#we need to save spock and every vulcan from this show honestly. and most of the other aliens as well

[mycenaae]

snw appears to be taking a plot where they could explore human assumptions about innate vulcan traits (which are encouraged by a lot of vulcans because that's how they want to be seen) and turn them on their heads and instead of doing that, or indeed recognizing that past trek canon's built a vulcan culture (much of which was leonard nimoy's loving worldbuilding for spock), they're going "teehee vulcan logic and vulcan racism are genetically innate!!!!! vulcans actually have no culture that isn't written into their dna already!!!!!". why is this not about them being turned genetically into vulcans and realizing that vulcans are NOT genetically logical and that it's a philosophy turned into a cultural norm to deal with their strong and extreme and often violent emotions. why can't the snw writers write

[princesssarcastia]

Thoughts on Star Trek AOS? (And do you think Kirk was on Tarsus?)

i have SO MANY THOUGHTS about star trek aos, so buckle up.  brace yourself.

star trek aos is a terrible disaster and i love it SO MUCH.  for me, star trek 2009 is still in that class of unreasonably pleasing movies like the mummy or stardust or jumanji: welcome to the jungle.  what they are isn’t exactly top notch but you love them for being exactly what they are.

star trek aos is a star-studded fucking phenomenal cast of some of the best actors working today, which makes up for the very inconsistent writing and unfortunate low-level current of sexism.

literally where would i be today if chris pine could not make faces Like That. i honestly couldn’t tell you.

overall, I have quite a few bones to pick with JJ Abrams for setting up a star trek universe that is less Wacky Space Utopia adventures with liberal political commentary ranging from unsubtle to im-hitting-you-over-the-head-with-my-opinions-like-they’re-a-brick—

to this kind of overtly militarized action-hero adventure porn where one white man saves the universe from Scary People Who Don’t Look Like Us And Are Crazy.  I also don’t appreciate what they did to Jim Kirk, turning him into this womanizing self-centered bastard who has to be in charge.  I REALLY don’t appreciate the casual misogyny, what with the last of rank stripes for women and the gratuitous sex-ed up scenes and the way that Amanda Grayson gets fridged for man-pain and and and— you get the picture.

Or at least, that’s what they tried to do to jim kirk.  and god fucking bless chris pine for being able to make facial expressions, because i firmly believe if pretty much almost anyone else had played Jim Kirk as written by JJ Abrams, that’s exactly what he would have been.

But because of chris pine’s acting, instead, most of the AOS fandom and I realized/decided that this “womanizing” version of jim kirk actually really really hates himself so much, most likely for trauma reasons. 

we took that shit and ran with it and never really stopped.

zachary quinto is also like god tier casting.  unfortunately the writers for the first two movies mostly gave him Anger as a primary motivator, which like, is not exactly how I would interpret Spock at all, but quinto played this Angry Spock so so well.

ZOE SALDANA PLAYS THE LIGHT OF MY LIFE, NYOTA UHURA, PERFECTLY AND THAT’S ALL I’LL HEAR ON THE MATTER.

john cho should be cast in everything ever he’s amazing and I love seeing him.  this man has the range. hikaru sulu is the backbone of this fucking ship.  this man wins the big damn hero award every single movie. 

i still miss living in the same world as anton yelchin. i really, really do.

I also have found family feelings all over these movies, where these baby versions of iconic characters from the sixties are brought together too early to witness too much fucking trauma.  harry potter references aren’t exactly in vogue right now, but there’s this one piece from a—well, actually, its a harry potter reference in an mcu fic i read years ago, now that i think about it, but anyway:

it was something like, there are some things you can’t go through with a person—like that mountain troll in harry potter—without becoming friends for life.  there are some crucibles that will bind you together forever.  and awful as it is, I think Nero and the Vulcan genocide were the AOS crew’s mountain troll.  there’s no going back or separating, after that.

also I feel like there’s a ton of competence porn in this trilogy that i deeply, deeply enjoy.

star trek: 2009 and into darkness are both grimdark male power fantasy bullshit that only accidentally hits all the right buttons for me.  I love them dearly but i know EXACTLY what they are, thank you.

star trek: beyond is a delightful movie with no real plot where our favorite crew are finally Adults With A Modicum Of Common Sense And Stability, instead of Disaster Children Angsting All Over The Place, and they get to save the universe with the power of excellent rock music and friendship. how cool is that?!?  i wanna give simon pegg a high five for making this movie.

on a more meta note, what I find kind of satisfying about these movies is that—for all his many faults that i’m always happy to expound upon—JJ Abrams actually went for it.  He Did That.  He just made his own brand new timeline, killed jim kirk’s dad, then gave him an abusive uncle/step-dad, then literally destroyed one of the founding planets of the Federation, then he, in an iconic fashion, switched Jim and Spock’s places in the infamous “wrath of khan” death scene, so instead Spock gets to watch Jim die. 

and you know what? I can forgive a lot of bullshit for that kind of poetic angsty fanfic plot detail. 

every time uhura says, “an alternate reality,” in star trek 2009 just gives me chills.  every time she says it, you feel the weight of sixty years of history and legacy sitting on these people’s shoulders, the weight of arguably one of the most popular TV shows of all time.

imagine, living in a new world you’re aware isn’t the one that was supposed to be.  imagine that!

oh! and on the question of tarsus:

what I think is probably true irl: JJ Abrams has never thought that far ahead in his life.  correct me if i’m wrong, but hadn’t he.....not even watched star trek.........when he made these movies............like lol i’d bet you this man didn’t even really know Tarsus was a thing.  And even if he did, I don’t think he thought it was part of the new canon he was creating.  AOS is much more self-contained than the serialized universe the original star trek was, so I don’t think that AOS was intended to encompass all those things, like tarsus, that we as a fandom like to obsess over.

what I personally enjoy: i love me some AOS fic that explores the ridiculous amounts of trauma that comes from living through a genocide.  I think that, given we all decided AOS Jim Kirk hates himself, and engages in a shit ton of self-sabotaging and destructive behavior to cope, it’s a reasonable jump to think that at least some of that comes from some survivor’s guilt bullshit from Tarsus.  And honestly, hit me up if you want recs for this, because boy do I have them.  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: no one does angst quite like AOS!Jim Kirk.

what I believe wholeheartedly: this is like Schrödinger's Plot Point, okay, it both exists and doesn’t exist simultaneously.  it’s easy to read tarsus into some of jim’s behavior, and it’s easy to read none of it in, and both of those choices are valid.  go with your gut, go with what makes you happy, go with what you think makes sense.  This is where fandom lives, in these little details that fall through the cracks.

anyway WOW did I talk a lot.  those are at least some of my star trek thoughts.  i do have others, but i’ve expounded on them before on this blog, and y’all don’t need me to repeat myself

ask me my thoughts on ______

[i-dreamed-i-had-a-son]

Ok so TOS S3E5, Is There in Truth No Beauty? is like???? So good???? So good for us aros????? It's late and this post is a mess but I needed to say it

So Spock and Miranda are set up as parallels right, and Miranda is one of the most well-written and developed women I've ever seen from Trek. She's super competent and honestly a queen but also has flaws so you know she's like actually round and can grow??

And she is 100% ARO. Like there's someone in the beginning section of the episode (another surprisingly well written character) who is super needy and says he loves her and she explicitly says, "I can't love you like you want me to love you." (WHOA big props for distinction between types of love!!) That person responds by basically calling her frigid, but when he starts thinking of murder, she (a telepath) doesn't judge him, but just tries to help him work through his feelings. He takes a jab at her for this too, but the point is she's framed as a very empathetic and caring person, although she follows the Vulcan philosophy in many ways as well (again, parallel to Spock) so she doesn't come off as exceedingly emotional.

Also when she's at dinner with the triumvirate, Jim is kind of coming onto her by saying "How did the men at the base not stop you from leaving? ...Well I'm glad they didn't, otherwise I wouldn't have met you," and then Bones says "How could someone so beautiful choose to spend her entire life being with someone so ugly?" (She is the companion/representative of an ambassador who is a very good being, but is so ugly that it drives anyone who sees it insane.) They then toast to her beauty (Spock refrains). And she says to Bones, "How can someone so full of joy and the love of life like yourself choose to spend your entire life being surrounded by death and disease? Eh, gentlemen?" ROASTEEEEEEDDDD anyways she makes a toast of her own (I think to progress?) and then Bones responds with, "To whatever you want, Miranda" in the most respectful tone and it's great.

ANYWAYS, Miranda eventually gets approached romantically by Jim (kind of as a ploy but kind of not), but she rejects him, and he proceeds to say what all aros have heard before: "You're young!", "Eventually, you'll want someone to love," "You're attractive. You want to spend your life with someone so ugly?" etc. and she just OWNS him and says no, she isn't interested in that, and anyway what right does he have to determine whether someone is too ugly or beautiful to be worth spending time with?

And then the issue between her and Spock is she doesn't want Spock to meld with the ambassador, because she's jealous and protective of the connection she's established with the ambassador and doesn't want him to take her place--which is a huge aro mood--but this jealousy is NOT because of some romantic motivation from her towards the ambassador!! And this is confirmed several times!!

Bones is trying to explain to Jim that Miranda wants to help Spock, and Jim is not buying it because "they're rivals" and Bones says "But not rivals in love!"

When the Ambassador is sharing Spock's body I was full-on ready for them to do the whole "I have a body and can kiss you now!" schtick but they DIDN'T and instead he just comforts Miranda and briefly takes her hand in a reassuring way (which he does in part because she's blind! So even cooler!!) and they are clearly close but they are friends!

And at the end she leaves with the ambassador, having gotten what she wanted (there's a cool moment about it when Bones is saying goodbye) which is a sense of security in her role/friendship with the ambassador. They DIDN'T DO THE WHOLE "I know how to love now!!" bit at the end!! We stay winning!

(Also Bones was written super well this episode because he noticed that she was blind and kept it private to respect her, and when Jim asked why Bones didn't mention it he said, "She'd have told you if she wanted you to know" so the respecting women juice was HUGE here.) She hadn't wanted to tell anyone she was blind because she hated being pitied, and she told this to Jim in their conversation as well, which means she intended it to be a comment not only about pity for her blindness, but also pity for her lack of romantic interest. She didn't want to be pitied for not wanting that with someone, which is a HUGE mood!

I was also ready for them to try something with shipping Spock and Miranda since they were so similar and they were having many other characters be interested in her, but NO they didn't do that either. She actually takes a jab at Jim about that, because as Spock is lying there comatose, she says, "You'd probably try to tell me to wake him with a kiss," and I'm like OWN HIM QUEEN bc he basically responds by calling her inhuman (rip aphobic Jim...he does this every once in a while). But no instead of having there be something romantic between her and Spock, she just saved his life and they had nice platonic conversations and respected each other greatly!!

But ALSO also what is great is (not to make this awesome woman-centric post into being about a man but):

Clearly all of Spock's interactions this episode were platonic, since he parallels her and that's certainly how they intended her interactions with him to be (and can I say how nice it is to see Spock interact with an intellectual equal--he even admits her telepathy is more advanced than his--and just have that respect there without that undertone of "are they trying to ship them...?" It's SO nice). Also a great moment at the start of the episode with Spock saying he declined the position Miranda has because "My life is here" (on the Enterprise) and thus reaffirming that Jim and Bones and what he has is more important than anything else

Because they are so similar, Miranda's aroness can easily extend into Spock being perceived as aro. Notably, Spock (unlike Jim and Bones) shows no (implied or not) romantic interest in Miranda, but simply demonstrates the deep respect which they both show each other. Also, both characters have moments this episode (explained above) in which they put their friends/platonic connections as higher priorities than romantic connections, and Miranda's connection with the ambassador is very similar to Spock and Jim's relationship. Really, we're supposed to look at them and go, "oh, they're the same type of people." So by Miranda being aro, it implicitly backs up the view of Spock as aro!!

Anyways yes I left this episode not only feeling validated as a woman because Miranda was frickin EXCELLENT writing, I also felt validated as an aro on multiple sides. And I needed to express that to y'all other starved-for-rep aros! So here ya go lol 😂

[fireinmywoods]

the heart of the matter (is Leonard McCoy)

Followers...friends. I come to you today, hat in hand, to ask for your support in a certain fandom matter, a trifling concern of little real consequence which nevertheless has been driving me absolutely cross-eyed bonkers for some years now.

Simply put: can we please all agree that Bones is the heart of the Enterprise???

In AOS, I mean. I’m not aware of any debate over this when it comes to TOS, where the roles of the triumvirate have always been explicit, though there are a few different ways to identify them:

Spock = logos = superego = head

Bones = pathos = id = heart

Kirk = ethos = ego = soul

So clear! So clean! So universally accepted by Trek fandom at large!

