Two weeks, 29 episodes. That’s the result of the first milestone of the Zombie Room‘s Trekathon. We decided to watch all of the Star Trek episodes in one year, and we’re well on our way!
So far, we’ve found out the following changes in our biological and mental state:
* The rate of Star Trek -jokes and/or terms and phrases has increased by 250%.
* The amount of films watched during the first period of the test has decreased radically.
* The interest towards other activities a couple can perform has decreased to almost zero.
But, on the bright side, we still can’t talk any Klingonese, and so far we haven’t started to wear Spock‘s ears while watching. We’ll see where this ends, though.
You can support our quest from a lively young couple into a drooling trekkie roommates by wearing Twibbon on your Twitter profile. We’re also reporting daily to our Trekathon blog about the progress, and if you’re following our ZombieRoom Twitter account, you’ve noticed that we’re tweeting there between and during the episodes.
So, hope you’re with us, at least in spirit!
Here’s some thoughts on each episode of the Star Trek: The Original Series – season 1.
00: THE CAGE
The first pilot that never got aired – luckily. It could’ve killed the whole franchise. Commander Pike was no match for Kirk’s smugness, and started off by whining about responsibilities of a captain. Really, Pike, if you can’t take the heat, stay the hell out of the kitchen… The Cage is an archetype of a mindfuckisode – an episode where the crew of Starship Enterprise gets their minds fucked by some strange jedi mind tricks. Nevertheless, we both still think that Vina (Susan Oliver) is the most beautiful woman in Star Trek.
01: THE MAN TRAP
More hot chicks, more mindfucking! Here’s how the Star Trek really begun, Kirk’s cocky smile shining over the bridge of a variety of interesting personalities, and a charmingly outdated monster and visual effects!
02: CHARLIE X
This one’s a clever one – an episode about a confused teenager taken into a science fiction setting. But nothing can take away the image of Kirk, without his shirt, in a set of burning-red spandex pants… What has been seen, can’t be un-seen!
03: WHERE NO MAN HAS GONE BEFORE
Kirk’s awesomeness in action – again, but this time for real. A guy thinks he’s a god, and Kirk takes time to try to speak him out of it. Unlike in many cases in the forthcoming episodes, he doesn’t succeed – and serious ass-kicking ensues. But the guy’s no god – he doesn’t even know his best friend’s second name, creating a grave for someone called James R. Kirk. Hello, mr. god-wannabe, it’s Tiberius, everyone knows that!
As usual, if Sulu is on the episode, it turns out to be a mindfuckisode. This one’s a real treat, if you happen to like ‘em. The whole crew of the Enterprise, including Kirk, go crazy – everyone but Spock – because of an infection some loser-ass red shirt gets when visiting a planet. Sulu’s really losing it, running around the ship shirtless and harassing the crewmen and women with a sword. It’s fun, not very clever but fun.
05: THE ENEMY WITHIN
If you like Kirk, The Enemy Within should be your thing. Kirk’s personality gets split into two by some transporter malfunction. The “real” Kirk becomes an inefficient loser, and his dark side becomes a womanizing sex-machine. The episode is quite well written, and Shatner seems to enjoy having a double-role in the episode.
06: MUDD’S WOMEN
More hot chicks and a strange con-man, it’s a good combination! The episode has a moral learning to it – you are just as beautiful as you think you are.
07: WHAT ARE LITTLE GIRLS MADE OF?
More Kirks, this time an android duplicate of the main man. Can’t get my brains around where the name of the episodes comes from, but the picture on the left speaks for itself. What is it that you’re holding, commander?
08: MIRI
Here’s a strange episode, with quite an interesting concept: a planet where an infection turns people into zombies when they reach the age of 14. Taking place in the good old 20’s New York set where they seem to re-visit quite often, the crew is transported on the ground and gets hunted by a bunch of adults and harassed by a group of kids. It’s mainly constructed as a good old horror film, and the suspension is built quite nicely.
09: DAGGER OF THE MIND
If you happen to be travelling through the space, one thing you need to be constantly aware of are extremely well-mannered and charming random encounters, for they usually invite you over to their planet and try to kill you. At least, if you are Kirk. So nothing new for him in this episode.
10: THE CORBOMITE MANEUVER
Sorry… What? So you have the worst puppet ever, and the whole crew of the Enterprise falls to the trap. Ok. Fine. Really, this episode makes absolutely no sense, but it’s quite cute in its own, special way.
11-12: THE MENAGERIE
The only double-episode of the first season, and they spent it to recycle material from the unaired pilot. The original pilot was never that good, but they’ve managed to make it a hundred times crappier in The Menagerie. There’s a loose frame story focusing mainly around Spock doing thing Spock would never do, but most of the episode is just a re-edited version of The Cage. Very bad. But Vina is still hot…
13: THE CONSCIENCE OF THE KING
A ragisode (an episode where costumes play a big part of the general look & feel, usually medieval stage costumes), with loads of comically over-acted scenes, both off- and on stage. Every now and then the Star Trek takes a turn into hyper-serious direction, and usually it fails there. Like here.
14: BALANCE OF TERROR
Introducing Romulans, aliens that look quite like the Vulcans, but their warmongering makes them a barbaric race. Usually episodes like this make you think about the time when they aired these episodes – cold war was raging. And as in many cases when Kirk meets a commander, the theme of “had we met in different circumstances, we could’ve been friends” is present. Balance of Terror is a very good episode, a science fiction dogfight, touching given the romance aspect of the two crewmembers, and introduces an important element of the Star Trek universe.
