*
"Miri" is the template for countless episodes throughout the franchise, with so many examples I hesitate to even begin listing them. And that template is: crew comes across planet with a population dying of a pandemic, must find a cure.
The other distinguishing factor to the episode is that it's one of many from the series that finds a way of putting the crew into vaguely contemporary surroundings for viewers. In this instance, it's the 1960s, for some reason, on an alien planet that matches Earth in every other way, except that the population is a bunch of kids who are the only survivors because the disease killing everyone turns fatal afterward.
The title character is the leading figure of this community, by the way.
Another distinguishing characteristic/precedent is the curious community these children have formed, their own speech patterns, as later revisited in "Damok" in The Next Generation and "Nemesis" in Voyager. At least one of those, no doubt, seems a lot less ridiculous, I'm sure, in comparison. (Child actors were generally terrible back then. And as such, were given terrible material.)
Is Yeoman Rand once again put in the spotlight? Of course she is. In these early episodes, she's practically the fourth lead, behind the familiar trio. Is Spock, meanwhile, commenting on the advantages of his Vulcan physiology? Is McCoy busy trying to cure the pandemic? Is Kirk busy lusting after Rand, and taking the opportunity to freak out because that's a side-effect of the disease? Of course of course of course!
I'm saying is, if you want an episode that probably helps people dismiss the whole franchise based on one experience, this would probably be a pretty good pick. Later versions did the story better. But anyone who saw this episode, and probably really only just this episode, thought the whole thing was a joke. Which makes "Miri" a prime example of why the series really did have its challenges to overcome, well before the third season, in finding a lasting legacy. It was certainly there, and paradoxically even in this very episode.
But this is an episode that aside from the good it helped create, is something bad you can probably completely overlook and be a better fan for it.
Scotty, Sulu, and Uhura do not appear in "Miri."
Although, one giant bonus of the whole sorry experience is Phil Morris's first appearance in the franchise. Here he's just a kid. His biggest spotlight would be in Voyager's "One Small Step."
franchise * series * essential * character
notable guest-stars:
Grace Lee Whitney
Phil Morris
Memory Alpha summary
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Monday, March 24, 2014
Friday, March 21, 2014
Star Trek 1x7 "What Are Little Girls Made Of?"
*
This is the Nurse Chapel episode, the only one that heavily revolves around her. Still, I'm recommending it as viewing for the series itself. Why? Because of that curious subgenre of artificial intelligence that showed up so often but never quite laid the specific groundwork for The Next Generation's Data.
Like McCoy in "The Man Trap," the Chapel story is about a romantic figure from her past. As in the earlier episode, this is not the means to a rekindled romance so much as horror.
By the way, Kirk falls in love this episode, with an android. (In his defense, she's wearing perhaps the prototypical Scantily Clad Babe Suit.)
Chapel's ex has a machine capable of duplicating people in android form. This, naturally, ends up happening to Kirk. After "The Enemy Within," you might have thought you'd seen the last of multiple Kirks running around. Ha! The very last original series movie, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, of course features this element. For some reason, one Kirk never quite seemed enough.
"Little Girls" has an excellent twist ending that helps distinguish it, one that Next Generation would later duplicate (ha!) in "Inheritance."
franchise * series * essential * character
notable guest-stars:
Majel Roddenberry
Memory Alpha summary
This is the Nurse Chapel episode, the only one that heavily revolves around her. Still, I'm recommending it as viewing for the series itself. Why? Because of that curious subgenre of artificial intelligence that showed up so often but never quite laid the specific groundwork for The Next Generation's Data.
Like McCoy in "The Man Trap," the Chapel story is about a romantic figure from her past. As in the earlier episode, this is not the means to a rekindled romance so much as horror.
By the way, Kirk falls in love this episode, with an android. (In his defense, she's wearing perhaps the prototypical Scantily Clad Babe Suit.)
Chapel's ex has a machine capable of duplicating people in android form. This, naturally, ends up happening to Kirk. After "The Enemy Within," you might have thought you'd seen the last of multiple Kirks running around. Ha! The very last original series movie, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, of course features this element. For some reason, one Kirk never quite seemed enough.