Oh, but things get murkier in AOS, and there are plenty of posts floating around which suggest that it’s Kirk, not McCoy, who serves as the heart in the Kelvin timeline. Even the writers of the first two AOS films have outright stated that their interpretation of the triumvirate had the original roles switched, with Kirk as the highly emotional one and McCoy as the arbiter between Kirk’s passion and Spock’s logic. It’s true that this technically counts as a Word of God pronouncement by the actual creators of 2/3 of the series thus far, which some would argue renders it canon. However, it’s equally true that those same creators also felt that Kirk was a fuckboi and that Benedict Cumberbatch wonderfully embodied their vision for Khan Noonien Singh, so honestly, who gives a hot hollerin’ fuck what those dingdongs think. This seems as justified a time as any to invoke Death of the Author, and in fact, it’s my firm belief that despite the writers’ intentions, Star Trek and Into Darkness both support the original triumvirate breakdown.

Under the cut you’ll find a long-winded and self-indulgent ~*~character analysis~*~ of the Kelvin-timeline incarnations of Jim Kirk and Leonard “Bones” McCoy, reviewing why Leonard is still unmistakably the heart, unpacking what the hell Jim’s deal is, and finally taking a look at some key examples from canon, because ya girl believes in showing her work.

Let’s get down to business.

[A quick warning, as this is starting to spread beyond my own followers: if you don’t like McKirk as a romantic pairing, you ain’t gonna like part IV, so I’d bow out before then or just take your leave now.]

i. Leonard

Independent of Jim’s characterization, it should be blindingly obvious that Leonard is the heart. He’s by far the most nakedly emotional of our seven core crew members, a trait we see writ large and small throughout the films. He’s reactive; he’s passionate; he’s humane. He cares, first and foremost.

Not about Starfleet, of course. Leonard doesn’t give a damn about playing the game or advancing his career, or even really about the Enterprise’s mission - he has no desire to explore strange new worlds, he’ll pass on seeking out new life and new civilizations, and he spends half his time trying to convince everyone else that boldly going where no man has gone before is a great way to die horribly. Fuck exploration, fuck space, and fuck the Federation while we’re at it. Leonard is perhaps the most improbable of the Enterprise’s senior officers for the simple reason that he seems to resent everything about the job.

Well. Almost everything.

See, what Leonard cares about is people. He cares about their lives, about their stories, about their hopes and dreams, about their suffering. That’s why he entered and has stayed in an extremely taxing caring profession, and it’s why he’s still on the Enterprise despite his incessant bitching about everything they do. He wouldn’t trust anyone else to take care of the crew he’s become so attached to, and he finds fulfillment in helping the people they encounter out there in the nightmare of space.

In every timeline, Leonard McCoy defines himself by what he can do for others: the pain he can ameliorate, the wounds he can heal, the diseases he can cure, the small amounts of good he can bring to a galaxy filled with so much absolute horseshit. Unlike most of his colleagues, he’s not motivated by curiosity or an adventurer’s spirit or a burning desire to make sense of the universe. (Fuck the universe, too, as a matter of fact.) Instead, he’s driven by the incredible depths of his compassion and empathy and concern for the people he serves alongside and those they meet along the way.

Sure sounds like the heart to me.

ii. Jim

I actually totally get why some people characterize Kelvin-timeline Jim as the heart. He’s quite literally a different man than the original timeline’s Kirk, and he definitely has more of the pathos qualities to him. Early on, he’s a total spitfire, fierce and hot-blooded, quick to anger and other sharp-edged emotions we’re not used to associating with James T. Kirk. Even as he grows into himself and leaves some of those traits behind, he remains spontaneous, passionate, protective, and self-sacrificing - easy enough to mistake for the heart if you squint.

But let’s not confuse having a heart for being the heart. Sure, Jim is more openly emotional and reactive than his TOS counterpart, but there’s still a marked difference between the way he and Leonard express and act on their emotions.

AOS Jim definitely has a lot of feelings - big ones - but at the end of the day, he’s not driven by his heart. He’s driven by his gut.

Whenever there’s trouble, Jim makes a beeline right for the center of it. He’s impulsive as hell, rarely pausing to think past his first instinct, because he just wants to be doing something, no matter the odds, no matter what it costs him. He explicitly calls himself out on this in ST:ID when arguing with Spock: “I have no idea what I’m supposed to do. I only know what I can do.” He doesn’t have the patience or the constitution to sit and debate all the options, either internally or with his crew. If there’s a path forward from where he is, even a bad one, Jim’s gonna take it.

[Sidebar: One could make the case that the roots of Jim’s instinct to act reach back to his childhood traumas - canonically ignored abuse and neglect on the one hand, and the Tarsus IV famine and massacre on the other - but that’s a whole post on its own and we ain’t got all day here.]

Jim can’t not act, and while that gets him into a lot of trouble, it also saves lives. Sulu probably appreciated that Jim’s gut drove him to leap off Nero’s drilling platform without a moment’s hesitation after a man he’d only just met. He may have been a real shithead about it, but Jim’s impassioned insistence on going after the Narada and not wasting time on the possibility of a better option was key to saving Pike and Earth itself. And I don’t know why Spock was so surprised that Jim intervened to save him on Nibiru, considering that the reason they were there in the first place was because Jim couldn’t sit back and watch the Nibirans die when there was something his crew could do to help them, even if it meant risking a violation of the Prime Directive.

Jim is a good man with a big heart, and he cares about people, absolutely. But he cares most of all about Doing The Right Thing - which in the heat of the moment often translates to Doing Something, Anything, Hold My Beer.

iii. heart vs. gut (i.e., time for some receipts)

I think one of the main reasons Leonard and Jim’s characterizations get confused is because they both tend to act on instinct, only lightly informed by higher reasoning. However, I’d argue that their motivations and the nature of those actions are super distinct, and those distinctions remain relatively consistent throughout all three films. (And y’all know I really mean this shit if I’m out here calling ST:ID consistent.)

Jim is a big picture guy, figuratively and often literally heaving himself full-body into the mix of whatever problem the crew has encountered for lack of any better alternative. That energy propels the plots of all three films: the chaotic path he carves through the events of Star Trek and ST:ID, and the slightly calmer but still undeniably bananas course he charts for himself and his crew in the second half of Beyond.

As the heart, Leonard operates on a more micro level. His concern invariably lies with the individual people caught up in those grand events Captain Chaos is busy dragging them all through. While Jim’s zooming around flipping plot switches, Leonard can always be counted on to bring it back to the personal.

We frequently see this juxtaposed right there on film. Think of that slow pan through medbay in the first movie after the Narada’s ambush and the destruction of Vulcan: while Jim is stewing over what to do about the Big Bad, Leonard has stepped into the CMO role without fuss or fanfare to care for the wounded crew and traumatized survivors.

Or jump ahead to Beyond: during Krall’s attack on the Enterprise, there’s a gorgeous cinematic shot of Jim sprinting down the corridor with two crew members to take on the invaders - and then we cut to Leonard moving slowly through those same ghastly red-lit corridors, searching for casualties in need of help, visibly affected by what his scanner is telling him about the downed crewman he tries to save.

Actually, Beyond as a whole does terrific justice to each of their roles. (Perhaps because it was not written by dingdongs.) The first act finds Jim flailing around for a sense of purpose and forward momentum - an understandable consequence of a gut-driven character having stalled out for too long - and he ultimately gets his mojo back by spending the rest of the film careening through one insane seat-of-his-pants ploy after another. Meanwhile, in the quieter moments between all the mayhem, Leonard serves as the empathetic sounding board for both Jim and Spock as they struggle with deep emotionally charged secrets and Big Life Questions, helping them untangle their feelings and reminding them of the emotional attachments which are ultimately key to their respective decisions to stay on the Enterprise.

More examples, you say? Don’t mind if I do!

Star Trek

GUT: Jim hurtles around the Narada, improvising almost every step of the way and paying the price for his and Spock’s scheme in bodily harm, and ultimately succeeds in rescuing Pike. HEART: Leonard calls out for Jim as he runs into the transporter room, overwhelmed with relief that he’s made it back, and takes Chris Pike’s weight literally and figuratively onto his own shoulders to begin healing him while Jim runs back off to the center of the action.

Star Trek: Into Darkness

GUT: Jim argues with Leonard, Spock, and Scotty in quick succession as he’s preparing to drag them all off to Qo’noS, immune to their attempts to reason with him because, unraveled as he is by grief and pain, he can only focus on his visceral drive to Do Something. HEART: Unlike the others, Leonard is upset not about the larger moral questions of whether it’s right to go after John Harrison or bring torpedoes aboard the ship, but about the fact that Jim himself is hurt and hurting and won’t accept help.

GUT: Jim makes a snap decision to sacrifice himself by hurling his body against the warp core to realign it and save his crew. HEART: Shellshocked by the emotional grenade of his best friend’s death, Leonard suddenly realizes, through the haze of his own numbness and upswelling grief, that he might still be able to do something for this lonely radiation-ravaged body he’s been brought and the life it represents.

Star Trek Beyond

GUT: At the tail end of an improvised plan to out-maneuver Kalara, Jim quite literally shoots first and asks questions later, igniting a fuel tank and setting off an explosive series of events which he and Chekov just barely escape. HEART: The next time we see Leonard, Spock is opening up to him about Ambassador Spock’s death and his own plan to leave Starfleet for New Vulcan - and while he’s empathetic toward Spock (I can’t imagine what that must feel like), Leonard’s thoughts go immediately to the emotional impact of Spock’s plan on the other people he’s closest with. (I can see how that would upset [Nyota]. / I can tell you, [Jim]’s not gonna like that.)

GUT: Jim frantically strains to reach the final switch in the life support hub, believing that he’s going to die either way since the vent has already opened, but spurred on by the knowledge that his ability to move that switch is the only thing standing between Yorktown and annihilation. HEART: Knowing exactly what’s at stake, with the fate of the station and millions of lives hanging in the balance, Leonard’s greatest concern is that Jim won’t make it out in time.

iv. never bet against the heart

Let’s wrap this up with a deep dive on one of the absolute best examples of Leonard as the heart: his decision to sneak Jim onto the Enterprise in the first movie.

As relentlessly as I drag him for the, you know, poisoning and kidnapping aspects of that whole deal, there’s no denying that it is a god-tier heart move. Is it logical? Absolutely not. Is it really the right thing to do for either himself or Jim, as far as he knows at the time? Nope. It’s 100% the wrong choice for his own job security, reputation, and relationships with his fellow crew, and it’s almost guaranteed to get Jim into even worse trouble. Leonard is a smart dude who must understand that this course of action will likely end up coming back on them both in a real bad way. For someone who argues loudly and often in defense of self-preservation, this is a shockingly bad idea.

But none of that matters, because Jim shakes his hand and tells him to be safe with that horrible empty-eyed smile, and it gets him right in the heart, one-two-three.

One: sympathy, worry, and affection for Jim - his best friend, his wild and troublesome stray, his only family.

Two: guilt over adding onto Jim’s pain, and the instinctive urge to fix whatever‘s hurting him.

Three: fear of heading out into the unknown by himself, the agonizing uncertainty of not knowing what’s coming, craving for the security and reassurance Jim’s presence would give him.

“Dammit,” Leonard says, as his heart wins out over his brain. He knows this is a garbage plan, and he doesn’t care. His heart chooses Jim. That’s all that matters.

So he goes back for Jim, and to his own surprise it turns out that this Very Bad Idea was actually a Very Good Idea because Jim’s impulsive instincts end up saving Earth, and Leonard’s not in the habit of fixing what ain’t broke so he figures he may as well keep on chasing Jim’s crazy ass around the galaxy for a while, through jungles and off cliffs and into the goddamn afterlife when need be, until finally one day Jim’s gut drives him right into Leonard’s arms and he suddenly realizes that this is what his heart was choosing all those years ago: Jim’s wide terrified eyes, Jim’s voice breaking over his name, Jim’s hand pressing hard against his chest, reaching out for what’s his.

But that’s another story.

[kinetic-elaboration]

August 21: 3x04 And the Children Shall Lead

Okay, I’m finally going to write up my thoughts on And the Children Shall Lead. I think I’m (mostly) over all of my excessively-strong emotions about this ep lol. Maybe going through my notes will bring them back. Or maybe not. I’ve felt very tired and uninterested in everything today so it’s hard to tell. So far the process is not going well: tumblr ate my first attempt at a post, like literally I wrote a few lines, clicked to a new tab, and when I clicked back the post was empty so thanks for that, and I keep on just generally not being interested in the task. So, we’ll see.

The tl;dr is that I don’t see why this ep is considered one of the worst. I actually really liked it!

Single-color jumpsuits: the fashion of the future.

Another old Kirk friend! (This isn’t even important lol; it never comes up again or matters that Kirk knew this guy, but we must always be reminded that he is the best networker in Starfleet.)

