Star Trek TOS Season 2, Part 1
We've moved along to Season 2. Otherwise known as: Star Trek Season 2: Horniness Has Consequences.
The green wrap uniform is positively everywhere, the evil computers are into everything, and there's one episode where Uhura is replaced by a random blonde communications officer. (Blech.)
Season 2!
S2E1: Amok Time
Rating: 7/10
Notes: Spock gets angry-horny. So angry horny that he might DIE. (How many boys have tried to convince girls of this over the years…so many.) The only cure for his horniness is to get laid. Or to have some ritual violence. Whichever. Either way we get to go to Vulcan and see some pretty janky Vulcan helmets and hear some pretty janky Vulcan grammar. Spock kills Kirk. But no he doesn’t, because McCoy Romeo & Juliet-priested him. Luckily McCoy is quicker on the reveal than ol’ R&J.
I’m calling this episode the origin of the Duras Sisters’ boob-window because of Kirk’s strategic slash.
S2E2: Who Mourns for Adonais?
Rating: 6/10
Notes: American Gods….in space! Apollo plays “yoink, got your ship” with his huge, god-like energy hand. Another female science officer messes things up because of course (but we do get to see Uhura spot-soldering the communications system together, so that’s fun). This is interesting Trek because it’s one of the first times we explore: Maybe aliens were indistinguishable from Gods to the ancients. (Science, sufficiently advanced, indistinguishable from magic.) I mean, this has been explored a bunch since then (as has the “gods need worship to survive” thing) but at the time, not so much.
Kirk’s not about to worship anyone but the person who designed that hairpiece and made his girdle, so Apollo throws a temper tantrum and blinks himself out of existence. Men. So fragile.
S2E3: The Changeling
Rating: 4/10
Notes: Okay, who accidently set the old earth probe on genocide mode? Whoops! Genocide probe thinks Kirk is its mommy, though, so that saves the Enterprise for a while until it figures things out and Kirk has to neg it into committing suicide.
S2E4: Mirror, Mirror
Rating: 7/10
Notes: Look, the big lesson to take from this is that evil people are just more into fashion than their benevolent counterparts. A transporter malfunction in a storm gives everyone shiny sashes, removes Kirk’s sleeves, and bares Uhura’s abs. Spock has a goatee. It’s very chic. Too bad about the ruthless killing. Could good guys have sleeveless uniforms sometimes? As a little treat?
S2E5: The Apple
Rating: 3/10
Notes: Starfleet, once again, makes everything worse. “Oh, here are these peaceful people living simple, happy lives. Healthy. Never wanting for anything…well, except maybe a less extreme self-tanner and some eye makeup that isn’t bright white.” THIS CANNOT STAND BECAUSE IF YOU AREN’T SUFFERING AND STRIVING, WHAT WORTH DOES LIFE HAVE? Post-capitalist Star Trek loves capitalism.
Chekov and Marple commit the grave sin of making the natives horny, and therefore the natives must kill the away party. They’re not very good at it. Kirk and Spock fuck up the computer that controls everything and totally destroy the society and then waltz off making jokes about how eventually they’ll figure out how to make babies.
S2E6: The Doomsday Machine
Rating: 8/10
Notes: The Enterprise just has the WORST luck coming upon machines that are programmed to destroy worlds. Here’s another one. A cornucopia of death! It’s already destroyed Kirk’s BFF’s ship and a raging case of survivor’s guilt makes him do stupid, irritating things. Like not listen to Spock (always listen to Spock!) and commit suicide.
This is a great Scotty-gets-shit-done in the nick of time over and over again, and Kirk gets to be a badass episode. There’s a lot of silly stuff in Star Trek, but once in a while you really see how Kirk got to be such a hero figure.
S2E7: Cat’s Paw
Rating: 4/10
Notes: Time to visit planet Halloween, where there are Macbethian witches, black cats, spooky dungeons, voodoo objects, and sorcerers! The alien “witch” puts on a fashion show but fails to adequately entice Kirk (in that paisley? Girl, please) so she gets mad and turns into a giant cat. Her male counterpart knows there’s nothing more dangerous than unrequited horniness in a woman and helps everyone destroy the magic staff and reveal their true form: some very strange, very small puppet critters.
S2E8: I, Mudd
Rating: 7/10
Notes: The merry band of bit players--Captain Kirk and the Enterprise Improv Troupe-throw a bunch of weird shit at androids to break their computer brains. This is a common theme: destroying computer overlords by being illogically human. Harry Mudd makes a return and hopes that since he had such fun with the improv group they’ll be nice to him, but instead they leave him with this harpy shrew of wife-replica android. (Wives are just such NAGS, amIright, boys?)