15: SHORE LEAVE
Another ragisode, with princesses, talking rabbits, Alice from the Wonderland and loads of strange stuff that happens… But eventually what makes us watch the episode in awe is the super-annoying villain vs Kirk -fight – the double-fisting, Kirkemi (it’s his version of ukemi) and shirt suddenly ripping apart with no apparent reason.
16: GALILEO SEVEN
Another Spockisode (an episode where Spock is not just the database of Kirk, but actually doing something), which focuses around leadership. What is a good leader, the episode asks, and of course Kirk’s the best, although Spock acts logically and Kirk’s “opponent”, High Commissioner Ferris according to the text-book. The moral of the story is that it takes both brains and ability to follow orders and regulations to master the art of good leadership. The ridiculous monsters Spock & the crew encounter on the asteroid they’ve been marooned to kind of takes the oomph out of otherwise quite an intriguing story, but luckily they never go to close-up (they did, but edited it out… And the close-up of the monster was indeed quite terrible, but in an unintentional way – the horrible beast from the valley of Crappy Makeup and Inadequate Resources – you’ll find the rare pic from left).
17: THE SQUIRE OF GOTHOS
Ooh… Here we go again, a well-mannered maniac with omnipotent powers require Kirk & his crew to stay with him in his dominion. So rags, long speeches and super-intelligent creatures with the same problems as we have rule the episode. It’s fun to watch, but the whole episode becomes a minor annoyance by the end. In a way some pre-teenagers are annoying – meaning you kinda understand the pain, but you loathe the way they try to handle it.
18: ARENA
One of my all-time favorite Star Trek scenes is in Arena – it’s the fight scene between the Gorn and Kirk. Really, the suit couldn’t be any crappier, and the fight they have – Kirk with his double-fisting (yeah, I know… Sounds scary) and torn shirt fumbling around the “arena”. It’s an episode of endless, unintentional fun, but not a really good episode, to be honest.
19: TOMORROW IS YESTERDAY
Time travel, that’s what Star Trek has always done quite well, and Tomorrow is Yesterday is quite a good take on the subject. It’s focused around a 60s U.S. Air Force base, and shines in the reactions it portrays for the time traveller who’s taken to see Enterprise. The episode is delightful and turns on the brains, and refuses to take itself too seriously.
20: COURT MARTIAL
Usually, the most interesting stories are born from the simplest of settings. In Court Martial, Kirk is facing a trial on a dispute over a dead crewmember, and the story is played out quite well. It builds a good suspense and court thriller and introduces a nice and intriguing set of characters with different ambitions. There science fiction –setting is not exaggerated too much, although the heartbeat-sound –thing in the end is maybe a bit too much. And the fight scene in the end with world’s most obvious stunt players in CLOSE-UPS reminds us of how the quality of the TV sets have gone up during the last 40-something years.
21: THE RETURN OF THE ARCHONS
Above everything, Kirk is a wonderful orator. He can make a computer that has been controlling the people for centuries realize it’s actually evil and should destroy itself, in two short monologues. What a guy.
22: SPACE SEED
So far, Space Seed has been the best episode of Star Trek. I was tightly written, the main premise of the episode was very interesting, and they had casted the perfect villain – Khan, played by wonderful mr. Ricardo Montalban – who totally outshone everyone else. Not a big surprise this episode inspired one of the best Star Trek movies ever made, though 15 years later.
23: A TASTE OF ARMAGEDDON
So here we go again: Kirk opens his mouth for couple of short monologues and manages to end a 500-year-old massacre of millions of people. What a guy. I liked the episode’s Paranoia-type of feeling with suicide booths & computer overpower.
24: THIS SIDE OF PARADISE
A mindfuckisode like never before (yeah, Sulu’s there too)! Spock HANGING FROM THE TREE, KISSING A WOMAN, SMILING AND LAUGHING! It felt… strange. We had to go and wash our hands after the episode was over… It was so strangely dirty. This time it was some kind of spores that did the trick for the Enterprise crew and the civilization on the ground.
25: THE DEVIL IN THE DARK
A huge living emo pizza creature terrorizes a mining colony, and the Enterprise crew goes down to solve the problem. Spock uses his mind melt and becomes a struggling poet interpreting the pizza’s mind.
26: ERRAND OF MERCY
I like this one quite a lot – it has a strong anti-war message and we meet the Klingons for the first time. Kirk is just as stupid war-mongering barbarian as the Klingon warlord, and the USA vs. Russia –setting is portrayed in quite a realistic light.
27: THE ALTERNATIVE FACTOR
Excuse me… WTF? Who gave Andy Warhol the camera, and why did he have to take so much LSD?
28: THE CITY ON THE EDGE OF FOREVER
Harlan Ellison wrote one of the greatest and most thought-provoking episodes of Star Trek, which spiked the director and the cast to do an excellent work. It’s an ambitious episode that manages to live to it’s script surprisingly well. A very beautiful and touching story of epic proportions.
29: OPERATION — ANNIHILATE!
A nice ending to a great first season of Star Trek, nothing very special, but I did feel Spock’s pain. Really gave Leonard Nimoy a change to shine for awhile.