“He’s dead, Captain.” Not “he’s dead, Jim”?? Sounds wrong.

“The enemy within.” I thought that was a S1 ep?

Ah, another bunch of creepy kids. In pajamas this time, apparently.

Kirk is not having fun being the center of their creepy little rhyme.

RIP to McCoy but my diagnosis is “alien shenanigans.”

“I’m sorry, Captain Kirk.” Such a polite little alien.

McCoy corralling the kids

This sounds a lot like Miri, except purposeful—something targeted all the adults but left the kids, just like the virus in Miri affected all the adults, but not the kids.

…A disturbance in the cave!

Lol at Kirk’s anxiety face. I feel you, man.

Spock’s never experienced anxiety? My first thought is ‘sounds fake’ but actually… maybe he really hasn’t.

“There has to be an explanation.” This is the MOST Jim line.

I like these kids. They’re actually pretty cute. Also love Kirk trying to relate to the kids.

Where are they? Is this Sulu’s greenhouse lol? I love it. They should have used this set more.

“That place is for adults.” Gotta say, I wrote this down but now have no recollection what it actually refers to. The bridge? I think it’s the bridge.

Are they performing witchcraft? Intriguing.

“Friendly angel”—nothing creepy about that at all.

Got a little alien cult going on here. Every time I feel anxiety from now on I’m going to assume it’s an alien cultist nearby.

“We’ll pursue this in my quarters.” Wink wink.

Can’t fool Uhura.

Never mind. Yes you can.

For someone who wanted the kids guarded all the time, Kirk sure was ok with them just traipsing around the bridge. I mean the guards are at the door but like…they’re only at the door.

Never really thought about how there’s apparently an…engineering component... to flying the ship? I don’t know, I don’t really get it but it’s cool.

"Evil does seek to maintain power by suppressing the truth." Damn. Great line.

BAND OF MARAUDES. That’s a cool backstory for the dead alien society. Basically, they’re ghosts. Greedy ghosts. Alien ghost pirates.

Great triumvirate scene. McCoy want to protect the kids and Kirk’s like “…but the ship, though?” Which is fair!!

What does the ghost want? Um, a ship to maraud in, were you not listening to Spock’s exposition of the back story?

No don’t beam anyone down!!

Love any time Spock pushes someone else out of the way so he can man the transporter. He’s somehow the second-best expert on it on the entire ship.

Eeek, low-key gruesome death there. Look, I know that this is one of the scenes that haters love to point out as a reason to despise the episode but I personally don’t think deeply enough into the transporter situation to wonder how much information they have or assume before they beam people anywhere. Also…weird alien stuff is happening, guys. Just attribute it to that. Also also, if you’re gonna nitpick like that, be prepared to hate all of TOS.

THE KIDS STOLE THE CAR.

“Sulu, what did you to do my ship?”

Uhura’s watching this little witchcraft scene from the background like ‘aw, so cute.’

“Call upon their beasts.” Metal.

“Go to your stations.” This little kid is a future Captain in the making.

SPACE KNIVES

Kirk's like "Oh no, my crew is deserting me, I'm gonna have to fly the whole ship by myself AGAIN.”

“Captain, why are we bothering Starfleet?” Et tu, Spock?s

How did they get to Spock? He doesn’t seem scared of anything…more like he’s under the influence of a general hallucination, like the others seeing the planet on the screen even after they left orbit.

I remember this part, with Kirk freaking out. Spock doesn’t like it one bit.

He’s just being a littttle Dramatique.

Cannot believe that all Spock has to do is say “Jim” in a quiet, intimate voice and Kirk is immediately okay. Just let it out of his system, grabbed onto his friend, heard his own name, and the beast is defeated.

“My Vulcan friend”? Lol.

Kirk’s face when he realizes they’ve got Scotty too…

“Go away or we’ll kill you.” That was legitimately creepy. Scotty gone rogue.

Aw, Spock was worried about him again.

“Without followers, evil cannot spread.”

“Where did you hear this order, Chekov?” / “The voices in my head.”

It’s interesting that Kirk and Spock can’t be manipulated—perhaps because they have each other?

Enough of this—fight time!

That guard sounded like he really liked that nerve pinch; he was kinda moaning as he went down.

“Spock, corral them to their rooms.”

Outta the chair, brat.

Is Kirk going to defeat the alien evil using logic?

Summoning the “angel” by using the old recording is very clever.

When did they decide to start calling him the Gorgon?

“It lost its power in the light of reality” = “I looked into Spock’s eyes and knew myself again.”

HE IS GENTLE. It’s true and you should say it.

And he doesn’t even dispute it. “AND we are ALSO very strong.”

"You are full of goodness. Such as you cannot be changed."

So the girl is Jankowski.

This is very Candyman. The alien needs their belief to live. When they cease to follow him, he literally disappears.

Honestly, this whole alien scheme starts to look equal parts silly and sad, trying to call the crying children "generals.” They’re babies!

McCoy loves to see children in tears lol.

Kirk just hands them all off to McCoy, like ‘well, my work here is done.’

Okay, now we reverse course to pick up those stranded security guards still on the planet, right? Right? No? Okay, guess not.

Uhura, immediately ready with the paperwork lol. Now IS the time.

The end!

Now to try to interpret all of my other, more general notes.

The way I interpreted Spock being able to defy the mind control was that he was affected by Kirk. Because he clearly was affected, but then when he saw Kirk starting to freak out, he looked concerned, and then got them both off the bridge—he had a breakthrough of clarity long enough to understand he needed to get off the bridge. Then he’d be away from the kids, and they wouldn’t have as much control, and he could snap Jim out of it, too.

Like I’m sure his Vulcan resilience could easily have been part of it, too, but that resilience wasn’t enough to keep him from being affected at all—and of course they could have easily written it that way—and it seems obvious that his moment of clarity was caused specifically by watching Kirk starting to lose it. There are so many shots of him specifically watching Kirk and the guard.

The K/S vibes were so strong. Spock was so protective, then they get in the lift and Kirk basically clings to him. All he has to do is say Kirk’s name and Kirk is fine, which is basically the power of true love. And then even outside of that scene… for the whole rest of the ep, they’re a duo. It’s not just Kirk against the Evil of the Week, it’s Kirk and Spock, working together at every turn. Neither of them could have done it alone.

it's a pretty classic trope, in fact, especially in s1, to have Kirk all alone, abandoned by all...where he's the last man standing, the one who has to run the whole ship and save the whole day. Naked Time, This Side of Paradise, and Trouble with Tribbles (kinda) all come to mind. But this time he has Spock! You see the progression of their relationship in that.

I really enjoyed this episode in general. Lots of classic tropes: creepy children; surprise alien; old alien society not as dead as we thought; Kirk has to run the whole ship by himself (with Spock); heroic!Kirk saving the day… It has it all. It’s clearly revisiting some older themes and ideas, but in a sufficiently unique way that it doesn’t just seem like a rehash of an older plot. In some ways, it felt like a Classic S1 episode to me. It has some Miri elements, some Charlie X elements, some Naked Time elements…

I literally don’t understand why it’s so disliked.

Skimmed the wiki and the only specific criticism in there is that Kirk shows an “unmistakable hostility to the children.” Well first of all, he doesn’t. He might not have the best manner with them, but why should he? He’s certainly not mean or cruel to them. He recognizes they’re a danger to his ship, and to the whole planet of Marcos-12, which by the way is objectively true, but that’s not being hostile. McCoy is the one who represents ‘exclusive care for the children’s welfare’ in this ep, but he CAN do that, because he’s not the Captain. He represents that perspective, he gives his opinion, which is both his job on the ship and his role on the show, and then Kirk takes that into account while doing HIS job, which is running the ship. McCoy would have literally let the kids take over their ship and conquer the galaxy as part of their grieving process lol. Kirk was right and I should say it. (Also btw he understands that killing the kids might be an option—but he obviously doesn’t actually do it.)

I actually think this ep is a great example of the triumvirate functioning--McCoy reminds Kirk that the children are just traumatized children, and Spock reminds him that he's responsible for 400+ people on the ship, and Kirk makes the decisions that vanquish the evil, save the ship, and free the kids.

And look, even if you don’t like this episode, you’d have to argue very hard to convince me it’s the WORST, as in worse than Spock’s Brain, worse than The Alternative Factor, worse than Assignment Earth (not even a real TOS ep!), worse than The Omega Glory.

Some stuff I actively liked: the concept of the alien taking over the children specifically (both creepy and…kinda makes sense? That they’d be vulnerable); the message that the followers of demagogues can be both truly dangerous and objects of sympathy; the backstory of the evil empire of pirate aliens—and how greed doesn’t die; the witchcraft aesthetic, ESPECIALLY when paired with the kid antagonists, since kids are so into that like chanting, incantations, rituals thing; that the ep used every single main character (when was the last time a TOS ep did that?). Also I thought the kid actors did a good job!

The theme about the authoritarian and the cult followers was actually quite resonant, I thought; inevitably made me think of Tr/ump and his Tr/umpies. Just like in this episode, you must have some kind of… if not sympathy, at least willingness to do the hard work of deprograming and then bringing them back to the fold, or else the country is never going to heal and it’s never going to be able to go forward in a positive way. It might not go forward at all! But fuck it’s hard to have that sympathy; they’re so abhorrent. Here, you see the terrible things the kids do, and yet sympathy isn’t so hard, because they’re kids. You see how much they are victims/pawns also. And so in that sense, Kirk’s ability to deprogram them is comfortingly optimistic—a little bittersweet, as TOS often is, because the kids have done horrible things and seen horrible things and now they’ll have to live with it, but comforting nonetheless.

I can’t even think of that many things I didn’t like in the ep. Mostly just nitpicky things. Like, was McCoy a little inconsistent in what he thought should be done with the kids? Yeah, but we get the general idea. Did Kirk drop the ball when he let them hang out on the bridge? Yes, especially as he knew how dangerous they were at that point, but I actually don’t mind it so much because they’re kids—it’s understandable that their true dangerousness didn’t fully compute to him. I don’t see that as a mistake or sloppy writing tbh. And was it an amateur hour mistake to beam two people into space? Yes, but it made up for it in being creepy and upping the stakes of the ep.

I guess I could see how the fist gesture could be seen as a little silly. But the other option, having them speak rhymes each time, would have been distracting—and probably also looked silly! Also, as my mom pointed out, it looks like a kid’s game (sorta like the start of rock paper scissors) so it fits appropriately with the theme.

I really liked how they wove in the aesthetic of kids’ games, kids’ manners of playing, into the narrative. Kids can be really creepy! They like creepy things! So the ring around the rosy rhyme at the beginning—a quite disturbing chant, of course, about the Plague, that is also very commonly sung by actual kids—foreshadows the summoning chant that brings the alien to them. It’s all of a piece. And just like the rhyme is just a rhyme, and they don’t know the real meaning behind it, they probably also don’t fully understand the meaning of the summoning chant or the alien that comes with it. It’s all one big game to them.

It’s interesting that the alien seemed to play off their desire both to punish their parents for working too much ("they like the planet, they're always busy") and to have freedom from parental rules (how they react to any instructions from adults, the alien's promise that the whole universe will be their playground, etc.). He really picks their sore spots as kids specifically and turns them into his “generals” accordingly. Like all kids, they don’t think too much about the larger consequences of their game because in some ways, it really is all just a game to them.

I liked how the episode characterized Kirk’s ability to interact with kids. He’s not bad with them at all, but he’s not like McCoy or Chapel either. He “wants to communicate with the future adult in the kid,” as my mom put it, which is perfect. He doesn’t exactly treat them as mini-adults—he doesn’t say inappropriate things to them, and he does simplify his language and his ideas for them—but he does treat them very seriously. And he’s probably best at one-on-one interactions like with Tommy. I think this makes total sense for his character: he doesn’t have kids (David aside lol), he doesn’t have younger siblings, he doesn’t work in a place where he’d see other people’s kids, he doesn’t get to see his nephew much, etc.

…Okay those were all my notes. I know I had other thoughts that were a little less scattered later, but… I’m tired. And most of it is probably in here in some form or another. I also found a list of, like, actual critiques of the episode, and I was considering going through them and addressing them all, and I might still do that. But I think that’s for another day.

[calliecat93]

Top 15 Star Trek TOS Episodes (Part Two)

(Part One)

Continuing from the last post, here are the remaining seven episodes~! Also picking Number One was SUPER hard. I was stuck between it and two for a long while. But I finally picked, so here we go!