"Little Girls" has an excellent twist ending that helps distinguish it, one that Next Generation would later duplicate (ha!) in "Inheritance."
franchise * series * essential * character
notable guest-stars:
Majel Roddenberry
Memory Alpha summary
Thursday, March 20, 2014
Star Trek 1x6 "Mudd's Women"
**
Back in the 1960s, heck even the '70s or '80s, the name "Harry Mudd" would have been one of the most famous ones in Star Trek lore. Today, not so much.
Mudd made a handful of appearances in the series and even The Animated Series. He is without question a classic figure in franchise lore, but his importance rapidly diminished over the years. He certainly didn't appear in the films. He did make it into Star Trek Into Darkness, but only as an oblique reference (the prequel comic book adds a good bit more, but then, that only counts so much). His presence had no direct effect in any of the later series, unless you count someone like Okona or Kasidy Yates. There! Count both of them!
Basically, Mudd was a lovable scoundrel. He was also a jolly fat man. If he'd appeared in "The Trouble with Tribbles" handing the little fuzzball to Uhura, his legacy would be assured. Instead he dealt in androids.
In androids??? You'd be surprised how often androids showed up in the original series. That alone is a whole subgenre that helped usher in the era of Mr. Data. Mudd's corner of this subgenre originally began as a con. "Mudd's Women" doesn't feature androids, but his efforts to create perfect female companionship also prefigures Quark's holosuite programs (remember the one with Kira?) in Deep Space Nine.
Mudd is one of the first civilians to meddle in Kirk's affairs. Usually in Star Trek the people who aren't in Starfleet or belong to adversarial alien species are the residents from the planet-of-the-week. In that sense, Mudd is also a predecessor to the space station in DS9, filled with a whole society of its own.
As such, I recommend this episode as essential to the series if not directly the whole franchise. Mudd sets a precedent, even if you don't remember or particularly care for the character yourself. You can't watch or enjoy the original series without including Mudd in its legacy. And now you know why.
franchise * series * essential * character
notable guest-stars:
Roger C. Carmel
Memory Alpha summary
Back in the 1960s, heck even the '70s or '80s, the name "Harry Mudd" would have been one of the most famous ones in Star Trek lore. Today, not so much.
Mudd made a handful of appearances in the series and even The Animated Series. He is without question a classic figure in franchise lore, but his importance rapidly diminished over the years. He certainly didn't appear in the films. He did make it into Star Trek Into Darkness, but only as an oblique reference (the prequel comic book adds a good bit more, but then, that only counts so much). His presence had no direct effect in any of the later series, unless you count someone like Okona or Kasidy Yates. There! Count both of them!
Basically, Mudd was a lovable scoundrel. He was also a jolly fat man. If he'd appeared in "The Trouble with Tribbles" handing the little fuzzball to Uhura, his legacy would be assured. Instead he dealt in androids.
In androids??? You'd be surprised how often androids showed up in the original series. That alone is a whole subgenre that helped usher in the era of Mr. Data. Mudd's corner of this subgenre originally began as a con. "Mudd's Women" doesn't feature androids, but his efforts to create perfect female companionship also prefigures Quark's holosuite programs (remember the one with Kira?) in Deep Space Nine.
Mudd is one of the first civilians to meddle in Kirk's affairs. Usually in Star Trek the people who aren't in Starfleet or belong to adversarial alien species are the residents from the planet-of-the-week. In that sense, Mudd is also a predecessor to the space station in DS9, filled with a whole society of its own.
As such, I recommend this episode as essential to the series if not directly the whole franchise. Mudd sets a precedent, even if you don't remember or particularly care for the character yourself. You can't watch or enjoy the original series without including Mudd in its legacy. And now you know why.
franchise * series * essential * character
notable guest-stars:
Roger C. Carmel
Memory Alpha summary
Wednesday, March 19, 2014
Star Trek 1x5 "The Enemy Within"
*
Kirk. Times two.
