Poor Harry Mudd. The guy was such a part of Star Trek lore, and the legacy of the original series (two episodes, even!), that he received one of the several "sequel episodes" in the series. And now? You couldn't con someone into caring about him...
It's the fault of the movies, really. Once it was determined that Khan was the one who best suited the cinema treatment, the decidely uncinematic Mudd, and his original portrayer, Roger C. Carmel, was dropped by the wayside. Carmel returned to voice Mudd in "Passion," such was his distinctiveness.
All the same, Mudd has a place in history if not memory, and perhaps "Passion" makes his best case for that. Here he's involved in love potion nonsense (there's some echoes to be found in Deep Space Nine's "Fascination") that results in a lot of romantic shenanigans. His prior appearances all had to do with robotic nonsense that invariably redirected mostly back to Mudd himself.
via Treks in Sci Fi
Leading the way is Nurse Chapel, making this episode notable for more than one recurring character. Chapel's significance slowed significantly in later years, even though she did appear in the movies (you'd probably have to know that to really notice, though). This is probably in part because the emphasis on the role diminished over time, and the fact that performer Majel Roddenberry became better known as Lwaxana Troi (in both Next Generation and Deep Space Nine), plus, y'know, having married Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry (she was originally billed by her maiden name, Majel Barrett).
As an artifact of the series, "Mudd's Passion" has a peculiar place. It's a strong bridging experience, and represents two experiences well, if not exceptionally. As another candidate as an ambassador for the series, it does a fine job of displaying how animated Star Trek doesn't have to rely on anymore gimmicks than basic storytelling.
In this sequel to "Shore Leave," the series ends up more relevant to a far different matter, the franchise theme of the emerging sentience of machines. Can you say Data?
via The Viewscreen
The planet that was like a precursor to all the malfunctioning holodeck episodes returns, complete with Alice's Wonderland.
Unlike the other sequel episodes in the series, however, "Once Upon a Planet" has a distinctively new story to tell, about the planet post-guardian, with the mechanism that allows its basic function to operate running on its own. No, this is not Next Generation's "Arsenal of Freedom" redux, but rather much more akin to The Motion Picture or even Next Generation's "Emergence" (which just happens to also feature a malfunctioning holodeck).
The basic idea of technology taking on an intelligence of its own is one of those fears that permeates our perception of the future, the robot uprisings featured in The Matrix and The Terminator. As usual, Star Trek has a broader interpretation in mind. Things look grim in The Motion Picture until humanity actually merges with the machine in question (which has long given speculation to how much of a connection to the later Borg there exists in the film), while in "Emergence" and "Upon a Planet" a dialogue between man and machine suffices.
"Planet" tackles the nature of the transition point directly: the moment of change occurs when the original programming is superseded by a change of circumstances. Voyager played out a different scenario in "Prototype," in which a robotic army plays out the familiar "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield"/"Chosen Realm" scenario, a war of attrition that is the result of the worst possible outcome from a failure to change. In "Planet," the machine listens to reason after initially assuming, as in Motion Picture, that it's the Enterprise itself that is the relevant entity (just as it's the ship in "Emergence" that produces new life).
It's an ideal story for the series to explore, something that might have seemed too outlandish in live action at the time, a few years ahead of Motion Picture itself (which, remember, was also a version of the earlier "Changeling"), which is still too hard to swallow as a near-purely intellectual exercise for fans more accustomed to more visceral franchise experiences (a peculiar dichotomy for a phenomenon that has always walked that fine line and draws equal support from both sides).
There's a small chance you will want to watch this as a spotlight for Uhura, although "Planet" doesn't indulge too much in the potential it sets up in that regard. If anyone ever revisited this story, they could easily picks up on a number of possibilities, including the "Changeling" connection (an episode where she loses her memory and has to have it recreated to similarly limited exploration).
four quarter analysis franchise * series * essential * character notable guest-stars:
Nichelle Nichols
Majel Roddenberry
James Doohan
This whole series was always going to walk a fine line, both on its own terms and how it would be appreciated in the context of the later franchise. It's exactly what the fans have said about Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise, a dicey prospect that could and to date has been the only screen Star Trek to be considered unofficial. "The Magicks and Megas-Tu" is a prime example why.