#7. The Trouble With Tribbles

Up to this point, I hadn’t been crazy over some of the goofier episodes of Star Trek. Shore Leave was a mindscrew that left me uncertain about what was even happening by the end, though my opinion has lightened up upon looking back. The Squire of Gothos had a villain that I found far more annoying than entertaining and it remains one of my least favorite episodes. The only more silly one I did like was I, Mudd which remains an utter laugh riot once everyone acts as illogical as possible, including Spock. But then this episode came along, and Dear Lord it is hilarious. Our heroes stop at a space station, but it’s also occupied by Klingons. But wait, it gets better! A sleezy guy convinces Uhura to buy a Tribble, these little puff ball things that are kind of cute... until they begin to reproduce so rapidly that they infest the ship and base. To put it simply, it’s not a good time for Kirk. Honestly Kirk is the best part just because of how much he LOATHES every single thing about this episode. The scene where a whole bunch of Tribbles just topple over him and he just resigns himself to his fate and later his epic death glare at Bones when he orders him to figure out what killed the things. And then there’s what makes him come aorund to them, their shared hatred of Klingons. Seriosuly, Kirk is just So Done in this episode and it is amazing~

But seriously, it’s a very entertianing episode. Far more than I thought it was going to be when I read the description. It’s not an episode taken seriosuly, but not in the ‘they just gave up’ kind of way like in certain S3 episodes. The cast seem to be legit having a fun time with this one. The brawl between Scotty, Chekov, and a few other guys against the Klingons was super fun as was Kirk sulking when Scotty revelas that he got provoked over the Enteprise being insulted and not the captain. Poor Jim XD Cyrano Jones was also just a fun delight with how scummy yet amusing he is. The scene with him and the drinks during the brawl had me laughing so much XD Seriosuly there’s just so many good moments. Spock not being immune to the Tribble’s comforting effect and being embarassed at this revelaiton, Spock and McCoy’s snark, the Klingons utter horror at the tiny little furballs, it’s just an entertaining ride from beginning to end.

Not anything to really note flaws wise to justify the ranking. It doesn’t have that emotional or philosophical umph that I normally seek out in shows like this, so it’s here at seven. But that ain’t a bad thing at all. Not every episode has to have deep meanings or complex stories. Sometimes it can just be something fun and amusing, and the effort was still there to make it entertaining. It’s one of those episodes that I would watch above the others on a bad day just so I can laugh. Probably the most fun episode I have on this list, and that’s nothing to snuff at~!

#6. The Doomsday Machine

Our heroes find a Starship where the only survivor is Commadore Decker, his crew having all been killed when he beamed them to a planet that a planet destroyer... well, destroyed shortly after. The destroyer is still active and now the Enterprise is in danger. As Kirk remains on that ship, Decker is determined to destroyt he doomsday machine once and for all, including taking command of the Enteprrise and risking their lives to do so. Yeah, this is a pretty intense one. Decker, while his sucicdal actions were wrong, is VERY sympathetic. His crew was killed through no fault of his own, the machine that did it is still loose, and the losses have left him utterly broken. He’s very much traumatized but as he is the highest ranking officer and they can’t officially prove that he’s too mentlaly unfit to be relieved (which imo is idiotic cause even someone who isn’t a psycologist can tell he’s mentally unfit, but whatever), they can’t do much to stop him. Spock DOES finally manage to do so, and it leads to Decker’s ultimate choice that leads to his tragic end.

This one really gripped me. There’s this tension throughout. We have an unstable, suicidal man taking control of the Enterprise and willing to get them all killed to stop the doomsday machine. It’s scary to see how broken the man is. Again, he’s wrong to be willing to sacrifice everyone on The Enterprise to destroy the thing even though none of them want to die, but you understand why. I mean imagine if that happened to Kirk, he’d probably snap too if his actions in Obsession is any indication of how he handles major losses like that. Then we have Decker’s final act. Once relieved of command, he steals a shuttle and goes at the machine himself. He knows that he’s going to die and accepts that fact if it means some chance, any chance of destroying the machine once and for all. While he fails to destory it, he DOES give Kirk the opprotunity needed to do so with the ruined ship. A move that almost gets Kirk killed, but still Decker’s act was not in vain. It’s a very interesting character study with themes of guilt, trauma, and desperation. Kind of like in Obsession in a way, only Kirk manages to survive and pull himself together before it was too late. Decker’s only goal was to take down the machine that took his crew’s lives, even if that meant losing his own.

As I said, these are the kinds of episodes I live for. I guess self-sacrifice is also genetic consideirng what happened with his son in The Motion Picture, haha. Flaws... ugh... I guess McCoy disappeairng after the first half sucked? But that’s a me thing that doesn’t affect anything. I just remember watching it wide-eyed despite fully well knowing that everyone I cared about were going to be perfectly fine. It really gripped me! A great episode with great character exploration and themes which for a one off character, is pretty dang impressive!

#5. Journey to Babel

Meet the parents epidsode! Yay! The Enteprise is transporting various ambassadors of various planets to the Babel Conference. This includes the Vulcan Ambassador Sarek and his human wife Amanda, aka Spock’s parents. Yep, it’s time for some good ol’ fashioned family issues! Sarek wasn’t exactly happy with Spock choosing Starfleet and their relationship has been strained ever since. But when Sarek has severe heart problems, the only way to save him is via blood transfusion with Spock the only one compatible. But to make it worse, Kirk gets stabbed and put out of comission, forcing Spock to take command... at the same time that his father needs the surgery. Yeah... it sucks to be Spock in this episode. I know that Sarek is a bit divisive, but I like Spock’s parents. Sarek comes off as good at his job, but not great as a parent. He’s far fromt he worst and we do see that he does seem to still care about his son, he’s just God awful at admitting it and his previous mistakes. Like father, like son I guess. Amanda was a delight, especially when she tells McCoy about the sehlat aka giant teddy bear. Anyone who can make Bones smile that big deserves our thanks. Spock trying to make it less embarassing only made it funnier XD But back on topic, they come off as interesitng characters. They ain’t ideal, but they seem to genuinely be in love, which is nice.

Spock was just great here as we see him in one of the roughest spots he’s been in. He’s naturally not happy about being around the father that cast him aside again, though after his heart issues it’s clear that he IS concerned. Leonard Nimoy once again does such a fantastic job at having Spock express so much but without breaking character. It’s all in the eyes and the strained tone of voice. Then when Spock is more than willing to go through with the tranfusion, Kirk is injured. He has no choice but to take command, knowing that in doing so his father will die. While he COULD give command to Scotty, with the VERY intense circumstances of an assaliant on board and a ship ready to attack wit a number of ambassadors on board, he’s the best bet in handling it. Amanda is of course upset and even smacks him which IS overly harsh, but she’s about to lose her husband and her son, despite clealry hating the fact, has to place his duty above all else. Sarek dying is the least worst outcome to everyone else being killed. It’s the most logical route. Fortunately Kirk is able to pull himself together long enough to take over and the transfusion goes through perfectly despite the fight making it more difficult. Which again, McCoy is the true MVP here for managing to pull that off successfully under those conditions and Thank God that the episode rewarded him by letting him finally get the last word. He earned that one!

It’s such a great episode for me. Family drama, Spock conflict, political tensions, and just some relaly fun bits. Seriosuly, the teddy bear bit will NEVER stop being funny. Hoenstly these last five were all pretty tight and this ende dup here cause the other four had just a little bit mroe to keep me invested for reasons. Spock and Sarek don’t really reach a resolution but we do see that it has the chance to improve, and the movies do show that Sarek DOES truly care about his son and even admits that he had been wrong. It takes a lot for a man, even a Vulcan man, to do that. Although I DID double take when I realized that Sarek is played by the same guy who did the Romulan Captain in Balance of Terror. Guess he was that good XD. But yeah, a really great episode and very much my favorite Spock-centric episode.

#4. The Empath

TRIUMVIRATE FEELS BABY~! Our heroes end up trapped by a duo of aliens and encounter a mute empath woman that McCoy names Gem. They try to figure out how to escape as the aliens known as Vians plan to use them for an experiment as they have others. Shenanigains happen while elad to Kirk getting totured p, and then given the ultimate sadistic choice in having to decide if either Spock or McCoy get tortured to the point of either death (McCoy) or permenant brain damage (Spock). Now the episode has it’s issues, like why the Vians needed to do this to decide that Gem’s people were worth saivng is..l really baffling. But I’m also not a Vian so what do I know anout their mindset? But due to those kinds of plot holes, it landed here at four. It also kind of reads like a hurt/comfort fanfic, which isn’t a surprise when you find out that this was written and submitted by a fan. Which is freakin’ awesome and I can’t complain tbh cause it’s a good hurt/comfort fic. What it fails in some plot tightning it succeeds at in emphasizing the relationship between the main trio and it’s themes of emotion and self-sacrifice. Because OF COURSE that would be relevant for these three numbskulls at some point!

The second half is really what sells it. Kirk of course can’t make a choice like that, so Bones hypos him so that he’ll be spared of it. But that means that Spock is in command and he fully intends to hand himself over to the Vians to spare the two. Just the scene where he looks at Kirk, knowing that it’ll likely be the last time he sees him and Gem touching him to feel his emotions. Her smile sums it sll up. Which sidenote, the actress for Gem was freakin’ fantastic in how she displayed so much emotion and character without saying one word. Excellent acting. Anyways, Spock’s plan seems full-proof... except that he forgot that he’s dealing with McCoy, who promptly hypos him as well and sacrifices himself to the Vians. That was when McCoy became my favorite character, the moment he chose to be tortured to near death to save his two best friends and an innocent woman and even took the time to try and comfort her before being taken away. When we see the ifnal result and are greeted to DeForest Kelley looking at the camera with the most dead expression that he can muster... yeah the image STILL haunts me. Then Bones is dying with the two unable to do anything but try to give him some comfort and Gem is just so distraught and... heah this episode mad eit this high simply because it hit the emotional beats perfectly. That’s not even going into Gem trying to heal him to drive home the themes of the episode, also done VERY well.

This episode really shows how much the three care for one another. They’re all willing to be tortured and die to spare the other two. Ultimately McCoy gets the ‘honor’, but Kirk and Spock were absolutely ready to throw themselves to the fire. The characterization, interactions, and dynamic are just done so well that it’s why I can forgive the plot issues. I’m a sucker for feelings okay?! So yeah it’s not perfect but what it got right it got right. As such, it managed to land here at Number Four with only those plot holes keeping it from Number One. And trust me, I was tempted.

#3. The Tholian Web

Season 3 hadn’t been doing it for me with only one or two episodes really getitng my attention up to that point. This one though? This was the best episode in the seaosn bar none. Our heroes end up in a subspace where they find a starship and it’s crew all dead. Whien they teleport back to The Enterprise, it disappears... and takes Kirk with it. Okay, doesn’t sound liek anythignt hat new right? Kirk goes missing, the crew have to deal without him and find him as quickly as posisble. But this one has a bit of a twist... they cut Kirk out completely. Yeah, from the moment he vanishes in the first act to the very end he is out of the episode. Not only does the crew not know what happened to him, but neither does the audience, this ramps up the fear and emotional weight big time as the longer the crew is int hat space, the influence of it drives them to insanity. Bones wants to get out because of this, while Spock is unwilling to leave Kirk if he is alive. Needles to say, things go off the rails quickly.

With Kirk out of the equation, we keep our focus on Spock and McCoy. Their arguing is probably at the most personal it’s ever been with Kirk seming dead, the crew losing their minds, and it looking more and more uncertain that they can both treat the crew and ge tout alive. While one can say that McCoy may be too harsh here, I think along with the space affecting him in a less intense way, he’s also stressed from all the patients as well as his grief about Jim. Spock is the only one that he can take it out on, especially since his chocie to not leave is why they’re now int he mess that they’re in. Spock is trying to perform his duties despite the hostilities and his own grief that he’s trying to keep a grip on with all the responsibility of the crew and whatever happens due to his choice firmly sititng on his shoulders. What finally starts to get them to resolve this? A tape that Kirk made for them in the event of his death. He gives them his confidence that they can perform their duties withiut him, but that they need to lsiten to and support each other. They CAN go on without him. It’ll hurt but they’re now all that they each have and they need to work together now more than ever. It’s a sobering moment for both with McCoy realizng how ovelry harsh he had been and Spock expressing genuine grief. They do still bicke rone more time, but McCoy catches himself before it goes too far, apologizes, and Spock simply says what Jim would: “Forget it, Bones”. Cue Bones fainting like the Southern Bell that he is, haha!

Now of course Kirk is alive and they manage to save him and get out of the situation fine. But I just loved this because of the focus on Spock and McCoy without Kirk. Why? Because Kirk is the one thing that can unite them. It’s not the only thing, but if anything can make them get over their disagreements quickly, it’s Kirk. So what happens when it looks like he’s gone and never coming back? How will the two deal with it now that that balance is gone? They don’t deal with it well, being at each other’s throats until they see that tape. But it DOES show that if they did lose Kirk, they CAN work together and go on. Like I said, I adore these two’s relationship and while not as slashy as All Our Yesterdays, this is such an excellent one for that relationship as we see that yes, they will bicker but they will also be there for each other when it all comes down to it. It’s such a great episode for that reason and the plot was just well done. Like I said, casitng out Jim and leaving us unsure of what happened to him was an excellent move for this one and I enjoyed the exploration that it allowed.