This is the episode where the concept of transporter malfunctions becomes a Star Trek trope. It also sets up the idea of decontamination later featured in the prequel series Enterprise. In essence, it also sets up the idea of the Mirror Universe later featured in "Mirror, Mirror" and numerous other franchise episodes.
"The Enemy Within" is also the first character study episode in the franchise. I don't want to rate its importance too high, however, so I list it mostly as a character episode for Kirk, in which his good and bad sides run amok, the bad side featuring his worst romantic impulses (certainly interesting for this character, and worse if you happen to be Yeoman Rand).
If your idea of a good time is William Shatner ranting for an hour, then this is your kind of episode. (Which might also explain why the later Mirror Kirk is barely seen.) If you want the episode that might explain why people think Star Trek features mostly bad acting, this might be the one they're thinking of. It doesn't reflect exceptionally well on Shatner. But I guess it doesn't particularly matter.
Please note that for the curious record, Uhura does not appear in this episode. In fact so far Rand seems to have been more important to the series. Of course, this trend rapidly reverses itself. By the end of the series, Rand will have become a blip, and it's Uhura who gets the last laugh with a far more historic smooch with Kirk!
franchise * series * essential * character
notable guest-stars:
Grace Lee Whitney
Memory Alpha summary
Kirk. Times two.
This is the episode where the concept of transporter malfunctions becomes a Star Trek trope. It also sets up the idea of decontamination later featured in the prequel series Enterprise. In essence, it also sets up the idea of the Mirror Universe later featured in "Mirror, Mirror" and numerous other franchise episodes.
"The Enemy Within" is also the first character study episode in the franchise. I don't want to rate its importance too high, however, so I list it mostly as a character episode for Kirk, in which his good and bad sides run amok, the bad side featuring his worst romantic impulses (certainly interesting for this character, and worse if you happen to be Yeoman Rand).
If your idea of a good time is William Shatner ranting for an hour, then this is your kind of episode. (Which might also explain why the later Mirror Kirk is barely seen.) If you want the episode that might explain why people think Star Trek features mostly bad acting, this might be the one they're thinking of. It doesn't reflect exceptionally well on Shatner. But I guess it doesn't particularly matter.
Please note that for the curious record, Uhura does not appear in this episode. In fact so far Rand seems to have been more important to the series. Of course, this trend rapidly reverses itself. By the end of the series, Rand will have become a blip, and it's Uhura who gets the last laugh with a far more historic smooch with Kirk!
franchise * series * essential * character
notable guest-stars:
Grace Lee Whitney
Memory Alpha summary
Tuesday, March 18, 2014
Star Trek 1x4 "The Naked Time"
****
An episode with an image as classic as Sulu fencing has got to be considered essential viewing.
"The Naked Time" is one of the episodes from the series to receive a sequel in a later series, in this instance "The Naked Now" from The Next Generation. Its tale of personality traits being amplified sets another franchise precedent ("Singularity" from Enterprise), meanwhile.
This is the first time in the series where the cast can be considered solidified. After the broadcast decisions that left the second pilot aired a little later in the cycle, main characters appear and disappear seemingly at random. In "Naked Time," however, there's Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Sulu, Scotty, Uhura, and even Nurse Chapel and Rand.
Sulu fencing would become an iconic image from the series and a defining trait for the character, even though this is the only time with the character being performed by George Takei that there's any indication of his knowledge of sword fighting. In Star Trek (2009), this element is better integrated into Sulu's skillset.
A couple of recurring elements from later in the franchise also make significant debuts in the episode: Spock (or any Vulcan) struggling with remaining in control of his emotions, and the slingshot concept of time travel, famously featured both in the series ("Tomorrow Is Yesterday") and the films (Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home).
franchise * series * essential * character
notable guest-stars:
Majel Roddenberry
Grace Lee Whitney
Memory Alpha summary
An episode with an image as classic as Sulu fencing has got to be considered essential viewing.