Incidentally, it's pretty heavily implied that Harry Mudd is using these androids as sex bots. The ol' lady isn't going to be happy about that at all!
The green wrap uniform is positively everywhere, the evil computers are into everything, and there's one episode where Uhura is replaced by a random blonde communications officer. (Blech.)
Season 2!
S2E1: Amok Time
Rating: 7/10
Notes: Spock gets angry-horny. So angry horny that he might DIE. (How many boys have tried to convince girls of this over the years…so many.) The only cure for his horniness is to get laid. Or to have some ritual violence. Whichever. Either way we get to go to Vulcan and see some pretty janky Vulcan helmets and hear some pretty janky Vulcan grammar. Spock kills Kirk. But no he doesn’t, because McCoy Romeo & Juliet-priested him. Luckily McCoy is quicker on the reveal than ol’ R&J.
I’m calling this episode the origin of the Duras Sisters’ boob-window because of Kirk’s strategic slash.
S2E2: Who Mourns for Adonais?
Rating: 6/10
Notes: American Gods….in space! Apollo plays “yoink, got your ship” with his huge, god-like energy hand. Another female science officer messes things up because of course (but we do get to see Uhura spot-soldering the communications system together, so that’s fun). This is interesting Trek because it’s one of the first times we explore: Maybe aliens were indistinguishable from Gods to the ancients. (Science, sufficiently advanced, indistinguishable from magic.) I mean, this has been explored a bunch since then (as has the “gods need worship to survive” thing) but at the time, not so much.
Kirk’s not about to worship anyone but the person who designed that hairpiece and made his girdle, so Apollo throws a temper tantrum and blinks himself out of existence. Men. So fragile.
S2E3: The Changeling
Rating: 4/10
Notes: Okay, who accidently set the old earth probe on genocide mode? Whoops! Genocide probe thinks Kirk is its mommy, though, so that saves the Enterprise for a while until it figures things out and Kirk has to neg it into committing suicide.
S2E4: Mirror, Mirror
Rating: 7/10
Notes: Look, the big lesson to take from this is that evil people are just more into fashion than their benevolent counterparts. A transporter malfunction in a storm gives everyone shiny sashes, removes Kirk’s sleeves, and bares Uhura’s abs. Spock has a goatee. It’s very chic. Too bad about the ruthless killing. Could good guys have sleeveless uniforms sometimes? As a little treat?
S2E5: The Apple
Rating: 3/10
Notes: Starfleet, once again, makes everything worse. “Oh, here are these peaceful people living simple, happy lives. Healthy. Never wanting for anything…well, except maybe a less extreme self-tanner and some eye makeup that isn’t bright white.” THIS CANNOT STAND BECAUSE IF YOU AREN’T SUFFERING AND STRIVING, WHAT WORTH DOES LIFE HAVE? Post-capitalist Star Trek loves capitalism.
Chekov and Marple commit the grave sin of making the natives horny, and therefore the natives must kill the away party. They’re not very good at it. Kirk and Spock fuck up the computer that controls everything and totally destroy the society and then waltz off making jokes about how eventually they’ll figure out how to make babies.
S2E6: The Doomsday Machine
Rating: 8/10
Notes: The Enterprise just has the WORST luck coming upon machines that are programmed to destroy worlds. Here’s another one. A cornucopia of death! It’s already destroyed Kirk’s BFF’s ship and a raging case of survivor’s guilt makes him do stupid, irritating things. Like not listen to Spock (always listen to Spock!) and commit suicide.
This is a great Scotty-gets-shit-done in the nick of time over and over again, and Kirk gets to be a badass episode. There’s a lot of silly stuff in Star Trek, but once in a while you really see how Kirk got to be such a hero figure.
S2E7: Cat’s Paw
Rating: 4/10
Notes: Time to visit planet Halloween, where there are Macbethian witches, black cats, spooky dungeons, voodoo objects, and sorcerers! The alien “witch” puts on a fashion show but fails to adequately entice Kirk (in that paisley? Girl, please) so she gets mad and turns into a giant cat. Her male counterpart knows there’s nothing more dangerous than unrequited horniness in a woman and helps everyone destroy the magic staff and reveal their true form: some very strange, very small puppet critters.
S2E8: I, Mudd
Rating: 7/10
Notes: The merry band of bit players--Captain Kirk and the Enterprise Improv Troupe-throw a bunch of weird shit at androids to break their computer brains. This is a common theme: destroying computer overlords by being illogically human. Harry Mudd makes a return and hopes that since he had such fun with the improv group they’ll be nice to him, but instead they leave him with this harpy shrew of wife-replica android. (Wives are just such NAGS, amIright, boys?)
Incidentally, it's pretty heavily implied that Harry Mudd is using these androids as sex bots. The ol' lady isn't going to be happy about that at all!