#2. The Immunity Syndrome

Out heroes are scent to investigate what caused a whole solar system to disappear just as they also receive a message from a Vulcan science vessel. Unfortunately, Spock senses he vessel’s destruction and the Enterprise finds itself against a giant space amoeba that will devour everything unless stopped. That may not sound like much, but it leads into what I think was the most intense situation that the Enterprise has been in. Everything, and I mean everything, is pushed to their limits here. This amoeba can outright destroy galaxies and utterly mindless, so there’s no reasoning with it. But it gets especially tense when, in order to understand exactly what’s going on, Kirk has to send someone in the space shuttle to observe, but in doing so, he’s sending someone to most likely die. And his choices? Either Spock or Bones... yeah.

This is what makes this episode great. Spock and Bones are already on rockier than usual terms due to McCoy treating the Vulcan deaths more like a statistic while Spock sensed all of it outright. That itself is an interesting observation on how we treat these kinds of things, not really understanding how horrific it is unless we’re involved in it outright, otherwise it’s sad and unfortunate but just another number. But then we have the suicide mission. Bones originally volunteers himself, after all he’s a doctor and would have the knowledge to make the necessary observaitons and likely the most fit for it. But Spock is not only also perfectly capable even if not specialized in medical science, but he’s also more fit physically and emotionally to undergo the risk and come out alive. In the end, Kirk picks Spock and McCoy ain’t happy about it. The scene with Spock about ready to go with McCoy still unhappy even when Spock asks him to wish him luck. He does... once the doors have shut and Spock can’t hear him anymore. It’s a very strong scene and it only gets more painful when it looks like Spock is truly going to die and his final words are that McCoy should have wished him luck. Bones’ face says everything.

The episode is just excellent. Great character moments. Great emotional weight. Great stakes that keep going up and up and it truly feels like the darkest hour for the crew. Kirk and Spock outright begin to record their respective final words. Even they’re convinced that this is most likely the end, which is just... dang man. I couldn’t look away during this one. They hit everything perfectly with pretty much everything. If I have any issues, none of them come to mind. It’s just an excellent episode and the best of Season 2. I had a REALLY hard time picking between this and my Number One for the top slot. The top one just had a little bit more emotional impact to get it, but it just barely topped this one. Regardless, it is still an excellent episode and one of the best by far. But what is Number One? Well...

#1. The City on the Edge of Forever

Yeah, yeah, obvious pick I know. I normally don’t go wth popular opinion... but sometimes it’s that way for a reason, and this one I can’t argue about. When McCoy gets badly drugged on accident, he goes into a derranged state and beams onto a planet. The crew is unable to stop him from entering a portal known as the Guardian of Forever that sends him into the distant past where he does something to change histry. In order to figure out what changed and to stop McCoy, Kirk and Spock travel into the 1930’s a few days earlier to cut him off and must now navigate their way though the time period where they end up at a soup kitchen run by a woman named Edith Keller. Which Edith is an excellent character. She’s kind, optimistic, charming, hard-working, ad caring towards those who need it. Kirk ends up falling for her, and... it’s legit really cute. Kirk isn’t being forced to make out with a woman or doing so for information. We see how Kirk is when he genunely likes someone, having been drawn to Edith’s optimism and hopes for a better future. A future that he is from and knows will be reality. He’s really sweet and it’s just cute... which makes what happens at the end all the more tragic.

The 1930’s were fun with Kirk trying to come up with an excuse for Spock’s ears having me dying from laughter. The acting was excellent with DeForest Kelley as drugged!Bones especially being both crazy and scary. I quit doubting that he played villains in Westerns after this episode, haha. But of course Spock soon discovers that the change that McCoy is to make is saving Edith form death, and in doing so she leads a pacifist campaign that delays America’s entry into World War II and... well, things go badly. They are in a time where sadly optimism and peace are simply not options, which is even crueler. In order for time to be restored, they have to let Edith die. Kirk is horrified by this and when the time comes (sidenote, the Triumvirate reunion is utterly adorable), he just grabs Bones, keeps his back turned, and can only listen as Edith screams and is killed via car colission. Whatever grievances I have about William Shatner, he absoluteley nailed Kirk’s utter heartbreak and pain as Kirk just looks utterly boken. His final wordds after they return to the 23rd Century simply being a bitter “Let’s get the Hell out of here” sums it all up perfectly. Bones’ horror at it, especially since he DID have to watch it and him being upset at Kirk is also heartbreaking as he asks him if he knows what he just did. Spock can only somberly inform him that yes, he does.

It’s one of those cases where I wish serialization was more of a thign cause DAMN this is some major emotional baggage for everyone but as per usual. It happens and they go on from there with no lingering development. I guess if I had to complain, that would be it but that’s jut the nature of these shows at the time. Kind of feel like Bones getting as bady overdosed as he did pretty much got forgotten after they enter the 1930’s, but I also know nothing about 23rd Century drugs so... ah well. But the rest of the episode is so good that I can forgive those issues and they clealry did nothing to impact the placing. It had a storgn story, great emotion, great acting, great pacing, and a heartbreaking but fitting ending. The episode has a LOT of history behind it’s making that could be a post all it’s own, but no mater how this episode came to be, it is very much the best of Star Trek TOS. It was fun yet sad and had me gripped form beginning to ed and just htinkign about it now still makes me sad. Thus, it earns it’s place as my favorite episode of Star Trek TOS.

And we are done! There were a lot of really good episodes and some i REALLY did consider. A Piece of the Action, The Enemy Within (that was skipped for... certian reasons), Is There in Truth No Beauty?, This Side of Paradise, and plenty of others that I enjoyed. There were others I.. well, didn’t, but I can’t recall outright hating anything. Regardless I came in apathetic at best, and I left a fan for it’s characters, interesting ideas, and I just had a lot of fun. It’s outdated in many ways, but still relevant in others. Overall, I’m glad to have finally watched it, and I hope that I enjoy TNG just as much. But if not, I’ll always have this~!

(Image Source: TrekCore TOS Gallery)

[aion-rsa]

How Star Trek: Discovery Bungled Michael Burnham’s Path to Captain

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This Star Trek: Discovery feature contains spoilers for Season 3.

 Star Trek: Discovery Season 3 was surprising in many ways. The latest season literally went where no installment of the Star Trek franchise had gone before, flying into an unknown time period that exists so far outside established canon that the series was basically free to do whatever it wanted. And, for the most part, it did.

Break up the Federation as we once understood it? Check. Show us a broken Starfleet that was essentially in hiding, hanging on to a dream of past glory? Also, check. Confirm the eventual reunification of the Vulcans and Romulans? Spock’s dream was achieved, folks. In Discovery Season 3, there are new planets, new relationships, and new rules—all set in a new future that often feels as alien to us as viewers as it does to the characters that have been catapulted there.

Yet, Season 3 somehow still ended with a moment that felt completely expected: Michael Burnham’s promotion to the Discovery captain’s chair.

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To be clear, this is not a bad thing. As captain of the Discovery, Burnham makes history – she is, officially, the first Black woman lead to captain in a live-action Star Trek series. (Shout out to Carol Freeman, captain of the U.S.S. Cerritos on the animated Star Trek: Lower Decks.) That’s exactly the sort of representation we need more of as we flesh out what Gene Roddenberry’s hopeful vision for a better humanity looks like. (And work toward a time when there won’t be any more character firsts that need to be recognized because our media will have caught up to that ideal.)

Star Trek is made better by featuring diverse characters and telling stories about the wide variety of people (and alien species, where applicable) who look to the stars with wonder and boldly go forward. Our pop culture as a whole is made more interesting and vibrant by featuring a wider variety of characters in healthy positions of power and exploring the choices and tensions in those lives. These are good things and fans are right to want to both see and support them.

But despite those truths, after the events of Season 3, it’s no longer clear if becoming a captain is the right move for Michael as a character, or for the larger narrative of Discovery itself going forward. And it’s difficult to solely celebrate such a landmark moment when it doesn’t entirely fit with the story we have seen play out on screen so far, no matter how much we might want it to.

Read more

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Burnham’s promotion does have a certain air of inevitability about it. Discovery hasn’t exactly been subtle about her career trajectory, and most viewers have likely been expecting this since the show’s first season, as Star Trek series leads have, traditionally, been in the captain’s chair. And, for the most part, Michael has earned her shot by virtue of being a compassionate leader who has stepped up when her crew has needed her and saved their lives multiple times over.

Sure, she has something of a colorful professional history – complete with mutiny, insubordination, varying degrees of recklessness, and a general disregard for rules she finds inconvenient or simply doesn’t want to follow. But it’s not like that’s something new in this universe and we’ve certainly seen (usually white) male Starfleet officers repeatedly rewarded for brash creativity and the same refusal to play things safe that she displays.

The problem is that much of Season 3 appeared to be telling a very different kind of story, one that interrogated not just what kind of leader Michael wanted to be but also acknowledged the tension between the identity she left behind in 2259 and the person she’s becoming in the 32nd century. The fact that she spent a year carving out a life in an unknown future on her own has obviously changed her, so much so that a significant subplot this season involved her valid questioning of whether she wanted to be a part of Starfleet at all.

This undercurrent added some intriguing tension to many of the season’s early episodes, as Michael discovers that, on some level, she enjoys living without the institutional guardrails and daily regulations of life as an officer on a starship. Maybe her dream was never to run around the galaxy with Book and his giant cat queen, but it’s clear that Burnham enjoys the freedom of the choice to go where she wants, to act on her own, to not have to answer to regulation. 

Though she clearly missed her Discovery family, Michael seems remarkably free and unburdened in her life with Book, in a way she’s never really been allowed to be on the show before. And that’s part of the reason her brief stint as Saru’s Number One is so uncomfortable to watch. For a year, Burnham has been living a life of independence, one in which she has unilateral control over what she does and how she handles problems. Of course, she’s going to have a difficult time transitioning back to a world that was never that fond of her penchant for risk-taking in the first place.

And for a brief moment, it felt as though Season 3 was honestly asking if a life in Starfleet was something Michael even wants anymore, if it is the best way for her to make positive change. Over the course of the season, we watched Michael spend more time trying to figure out ways to flout the system than being a true partner to her captain. Saru has to reprimand her repeatedly, she eventually gets demoted, and even Admiral Vance seems to have serious misgivings about her leadership abilities—all while Michael is making decisions that save lives and that, aside from some interpersonal consequences, she doesn’t regret. 

Unfortunately, Discovery seemed so determined to end Season 3 by putting Michael in the captain’s seat that it forgot to truly show us how she got there. How did she make her peace with all the conflicting feelings she had about her place in Starfleet and its role in the 32nd century? Did she talk to Book about what it might mean for their relationship if she’s suddenly commanding a starship? 

And, moreover, what changed the minds of other characters like Saru and Vance, who seem to harbor grave misgivings, not about Michael’s ability – she’s clearly proven how capable she is many times over – but about whether such a position is the best fit for her skills. And to be honest, it’s disappointing that Discovery skipped over all that. This is a new future, and none of the old rules have to apply any more. There are different ways to serve, to lead, to help others, and even to hold power than through a position of command. The series posed some difficult, fascinating questions, and then completely dropped the ball on exploring or answering them in any thorough way.

Of course, there’s every chance that Michael Burnham will turn out to be a remarkable captain. She’s saved her crew, her friends, and all sentient life in the universe once already, and she’s nothing if not dedicated. Who knows? Perhaps placing her in an official leadership position will allow other members of the bridge crew to more fully step forward into their own stories as the Discovery explores this new universe. After all, Burnham can’t solve problems in her new role by constantly going rogue anymore. And maybe that will be a good thing, in the end. 

For all its ensemble feel, Discovery has always been primarily focused on Michael’s story. The biggest question of Season 4 will be whether the show can square this circle, and find a way to give fans this deserved step forward, but to do so in a way that makes sense for who this character is becoming, not who she was when the show started. 

The post How Star Trek: Discovery Bungled Michael Burnham’s Path to Captain appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[douxreviews]

Star Trek: Discovery - ‘If Memory Serves’ Review

Spock: "I am not here to absolve you, Michael Burnham."

By nature I love brevity: Star Trek: Discovery plays to its strengths here, delivering a well-paced, measured episode that hits on the nostalgia factor in just the right ways. 'If Memory Serves' is a noticeable improvement over the rest of this season, which was in turn already an improvement over the previous season.