"The Naked Time" is one of the episodes from the series to receive a sequel in a later series, in this instance "The Naked Now" from The Next Generation. Its tale of personality traits being amplified sets another franchise precedent ("Singularity" from Enterprise), meanwhile.
This is the first time in the series where the cast can be considered solidified. After the broadcast decisions that left the second pilot aired a little later in the cycle, main characters appear and disappear seemingly at random. In "Naked Time," however, there's Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Sulu, Scotty, Uhura, and even Nurse Chapel and Rand.
Sulu fencing would become an iconic image from the series and a defining trait for the character, even though this is the only time with the character being performed by George Takei that there's any indication of his knowledge of sword fighting. In Star Trek (2009), this element is better integrated into Sulu's skillset.
A couple of recurring elements from later in the franchise also make significant debuts in the episode: Spock (or any Vulcan) struggling with remaining in control of his emotions, and the slingshot concept of time travel, famously featured both in the series ("Tomorrow Is Yesterday") and the films (Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home).
franchise * series * essential * character
notable guest-stars:
Majel Roddenberry
Grace Lee Whitney
Memory Alpha summary
Monday, March 17, 2014
Star Trek 1x3 "Where No Man Has Gone Before"
****
This is the second pilot of the series, and as such is technically the first appearance of James T. Kirk, as well as Sulu and Scotty. Everyone is wearing the same style uniforms as featured in "The Cage" rather than the more familiar ones.
The plot is classic man-becomes-god (featured in "Charlie X" and numerous other franchise episodes), featuring Kirk's good friend and Starfleet Academy classmate Gary Mitchell. The status of this episode among fans is sufficient that when it was still believed that Benedict Cumberbatch was playing someone other than Khan in Star Trek Into Darkness, it's Gary Mitchell who was the leading contender.
Although the series was famously episodic, where you could miss any episode and not be missing anything when you caught the next one, many of the individual installments tended to resonate on the backstories of the characters. This tendency was already seen in the previously broadcast "Man Trap," which featured McCoy. Although Kirk is a classic example of someone who lives for the moment, his past continually comes back to revisit him throughout the series, in the form of old classmates surprisingly often. Mitchell sets that precedent, certainly, as well.
It's odd to think that the famous original cast took so long to nail down. Spock was in "The Cage" and "Where No Man," and of course Scotty and Sulu in the latter as well. Sulu is designated an astrophysicist, rather than in his more familiar role as helmsman. There are one-time characters in the episode who fill some of the other traditional roles, such as yeoman and ship's doctor. If you're looking for Chekov, though, you must keep waiting until the second season!
I tend to trust Gene Roddenberry's instincts as he worked on his Star Trek pilots. Both "Cage" and "No Man" remain some of the strongest, most distinctive episodes of the series, both of them using the captain (Pike in the first one, Kirk in the second) as a sounding board for a story that ends up much bigger than them, whereas other episodes tended to make the captain bigger than the story, thus diminishing the impact of the story (and ultimately making the series too trivial for viewers to care enough about to keep on the air for more than three seasons; fans love the characters, but if they just float from adventure to adventure, their weightlessness becomes apparent). The network thought Gene was trying to be too cerebral, but his approach to science fiction was clearly ahead of its time.
franchise * series * essential * character
Memory Alpha summary
This is the second pilot of the series, and as such is technically the first appearance of James T. Kirk, as well as Sulu and Scotty. Everyone is wearing the same style uniforms as featured in "The Cage" rather than the more familiar ones.
The plot is classic man-becomes-god (featured in "Charlie X" and numerous other franchise episodes), featuring Kirk's good friend and Starfleet Academy classmate Gary Mitchell. The status of this episode among fans is sufficient that when it was still believed that Benedict Cumberbatch was playing someone other than Khan in Star Trek Into Darkness, it's Gary Mitchell who was the leading contender.
Although the series was famously episodic, where you could miss any episode and not be missing anything when you caught the next one, many of the individual installments tended to resonate on the backstories of the characters. This tendency was already seen in the previously broadcast "Man Trap," which featured McCoy. Although Kirk is a classic example of someone who lives for the moment, his past continually comes back to revisit him throughout the series, in the form of old classmates surprisingly often. Mitchell sets that precedent, certainly, as well.
