we're talking about 450 people. I think these beasties weigh more than that.

Kirk has Mudd and Spock fire their phasers at the rock guys for some reason (distraction, I guess?), then he throws the crystals into their mouths.

Look, you guys! Kirk is Jesus! He did the loaves and fishes thing, and magically made two crystals into a dozen!

This is where this episode moves into inexplicable territory: I think the rock guys love Kirk, because they could destroy him but don't? The first time I watched this I thought he meant for the rock guys to fall in love with one another, but someone on IMDB says that they were supposed to fall in love with Kirk. Seeing as how only opposite sex pairs can fall in love with these stupid things, does that make the monsters female? What if they have no gender at all? Did Kirk flip up their skirts to check before embarking on this plan?

The rock guys fight one another, which is apparently a big enough distraction that the group can beam away from there. Why they haven't at this point is beyond me. We are, in fact, never given a reason as to why they were not beamed up as soon as Christine called the E and requested an emergency beam-up. The only thing that I can think of is that the writers needed some reason for the crystals to be gone completely, and the best way to accomplish that combined with Kirk "saving them all" was to have him go through with that little plan to alter the emotional state of the rock guys using the crystals.

Upstairs, Mudd is back in the brig while Christine records his confession. Spock comes in and asks if she needs help. He seems to be back to his old self. Christine tells him to fuck right off.

Spock exposits that the love potion crystals came at the high price of a few minutes of love, followed by several hours of animosity.

Mudd asks Spock if he thinks that Mudd will get rehabilitation therapy again, and Spock says he's pretty sure it'll happen. Mudd sounds so blase about it, you can tell that he's done it a bunch of times, and it hasn't worked at all. Chronic offender. Lovely.

"That's alright," he sighs. "I just hate to leave you all. All my... loved ones." And then he chuckles as the E pulls out of orbit.

This episode was a mixed bag. It had some weird plot holes (the crystals work as airborne, rubbing into your skin, and consumed by mouth?) and some stuff added to tie up loose ends in a way that wasn't necessary (why weren't they beamed up immediately?). But it had some good parts, too. We're 89 episodes in, and this is only the second Christine-centric story we've had. Both revolved around her love life, which is lame, but she's such an under-utilized character that I guess I can't complain too much. Plus, she took shit from nobody this episode. She was actually a bad-ass.

My second Command Gold Star for this episode is awarded to the writer that decided that Spock should remain himself while altered. Most of the time, Spock-on-something is treated by the writers as a sideshow freak. His personality is changed, and he's trotted out for everyone to laugh and point at, both friend and audience. Here, while his friends are slightly baffled and amused at the thought of him being in love, the writers merely treat the situation as they did Sarek and Amanda. You know Sarek cares for his wife, but he still acts like a Vulcan. This Spock-in-love is slightly confused, but behaves more like the Spock-in-love from "The Enterprise Incident". As a result, I'm more willing to believe it.

Art History Fact of the Day!

Mannerism is an art style practiced most notably by an Italian painter named Parmigianino in the 1500's. The style is known for it's elongated human forms, not to the point of grotesqueness, but certainly to the point that the viewer is aware that such anatomy is not of the norm.

This Art History moment is brought to you by Christine's giraffe neck

and Bones' body, which appears to be about seven or eight feet tall when standing and way too big for his head.

*******

I grabbed another box of those Tazo pitcher teas, this time Iced Blushberry Black. The box says it has raspberry, huckleberry and strawberry. I didn't taste the strawberry specifically, but it starts out with a punch of fruity-berry flavor and ends with the slightly bitter black tea taste, which works nicely together. It was delightful in both iced tea and tea-sicle versions, and is definitely on my favorites list. 10/10, will drink again.

http://www.tazo.com/Product/Detail/37

Mo enjoys the sun.