The first and probably most notable quality of this episode is the nostalgic air it has. From the very retro 'Previously on Star Trek' segment at the beginning, bringing us up to speed on the events of 'The Cage,' to the well-placed sound and music cues from the same episode, 'If Memory Serves' displays a clear and respectful knowledge of what's come before. Yet there is the distinct sense that something new is being accomplished, that we're not just uselessly retreading the past. This can be seen in the technical upgrades given to the Talosians, their singing plants, and the planet itself. Not only this, we're going deeper, if not to new places, with Pike and Vina. Anson Mount and Melissa George effectively recapture the old dynamic that Jeffrey Hunter and Susan Oliver brought, but they also lend new aspects to the relationship. Vina, it seems, is happy with the illusory Pike that she's been provided, as 'The Cage' and 'The Menagerie' implied, yet throughout Melissa George's performance there is a tinge of longing for the real thing. Pike can't seem to get Vina out of his head, and his deep-seated desire to return to her is clear in this episode. This new connection to the characters also makes 'The Menagerie' all the more resonant.

We'll get to Burnham and Spock in a moment, but first I want to explore the stuff with Culber and Stamets. I've said for a while now that Culber's character in Season One existed really only in service of Stamets' character. Culber wasn't really all that much of a character in his own right. But here, since his return, the writers and Wilson Cruz have given Culber a depth and an arc that he never had before. I'm just sorry that poor Stamets has to suffer the consequences of this. I can definitely see where they are both coming from here. The loss of Culber was so devastating for Stamets, and his return so filled with joy and hope, that of course he would be overeager and take things too fast or too far. Another viewer pointed out to me that Stamets is very good at helping other people with their emotional and relational problems, but he doesn't seem to have the same clarity when it comes to his own. This is all too human. Likewise, Culber feels like a stranger in his own skin. The need to be himself, combined with the feeling that he's not himself anymore, would of course compel him to make changes and shifts in his life. Despite the temporary rift, I don't think it's over for Stamets and Culber. The good doctor will have to figure out who he is now that he has returned, but once he does so, I expect he will return to his love.

Poor Ash Tyler is becoming more and more a victim of his circumstances as time goes on. First he had to deal with the fact that he had betrayed his entire crew without his knowledge, and he's still reaping the consequences of that. He must also face the fact that another person is lurking inside his psyche, just waiting to come out. This is visible in his defensive fight with Dr. Culber. If Tyler had been more aggressive, if he'd attacked Culber more directly, it's possible that Voq would have come out, and he has no idea what will happen in that case. Let's just say for now that it's a bad idea to proVoq him, and leave it at that. And now he must deal with the mistrust of the entire crew, for something he didn't do. Though I don't expect it to last long, as evil Airiam's reveal appears to be next episode, this will have to really damage the tentative trust he's built with Captain Pike all this season.

It doesn't help matters that his superiors at Section 31 are becoming less trustworthy by the minute. Leland and Georgiou seem to be headed for a substantial standoff, and I'm honestly not sure whose victory would be worse for the crew. Georgiou is upstaging Leland at every turn, even garnering more respect from the Admiralty, and Leland has to be frustrated. I wonder if the boiling point will be reached this season, or if we'll have to wait for the Section 31 series to see the conclusion of this storyline.

This brings us to the main event - Burnham and Spock. Their relationship has been set up as the focal point of the season since 'Brother,' and so far it has not disappointed. The scene where young Burnham hurt young Spock felt very real, and every word hurt because of how we know it must have damaged Spock. Burnham represented Spock's human side, and when she burned him to get him to stay away from her, he rejected his humanity also and dove deep into his Vulcan, logical half. Now that logic has failed to help him make sense of what the Angel showed him, Spock is a broken man searching for something to ground him. I expect that in the end, Burnham will be right; her relationship with Spock will be the thing that ties him to reality. In time, Spock will realize that his relationships in general are his guiding star, with the help of a certain up-and-coming young starship captain and his crew.

I have to give props to T.J. Scott for his direction here. Unlike many of the recent episodes, Scott's fancy camerawork and effects serve a legitimate artistic purpose, like the tilting, twisting camera during the Section 31 sequences to emphasize the uncertain and shifting world of 31, or the lens flares that accompanied Talosian illusions. The episode also spends an appropriate amount of time on the key emotional moments, something that episodes like 'Saints of Imperfection' have failed to do. The pace here is slow and measured, which is a relief after the frantic and rushed feeling of the last few episodes.

Strange New Worlds:

Talos IV first appeared in the unaired pilot of TOS, 'The Cage.' The rendering of the planet in this episode looked very similar to the painting used for it in the original episode.

New Life and New Civilizations:

The Talosians had a huge war on their planet, which drove them underground. When they developed their remarkable mental powers, they became addicted to the pleasures illusion could provide and forgot how to interact with the real world. The illusions they present to anyone who approaches Talos IV help them to relearn, and they are still searching for someone to learn their technology and save their race.

Pensees:

-According to Melissa George, she recorded some of Vina's original lines from 'The Cage,' which were then dubbed in alongside Susan Oliver's voice in the recap at the beginning.

-I'm pretty sure this is Pike's first Captain's log. Come to think of it, I don't think Lorca ever did it either.

-Dang it, more Vulcan Admirals. Look, guys, if Spock was the first Vulcan in Starfleet, and the only one at the time of TOS, there can't be Vulcan admirals.

-I loved Tilly leaning out of her 'office' on the bridge.

-The sound effects for the singing plants and the Talosians' illusions, as well as some of the music cues, were taken from 'The Cage.'

-Spock has been experiencing time as fluid due to the Red Angel.

-Spock mind-melded with the Angel, revealing to him that whoever is in the suit is human.

-The ships that blew up all those planets in Spock's vision looked an awful lot like the upgraded probe from 'Light and Shadows' last week. Hmmmm...

-Mental hospitals in television shows should really give their patients paper in addition to writing utensils. Just a thought.

-Of course, Spock didn't kill the people he's accused of killing. Did 31 kill them when they got there?

-Were those Reno's drones cleaning up from Culber and Tyler's fight?

-Starbase 11 is two lightyears from Talos IV

-I don't think we've seen two ships get a transporter lock on the same person at the same time before.

-I liked Burnham cocking the eyebrow at Spock's smile.

Quotes:

Georgiou: "Why would I lie?" This was only funny because of who was saying it.

Vina: "In some ways, Captain Pike never left."

Stamets: "I think what you're experiencing is a form of neutralizing shock." Culber: "It's not that simple, Paul!"

Spock: "Is there a valuable question in your arsenal?" Burnham: "Yes. Do you really think the beard is working?"

Pike: "This is real." Vina: "As real as it needs to be."

Culber: "I'm not letting anyone fix what I feel."

Illusion-Burnham: "Say goodbye, Spock." Illusion-Spock: "Goodbye, Spock." Anyone else glad this was an illusion? I saw it in a promo, and it didn't feel right. That's more of a Data line.

Georgiou: "Those Talosians tried this trick with me in the Terran universe once, and I blew them, and their stupid singing plants, off the face of the planet."

Best of the season so far. 5.5 out of 6 stupid singing plants.

CoramDeo is an ugly bag of mostly water, and proud of it.

[unknown-de-mordor-blog]

Five ships I’m still not over

Beleg Cúthalion/Túrin Turambar

Universe: Middle-earth, first age

Ship name: Nothing that’s widely used in the fandom, I don’t think. But I like to think of them as ‘Black Sword (referring to Turin’s cursed weapon) and Strongbow (direct translation of Cúthalion)’

To me, there's no character more tragic than Turin son of Hurin, and no pairing more tragic than him and Beleg. And no clearer love, too. I don't know if J. R. R. Tolkien intended for them to go that far, but their emotional connection is so deep and powerful that whether you ship them or not it's undisputedly one of the most beautiful relationships in Tolkien's lore. Alas! It's not powerful enough to undo the curse placed on Turin and his clan, which ends both his and Beleg's life all too soon and all too tragically. So, yes, I count Beleg as one of the elves who die for love.

Favourite quote: 'I would lead my own men, and make war in my own way,' Turin answered. 'But in this at least my heart is changed: I repent every stroke save those dealt against the Enemy of Men and Elves. And above all else I would have you beside me. Stay with me!' 'If I stayed beside you, love would lead me not wisdom,' said Beleg.

Uh, I love this so much because it shows the difference in their temperament and maturity. Beleg's an elf who has lived through and fought in so many wars. He's an (elf)man of duty, honour and intellect, and Turin is still a young man whose pride and stubbornness can seriously get in the way of a grown-up conversation. And Beleg is so not having any of that in this scene. He’d do anything for Turin, including ditching his command to find him, but he can pull some tough-love moves, too, when Turin’s unreasonable.

Uzumaki Naruto/Uchiha Sasuke

Universe: Naruto

Ship name: sns, narusasu, sasunaru

I think Naruto and Sasuke canonically love each other, I really do, but I don’t think they are together romantically at any point in the series. And that’s by design, really. Sasuke -- the last of the Uchiha, the tragic figure of the Naruto series (still not as tragic as Turin, but let’s not do this morbid comparison) -- has too many issues to work through, and Naruto isn’t in the position to really help him through them. So as soul-deep as their bond is, they couldn’t have been together and survive each other. Although, I really want that to happen. That’s what fanfictions are for, I guess.

Favourite quote: ‘If you attack Konoha, I will have to fight you... So save up your hatred and take it all on me, I'm the only one who can take it. It's the only thing I can do. I will shoulder your hatred and die with you.’

Honestly, Naruto might just as well propose to Sasuke with that because he’s essentially saying ‘give me your worst, I’m not leaving and never will’. I know friends could be like that, too, but normally not to this degree and not with this kind of commitment. I’m not surprised at all when Sasuke has to ask Naruto why the hell he is doing all this for him. It just goes beyond reason, really.

S'chn T'gai Spock /James T. Kirk

Universe: Star Trek

Ship name: K/S, Spirk

The Daddy of all ships! Pun intended! Spock and Kirk's friendship really walks that fine line of are they/aren’t they. I personally think they aren’t (another controversial statement coming from a shipper), but they’re so cute together you just can’t help think: what if they are? They have this deep trust and affection for one another anyway; why not push it a notch further? ‘This simple feeling,’ as Spock calls it, might as well be love.

Favourite quote:

Kirk: How's our ship? Spock: Out of danger. Kirk: Good... Spock: You saved the crew. Kirk: You used what he wanted against him. That's a nice move. Spock: It is what you would have done. Kirk: And this... this is what you would have done. It was only logical. I'm scared, Spock. Help me not be. How do you choose not to feel? Spock: I do not know. [tears fall] Right now, I am failing. Kirk: I want you to know why I couldn't let you die... why I went back for you... Spock: Because you are my friend. [Kirk places his hand against the glass and gives the Vulcan Salute as he dies]

It’s actually really hard for me to pick a quote for these two because I think every ‘Jim’ from Spock does the job except nobody else would understand it but me. (Second to that is, ‘Captian, not in front of the Klingons.’) While I love them teasing each other a lot, I think Kirk’s death scene from Star Trek Into Darkness has all the right punches to it. Spock has been unable to accept the feeling of friendship towards Kirk (actually just feelings in general) until the moment he watches Kirk dies behind the glass door. And all just comes out like BOOM! Not to mention how close Spock comes to killing Khan for revenge before Uhura tells him that Kirk can be saved but they need Khan alive. Honestly, that’s the only reason Khan’s head doesn’t go plop in Spock’s hands.

Morgoth/Sauron

Universe: Middle-earth, first age

Ship name: it just came to my attention that the fandom is calling this ship Angbang (a wordplay on the name of their home/fortress Angband). Nicely done, you naughty people. Also Melkor/Mairon if you’re going by their proper first-age names.

I think a lot of people seeing this ship would go ‘what?!’ Like, how is that even possible when Tolkien didn’t write a single scene with the two of them in it. I’d say in this case the absence is more powerful. Tolkien wrote the Silmarillion and the Unfinished Tales as lore, so they necessarily come from the perspective of the tellers; i.e., humans and elves. That doesn’t mean Tolkien didn’t drop hints about the complex characters that the dark lords of Middle-earth are. He even has Elrond says that people don’t start out evil, not even Sauron. So the question becomes, what the heck happened? And the heck that starts it all out is pretty much in the first few chapters of the Silmarillion where Morgoth is clearly a powerful and inventive figure but in many ways an outcast and shunned by everyone including the very power that made him. (*cough* daddy issue *cough*) And then we are made aware of the fact Sauron, who is also powerful and creative, isn’t on Morgoth’s side from the get go but decides to join him later. The power-hungry dark lords we are later told about aren’t that at all, so it raises the question of their true characters and motives. If anything, I think the length in which Sauron would go for Morgoth thousands of years after his master is defeated and shut away says something about their bond with each other. And if I know one thing, it can’t be fear or respect. If I have to make a guess, I think it is akin to love.