It's odd to think that the famous original cast took so long to nail down. Spock was in "The Cage" and "Where No Man," and of course Scotty and Sulu in the latter as well. Sulu is designated an astrophysicist, rather than in his more familiar role as helmsman. There are one-time characters in the episode who fill some of the other traditional roles, such as yeoman and ship's doctor. If you're looking for Chekov, though, you must keep waiting until the second season!
I tend to trust Gene Roddenberry's instincts as he worked on his Star Trek pilots. Both "Cage" and "No Man" remain some of the strongest, most distinctive episodes of the series, both of them using the captain (Pike in the first one, Kirk in the second) as a sounding board for a story that ends up much bigger than them, whereas other episodes tended to make the captain bigger than the story, thus diminishing the impact of the story (and ultimately making the series too trivial for viewers to care enough about to keep on the air for more than three seasons; fans love the characters, but if they just float from adventure to adventure, their weightlessness becomes apparent). The network thought Gene was trying to be too cerebral, but his approach to science fiction was clearly ahead of its time.
franchise * series * essential * character
Memory Alpha summary
Sunday, February 23, 2014
Star Trek 1x2 "Charlie X"
**
"Charlie X" is the start of a long tradition, in shooting but not broadcast order preceded by "Where No Man Has Gone Before," that saw the franchise repeatedly explore the concept of a character gaining extraordinary abilities (other examples include Riker in "Hide and Q" and Barclay in "The Nth Degree," both The Next Generation, as well as Dukat in "What You Leave Behind" from Deep Space Nine as well as Sisko throughout the series, plus Wesley throughout Next Generation but notably in "Journey's End").
The title character is also the first of many in the franchise to be a lone survivor who must try and reintegrate with his regular life (so many examples it suffices to say Worf is the most famous example aside from numerous guest characters).
Charlie is reminiscent of the boy Bill Mumy played in "It's a Good Life," one of the signature Twilight Zone episodes, originally broadcast in 1961. Star Trek might have ended up being viewed as a more bug-eyed version of Twilight Zone had more comparable episodes been produced, and perhaps at the time such associations were part of the reason it had such a weak lifeline.
In the end, the biggest mark of distinction for "Charlie X" might once again point toward Wesley. Both are troubled boy geniuses who struggle with fitting in.
Absent from the episode are the characters of Scotty and Sulu. Uhura is here. She even sings. Charlie obsesses over Yeoman Rand, the original Star Trek sexpot.
franchise * series * essential * character
notable guest-stars:
Grace Lee Whitney
Memory Alpha summary
"Charlie X" is the start of a long tradition, in shooting but not broadcast order preceded by "Where No Man Has Gone Before," that saw the franchise repeatedly explore the concept of a character gaining extraordinary abilities (other examples include Riker in "Hide and Q" and Barclay in "The Nth Degree," both The Next Generation, as well as Dukat in "What You Leave Behind" from Deep Space Nine as well as Sisko throughout the series, plus Wesley throughout Next Generation but notably in "Journey's End").
The title character is also the first of many in the franchise to be a lone survivor who must try and reintegrate with his regular life (so many examples it suffices to say Worf is the most famous example aside from numerous guest characters).
Charlie is reminiscent of the boy Bill Mumy played in "It's a Good Life," one of the signature Twilight Zone episodes, originally broadcast in 1961. Star Trek might have ended up being viewed as a more bug-eyed version of Twilight Zone had more comparable episodes been produced, and perhaps at the time such associations were part of the reason it had such a weak lifeline.
In the end, the biggest mark of distinction for "Charlie X" might once again point toward Wesley. Both are troubled boy geniuses who struggle with fitting in.
Absent from the episode are the characters of Scotty and Sulu. Uhura is here. She even sings. Charlie obsesses over Yeoman Rand, the original Star Trek sexpot.
franchise * series * essential * character
notable guest-stars:
Grace Lee Whitney
Memory Alpha summary
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