Favourite quote: There isn’t anything I can quote from the source material since there hasn’t been a dialogue or anything they say to an audience that could be trusted as genuinely representing who they are. One thing I do scream about is the scene in the Return of the King movie when the black gate opened and behind there isn’t just the tower with the eye of Sauron but Mount Doom next to it in the same frame. I was like ‘I know Morgoth’s not here but isn’t that him in spirit.’ Yes, I’m a proper trash for these two.

Also, there’s this awesome comic series (unfortunately discontinued) by Suz. It’s legitimately hotter than the fire of Aule’s forge, honestly.

Beren/Lúthien

Universe: Middle-earth, first age

Ship name: I’m not aware of any ship name for these two but ‘Beren and Luthien’ is catchy enough as it is.

How else to finish this list but to dedicate the last entry to the greatest love story of Middle-earth, and, yes, I'm saying that with a straight face because, holy hell, this couple defies expectations left, right, and centre. Luthien, our elven princess, is an active participant in her own fate. She falls in love with a human who, in an act of valour, accepts her father's stupid, impossible task to steal the most treasured jewel from Morgoth the Dark Lord himself. Luthien basically runs away from home, finds her man captured and tortured, and tears the goddamn fortress down in a showdown with the-dark-lord-to-be Sauron himself (which makes you question the competency of everyone else in Middle-earth). They then proceed to steal the jewel together. They don't quite succeed in bringing it back and Beren loses his hand in the process, but hey, they could say it's in his hand, somewhere, and now could they please marry because otherwise I have a feeling that Luthien is going to elope with her boyfriend and her mom and dad won't be seeing her again ever.

And this is really just scratching the surface of Luthien’s feisty personality quite unbefitting of most princesses until the recent overhaul of attitude by Disney. And all this came from a man who was born in the Victorian era when women's autonomy wasn't given or respected. But I think Luthien's depth of character comes from the fact that she has a real-life counterpart, and so she feels more like a real woman. And the love between Beren and Luthien feels compelling because its the love the professor himself had for his wife and life-long partner, Edith. You can check out their gravestone. I'm so not making this up.

Favourite quote: The song of Lúthien before Mandos was the song most fair that ever in words was woven, and the song most sorrowful that ever the world shall ever hear. Unchanged, imperishable, it is sung still in Valinor beyond the hearing of the world, and the listening the Valar grieved. For Lúthien wove two themes of words, of the sorrow of the Eldar and the grief of Men, of the Two Kindreds that were made by Ilúvatar to dwell in Arda, the Kingdom of Earth amid the innumerable stars. And as she knelt before him her tears fell upon his feet like rain upon stones; and Mandos was moved to pity, who never before was so moved, nor has been since.

It’s not a scene between them, but this is how far Luthien’s love and badassery goes. She loses Beren in a battle to protect her father’s kingdom, and she dies grieving him. In the afterlife, she gets to meet the god of death Mandos and sings him a song of their love and her grief. Apparently, she’s so good with words and music that Mandos is like, ‘I can’t handle the feels. You can have your husband back and have a mortal life with him.’ And Luthien takes the deal, of course.

[ashroadtrek-blog]

The Galileo Seven

Air Date: January 5, 1967

Writer: Oliver Crawford (story and teleplay) and S. Bar David (teleplay)

Director: Robert Gist

I FINALLY GOT MY SHUTTLECRAFT

Okay, I mean I got my shuttlecraft in The Menagerie, but it wasn’t an Enterprise shuttlecraft so it doesn’t count. 

The Galileo Seven isn’t the most fun episode, the most thought-provoking episode, but it is an essential Spock episode. The drama on the planet may be dependent on the shuttle’s damage and Scotty’s slow but sure repairs as well as the Enterprise’s inability to locate it via traditional methods, but the core conflict of the episode is in how the average crewmen who don’t know their cold, distant, alien XO/science officer react to his infamous logical mindset. 

Hint: not well. 

Boma in particular has it up to here with Spock’s shit by the time they achieve lift-off, and his ill-fated crewman Gaetano does as well before he’s murdered by one of the aliens on the planet they’re marooned on. 

It’s not just Boma though - Spock is constantly needled by an irritated and grim McCoy, who is definitely not in Bones mode.

Bones isn’t the only one being irritated in this episode - our favorite captain is under the purview of Galactic High Commissioner (wtf does that even mean) Ferris, who acts like an impatient little bitch the entire episode.

Douche

Ferris is really only present to serve as an obnoxious countdown timer to Kirk and the audience, weakly raising the stakes and the drama by reminding everyone (and Kirk in particular) that there is a plague on Mockus III that the Enterprise is carrying medical supplies too (including one of those giant pill bottle props first seen in Dagger of the Mind.)

Kirk commands; Ferris judges

So if the situation on Mockus III is so damned urgent, why does the crew of the Galileo Seven end up stranded on the literally-who planet of Tauris II?

This beautiful effect is why

Kirk has standing orders to investigate all quasars and quasar-like phenomena. Now isn’t that interesting? Not only does Starfleet have humanitarian and peace-keeping directives, it also has scientific orders too! Again you may ask - so what? Log it in the star charts, drop Ferris and his giant pill bottle off on Mockus III and come back to it! Well, apparently Kirk has a surplus time budget because he’s got like 2 extra days before he has to hit his deadline, because no one ever benefited from being early. 

Naturally, he sends his science officer Spock in a shuttlecraft (the eponymous Galileo) with six other crew - including chief engineer Scotty, CMO Bones, three redshirt-types, and a Yeoman Mears (the eponymous Seven.)

Guess how many come back. Go ahead. I dare you.

The quasar blows them off course (I gathered eventually it was an ion storm, which remain dangerous well into Voyager’s era) and they make a forced landing on a desert, rocky shithole of a planet named Tauris II. 

Gene, stop with the fucking deserts already.

Two crewmen, Latimer and Gaetano, are sent off to survey the area while Scotty attempts to make repairs. Meanwhile, Kirk and Uhura work out which possible system in the quasar that the shuttle landed on and Ferris steps on the bridge to whine - which he’ll do at every opportunity. He even holds his position over Kirk’s head, but Kirk snaps back that the people they’re looking for are his shipmates and (more importantly) his friends. 

Meanwhile, Bones needles Spock because he’s bored and Spock is an easy target; he says that Spock will leverage a successful report on this mission into command where he will use his Vulcan logic as the defining instrument of it. Spock responds that he doesn’t really feel anything about command, good or bad; that it exists. It’s a non-answer, and Bones isn’t getting anything from Spock. 

Spock considers rescue an unlikely prospect; their best chance is to achieve escape velocity and attempt to get back with the Enterprise. Unfortunately, they need to shed 500 pounds, and Boma knows exactly what that means: 3 people must stay behind.

Fortunately, the native, neolithic aliens of Tauris II volunteer to make the decision as to who stays so that Spock doesn’t have to. Indeed, Boma asks to draw lots, but Spock says no and that he’ll choose the ones to leave behind based on logic. You get the first inkling that Boma dislikes Spock, or at least his cold logic. 

Latimer gets killed by a giant spear, and Spock wants to leave the body - but Boma and Gaetano insist on burying him. When Spock attempts to help, Boma rejects him - they’ll bury him. 

Meanwhile on the ship, the transporters are still unsafe to use and Ferris acts like a little bitch.

Planetside, the boys want Spock, as CO, to say the words over Latimer; Spock attempts to defer to Bones because he finds it illogical, and everyone gets pissed off that Spock can’t even be bothered to fulfill a simple emotional request to keep comraderie with his lieutenants. Soctty reveals they’re out of fuel, and in a discussion Boma is all about striking back at the aliens, to which Spock responds with incredulity at “earthmen’s” eagerness to take life and seems almost visibly irritated by the notion. 

It becomes clear that Gaetano and Boma have lost respect for Mr. Spock, who is all about preservation of life - even hostile life. We know from later in his career that this leads him to approach peace with the Klingons, and even maroon himself in an alternate universe in an attempt to keep the hostile, duplicitous, Romulan Star Empire alive.

Even Eric Bana

After a show of force, Spock leaves Gaetano as the lonely sentry, and Boma pats his shoulder, probably glad he’s not in his shoes because does anyone honestly expect Gaetano to survive?

Spock and Scotty work out an alternative fuel source: phaser batteries. It’ll take time to adapt them, but it���s better than sitting around waiting for giant sasquatch cavemen to murder them. 

Meanwhile, the transporters begin to work and Kirk organizes search parties while Ferris cries about the time. 

Natually, Gaetano dies. Spock and Boma run back to the shuttle and everyone holes up inside as the creatures attack with rocks. Spock has a bit of a crisis of faith here - his logic was impeccable, why didn’t it work? Bones accuses him of treating these monsters as rational beings, but they’re driven by emotion which Spock neglected to factor in his calculations. Boma gets increasingly hostile, and Spock has a running commentary about how badly he’s fucked up so far.

Scotty continues doing his duty, cool as a cucumber. 

Meanwhile, Kirk and Uhura coordinate away team efforts as sensors become better and the ion storm begins to fade. Ferris remains a little bitch, and Kirk snaps at him to butt out. Ferris can’t wait to take control of the mission and get to Mockus. What a chode. 

So the shuttle is still under siege and Spock and Scotty come up with a way to electrify the outer hull to make the aliens back off. After that, Boma wants to bury Gaetano, saying he’s tired of “this machine!”

Spock: You’ll have your burial - if the creatures permit it.

Meanwhile, one landing party returns to report a death. Ferris says time’s up, and Kirk has no choice but to abandon ship. 

23 minutes later, the Columbus docks and with it the last search party. Kirk orders course set for Mockus III at “space normal speeds” which I interpret as full impulse or something. 

On the planet, Spock, Bones, and Boma rush to the shuttle and Spock is pinned by a plastic boulder as they come under attack. He demands they leave him, but Boma and Bones rush to save him anyways. They get aboard, and the creatures actually hold the fucking shuttle down!

They get into orbit, but not before Spock says they should have left him behind. Bones says he’s sick of Spock’s shit, to which Spock only responds that it’s illogical. Really, Spock? 

The writers don’t have a handle on orbital physics, because once you reach a stable orbit (if I understand correctly) you can stay in it for a long, long time and a decaying orbit is so gradual that it would take a long time for you to burn up, but that’s not interesting or dramatic.

So they have 45 minutes left before they burn up in orbit, and Spock resigns himself to death. Bones needles him one last time: this ends his first command. Spock attempts to hail the Enterprise, then makes a split-second decision to burn their fuel up in a jet blast - reducing them to 6 minutes of orbital time but leaving a trail that serves as a flare, which Sulu spots on the viewer and allows the Enterprise to rescue them in the nick of time. 

In the end, Bones is on the bridge inaudibly speaking with Kirk, no doubt telling him how Spock made an emotional decision at the last minute. Kirk goes over there, logic bombs him a bit, and the point is that Spock DID make an emotional decision at the last minute but can’t admit it. 

Now everyone laugh at that silly Vulcan!

Rating: 4/5, Rewatch

It’s not an extraordinarily entertaining episode, but it is a good episode that reveals how the average crewman views Spock and provides an insight into Spock’s worldview. 

On a final note, this episode has the highest body count since episode 3, Where No Man Has Gone Before, with 3 crewmen killed (2 on-screen) - the last episode to feature a death was Balance of Terror with 1 crewman killed, and before that 2 crewmen died in What Are Little Girls Made of a whopping 9 episodes ago! 

[whalefucker69]

11 Questions Tag Game

I was tagged by @onedamnminuteadmiral who now has a whale url, which reminds me of how I have “whalefucker69″ saved because of senior year when I wrote my 20 page term paper on Moby Dick.

1.What is the coolest vehicle you’ve ever driven/ridden in?

Well, okay, so my grandfather was a fighter pilot right, then he was a pilot for continental when the war ended, and after he retired he built his own little 2 seater plane (being extra runs in the family I guess).  He sold it a few years ago but when I was like 10 or 11 he would take me up in it and let me take control once we were high enough up that it wouldn’t be a big danger. 

2. Do you believe in the paranormal? Ever had any weird experiences?

I definitely don’t.  The most paranormal experiences I’ve had are when I sometimes hallucinate spiders crawling on the walls and ceiling when I’m falling asleep.

3. Describe your ideal climate.

Temperature in the 90s but low humidity; like the Texas hill country.  I like the cold for the ability to wear fun jackets, but I could survive on Vulcan no problem.

4. What is your favorite thing to do with friends?

Probably just watch stupid movies/TV, honestly.  My roommates and I just watched the season finale of Bachelor in Paradise which is a surprisingly okay show.  I also like cooking for people.

5. What do you think is your best quality?

Can I pass? It’s hard for me to think of things I like about myself without instantly turning them into things I don’t like.  

6. If you could mash up two of your favorite TV shows, what would you mash up, and what would the resulting show be like? (For instance, Galavant and Star Trek, a space-faring musical farce that makes fun of the genre of sci-fi. Sorry if I stole yours. I think about this a lot.)

Hohohohoho, have I told you about the X files/fringe/twin peaks inspired Star Trek AU I had planned like all through high school?  The main conceit was that Jim was a navy pilot who had been suddenly called back stateside for a “promotion” that he was very unhappy about because he saw it as a boring desk job that would keep him from flying.  It turns out he was being assigned to basically lead a top secret operation codenamed enterprise that would track down paranormal activity localized in this small town in the northwest.  So he ends up recruiting this ragtag team of military and civilian scientists and other personnel, and they have sort of monster-of-the-week adventures.  The main overarcing plot would have Spock and Scotty basically invent warp drive, which would set up a chain of events with Spock discovering a government conspiracy (basically America wants to weaponize the rudimentary warp core) so the only way he sees to get out of the situation is to basically destroy all of the research and lead a trail of fake evidence so everyone thinks that he’s betrayed the enterprise team and gets him labeled as a terrorist.  So then Jim ofc takes this personally and asks to be in charge of the team sent to track him down and bring him in, so it becomes a sort of international spy thriller with a lot of heated scenes where Jim just barely misses Spock and there’s a lot of chess metaphors as Jim sort of tries to figure out wtf happened and Spock is terrified because he knows that if anyone is smart enough to figure it out it’s Jim, but if Jim finds out he’ll be in the same danger.  I don’t remember how I’d planned for it to end, but it definitely involved first contact with Vulcan (they had picked up on the warp tests).  The last scene would involve Jim approaching Spock at the end some sort of official party and basically saying “So it’s super classified but the UN is putting together funds to build a starship and they want me to command it so I need a science officer and you have like 16 PhDs so you’re obviously the logical choice, our personal history nonwithstanding” and them basically agreeing to start over and try to move on after all the deceit.  

7. Do you have any original characters? Tell me about one of them! If not, tell me about your favorite character from your favorite piece of media.

Okay so my main D&D character right now is a dragonborn warlock named Kashira Alazir.  She grew up the heir of a family of honor-driven royals in charge of a sort of city-state in a larger empire.  She spent all her life training to be the smartest and the strongest heir she could be, training in combat, tactics, politics, etc, but after her younger brother manifested as a sorcerer he was immediately declared the new heir because of his magic.  She spent months trying to study to be a wizard, but never made any progress, so she eventually made a pact with a devil to gain magical abilities.  She told herself this was for her family, since her irresponsible brother wouldn’t be a good ruler, but in reality she was just bitter.  When her family found out they exiled her because making deals with demons is like, super fucking illegal.  Now she’s just sad and lonely, wandering the continent trying to find a cause she can fight for to regain her honor and return to her family.

8. If you could switch places with one person for one day, who would you switch with?

Is “any astronaut currently working on the ISS” an option?

9. Are you a neat or a messy person?

Neat.  I used to be messy but at this point I clean all the fucking time because “messy” has become synonymous with “depression” in my head so I’m terrified if I slip up at all I’ll fall apart.  It’s the same thing with my grades, honestly.  

10. What do you do when you need to relax?

I run 2 miles every morning, and sometimes I go for walks at like 2am to just.. breathe you know.

11. Tell me something not a lot of people know about you! <3

I say I’m over Doctor Who but last week my roommates were watching a movie starring David Tennant and I almost started crying because his face and voice are so nostalgic for me.  Did you know he’s been cast as Crowley in the new Good Omens series? I’m a little disappointed they cast well known british actors for the main roles (I would’ve preferred unknowns for A&C, then big names for supporting roles like the did in the American Gods show) but if they had to choose one of the big British names, I’m glad it’s someone I unironically love.

I’m tagging @morganzephyr @10-screaming-horse-figurines @yogdad @leggdad @bradh2os and anyone who wants to do this.

My questions:

1. What time did you wake up this morning?

2. If you could be anywhere in the world right now, where would you go?

3. If you could live in any fictional universe (but like, as a normal person and not the protagonist), which would you choose?

4. What’s a band/show/etc that you loved as a kid and still love?

5. If you could kill someone and face no consequences, would you do it?  If yes, who?

6. How many people have you slept with in the same bed all crammed together? What size bed was it? 

7. If you had to be stranded on a desert island/planet/etc and you could have only one person with you, who would it be?

8. What fictional character would make the best roommate?

9. If you could relive your life starting at like age 10, and have the chance to redo your mistakes, would you do it?  

10. If work/school/etc wasn’t an issue, when would you go to sleep and wake up?

11. What position/blanket arrangement do you sleep with?

[calliecat93]

ST: TNG S5 Watchthrough Episodes 6-9

The Game: Alright, took a few days off but it’s back to business now! In this episode, Wesley is back on break. Gonna be honest, the show was pretty much unaffected by Wesley going so haven’t really missed him much, so I was indifferent to him coming back. But how did his guest star episode go overall? Eh, it was alright. So Riker got brainwashed via the titular game device on Risa (Dear Lord that place must be cursed) and he does the same to the crew upon returning. So yeah… we have a ‘Wesley Saves Everyone’ plot, albeit I can forgive it since it would be kinda pointless to bring him back and not be major and the brainwashing plot gives a good reason. It does a good job making me paranoid of video games cause haha… yeah the brainwashing process just from that is wild. They don’t even act brainwashed, which makes it even scarier. Wesley and the Ashley Judd character have some good chemistry, although I doubt it’s gonna ever come up again in Wesley’s other appearances. It is irking that while they did have an excuse for it this time we had to make everyone out of it so that Wesley can play hero and is still overly competent, but to be fair he DID still get caught at the end of an admittedly tense chase scene and he had to get Data back up (he got taken out since the game otherwise wouldn’t have affected him) to save everyone. Which the crew forcing the game on Wesley… that was legit horrifying. It was a fine episode, if you’re a fan of Wesley it’s one that I recommend… but as I’ve made it clear that I’m not, I’m just meh about it. But because of the scenario they used, it’s very much Wesley’s best episode, but we’ll see how his other guest appearances go. 3.5/5.

Unification P1: While this isn’t a final two-parter, I’m still gonna do an overall rating and that will be the one I use if this makes it onto the Best/Worst of S5 list. So… I have been so excited for this one! Why? Well in this episode, an ambassador has gone missing on Romulus… Spock. Yep, you read it right. Spock is back! Why has he gone to Romulus and did so without authorization likely knowing what would happen if Starfleet found out? Well, we’ll go into that later. But because of it, he’s been marked a traitor and Picard has been given the unfortunate duty of informing Sarek. Which if you recall in Sarek’s episode, he melded with Picard so… let’s just say that Picard has a stronger understanding of things than normal. But it gets worst. Sarek is dying. Yep, his condition has taken its toll and indeed, he dies in this episode and never sees Spock again. The whole scene when Picard goes to talk to him is just… Dear Lord that was just agonizing to watch. I know that technically he had The Undiscovered Country as his final appearance, but this would be Mark Lenard’s final go in a series and he did an amazing job. It’s so clear how much regret, pain, and love towards Spock that he had and the fact that they weren’t unable to reconcile in the end is just heartbreaking. Hell just seeing him in the state that he was in at that point was hard to watch. Picard talking to Data about it when Data questions why they never reconciled… well they kinda did during the films but eh. Still, a very sad moment but one executed very well. We’ll go more into Sarek and Spock for Part 2. Back on the plot, Picard and Data go undercover on Romulus ala Kirk during The Enterprise Incident only he only had to go on one ship, they have to go onto a whole planet. Actually, there are a good few similarities with that episode. Spock has seemed to go traitor, the captain has to go undercover, and it involves Romulans. Albeit Picard didn’t have to act like he’d gone insane as Kirk did. Thus for the first time, we see the Romulan homeworld… and it doesn’t take long for Picard and Data to get found out… and brought to the figure that they are seeking. This brings us to… oh right first the rating, 4/5.

Unification P2: SPOCK! AAAAAAHHHHH!!! Oh God, I knew that missed him, but I did NOT realize how much until the end of P1. I’m just so happy to see him~! Alright, back to seriousness. So… why is Spock on Romulus? Why did he risk being labeled a traitor by going to the planet of what may be Starfleet’s greatest enemy at the moment? Simple, a mission of peace. As it turns out, not every Romulan is an evil asshole and there is a movement that wishes to reunify with their Vulcan brethren. Hence why Spock is there, a decision that he made on a personal choice to avoid what happened in The Undiscovered Country when he was involved with the Klingon efforts and it landed Kirk and McCoy in prison from happening again. First, Leonard Nimoy is as perfect as ever. Mind you this was apparently being made about the same time as Undiscovered Country so he was already in top form, but still. Spock is very much older, but he carries a lot more wisdom and maturity here since he’s since long come to terms with his issues. Sarek’s about the only snag left, and… we’ll go into that soon. It’s kinda hard to watch because if you’ve seen AOS you know how this is ultimately going to end, so it makes it feel like Spock’s efforts are… kinda pointless. Still, it’s very much Spock would likely do even if he did know how it would end and it’s best to try than do nothing. It can hopefully inspire better things in the future despite what we know happens. The talk between Spock and Data was also really good and Thank God they they pointed out the cardinal difference between them: Spock is half-human who chose the Vulcan way of life, Data is an android who wants to be more human. Also hilarious that Spock says he has no regrets when he outright said that he went to Romulus on his own essentially because of what happened to Kirk and McCoy when he involved Starfleet. Ah Spock, never change~! The ending. Picard allows Spock to meld with him so that he may see his father’s final moments. Which his reaction… yeah it’s… it’s just sad. Spock never got the chance to reconcile… but he did get to see that yes, Sarek loved and respected him. After all those years, he got that closure, and Thank God that he was allowed that. It was good. Not perfect, we’ll go into the snags here in a bit, but just seeing Spock again and him being as great as always made watching it worth it. 4/5.

So overall, it was good! Not perfect, but good! The highlight of course is Spock’s return and allowing closure to him and Sarek at long last. Which those scenes were handled very well and Spock is very much the best part of this episode. But while the episodes revolve around him even when he isn’t in P1, it doesn’t feel like he overshadows anyone. Picard and Data were good and the Spock and Sarek conflict is used to allow some good moments like Picard's history due to the mind meld and Data questioning things like why they didn’t and about wanting to be more human. Not obviously they didn’t know about how the 2009 film would go about when they made this, but the chance for Romulan to reunite with Vulcan and showing that there are Romulans wanting change is really good. Now like I said it’s not perfect. The pacing does drag a bit and honestly, the rest of the Enterprise gets nothing to really do. You could cut most of their stuff and it would barely impact anything, but you can’t just cut them out so… at least they got something to do. Sela comes back… and not only is this apparently her final appearance, but they have her be an utter idiot by locking Spock, Picard, and Data… in a room with a computer with no guards in the room… uuuhhhhh WTF? Y’know had they gone with that ‘brainwashed Tasha’ suggestion that I made I could make sense of it, but again this is Sela’s final appearance so wow, what an utter waste of great character potential. Then finally again knowing that the 2009 movie will essentially make Spock’s efforts null and void… well it sure as Hell makes me even less endeared to the film than I already was. It’s those kinds of snags that stop me from giving it a perfect overall rating. But still, I really enjoyed it~! The plot was interesting, the growing of the Romulan conflict was good, the scenes involving Sarek were very well done, Spock… well I made that clear, and of course, Spock at last getting the closure that he needed was sad, but satisfying to at last have. So while not perfect, it felt like a genuine tribute to Spock and his character, and I can appreciate it for that. 4/5.

A Matter of Time: Oh joy, more time travel. Hooray…So we have a time traveler from the 26th Century arrives on the Enterprise for historical purposes.I thought the guy playing the professor sounded familiar… and it turns out he voiced Panic, Hades blue-colored minion, in Hercules. Welp, THAT was not a voice that I expected to recognize XD So… it was alright. Maybe it’s just because of how hyped about Unification I was, but the episode just kinda caused me to zone out. The actor playing the professor was fun. I don’t wanna give away the big plot twist but long story short,t he professor isn’t who he says he is and Matt Frewer portrays the conman-like attitude very well… though his creepiness towards Crusher is ugh… creepy. But Crusher handles it soundly, hence why I love her. Apparently the episode is supposed to show the darker aspects of the non-interference clause of the. Prime Directive, the professor withholding information that could potentially save a dying planet but he won’t budge. If that is true… then the plot twist kinda ruins that since without giving anything away, it really muddies up the intent.. Like I said, I kinda just zoned out. It was fine, Matt Frewer was the best part of it, but nothing to write home about. 2.5/5.