It's not really a good episode. It's an interesting idea, one that would be more fruitfully explored elsewhere, but in and of itself, I would not recommend you watch it, unless you want to be a completist.
Kirk stumbles upon entities who are responsible for humanity's ideas about the Devil. Yeah, sound familiar? Next Generation basically did exactly the same thing, in more believable context, in "Devil's Due." Which is not to say that the idea of beings existing who actually could fit the profile accidentally creating it is a bad one. But this isn't the best way to do it.
The rest of the episode is likewise translated to better effect elsewhere in the form of Q in the Next Generation episode "Deja Q" and Voyager's "Death Wish." Star Trek has a long history of beings possessing extraordinary power abusing it, and usually it's only Kirk making them realize that they've been naughty. In the prolonged Q experience, a much more nuanced exploration became possible, so that even an episode like "Hide and Q," which took a relatively simplistic approach, could be balanced even by a minor entry like "True Q."
"Magicks" doesn't have anything but association going for it. It a series that thought it could do anything just because it was animated finding out that really wasn't the case. It's not the first or even last such misstep, but thankfully still not completely typical. Every Star Trek has episodes like this. Usually fans will interpret the bad ones as those that take risks. "Magicks" is a risk, but other episodes prove how easily it could have been done better. Which makes "Magicks" exactly what it is. Something that looks like this:
There are a number of notable things to talk about concerning "Infinite Vulcan," but before I do, let's just get this out of the way: this is not really all that great an episode.
Okay! The first notable aspect is that it's written by Walter Koenig, who's otherwise known as Chekov. Chekov and/or Koenig do not appear in the series, which makes this the closest to a Chekov and/or Koenig fix you're going to get if you make the effort to watch it at all. It speaks to Koenig's versatility and adaptability that he wrote an episode of Star Trek. No other regular can say that in any incarnation. A few directed, had story credit, but none wrote anything directly.
The second is that this is a Eugenics Wars-related episode. Eugenics Wars, as in Khan ("Space Seed" from the original series, Wrath of Khan, Into Darkness), a three-episode suite from Enterprise ("Borderland," "Cold Station 12," and "The Augments") and even three from Deep Space Nine ("Doctor Bashir, I Presume?" and the tangentially-related "Statistical Probabilities" and "Chrysalis"). This is one of those classic elements of franchise lore that has never been able to be addressed directly (when Voyager visited 1996 in the two-part "Future's End," there was no mention at all, surely one of the great missed opportunities). The unrelated WWIII is sometimes confused with it, and has been featured far more directly (I won't go into that here).
Khan, obviously, is the most famous element of the Eugenics Wars. "Infinite Vulcan" features another veteran. He's, ah, no Khan.
Actually, the episode uses this valuable setup to...redo "Spock's Brain," basically. Yeah. So that happened. Data was collected ("The Most Toys"), and so was Seven ("Think Tank"), so it only figures that it would happen at least twice to Spock. The Eugenics Wars guy decides Spock is the best specimen to continue his legacy. This involves...duplicating him. And making him...bigger.
via Visionary Trek
The only reason this ever worked, and perhaps works better in "Infinite Vulcan" than "Spock's Brain" (insofar as you never hear how horrible "Vulcan" is and you never stop hearing how horrible "Brain" is) is because of Leonard Nimoy. He can sell anything. It helps a great deal that this scenario is animated. No attempt is made to alter Nimoy's voice in relation to the size increase, and that probably helps, too. In my "Brain" review, I suggested it wasn't really worth getting so upset about, as fans have for fifty years. If all of my correlating here makes you think "Vulcan" really is another "Brain," the same goes here.
Far, far more unfortunate is the silly Eugenics Wars guy. I have no idea why Koenig, or someone else revising his work, thought this was a great way to use the Eugenics Wars. It was not. But this was back in the days when any Star Trek was more than anyone could ask. Truly embracing the emerging franchise's potential wouldn't come til later.
From Khan and Cochrane in the original series to Emory Erickson in Enterprise (inventor of the transporter as seen in "Daedalus"), "The Survivor" follows a considerable franchise tradition of featuring the crew interacting with notable figures from Star Trek's fictional future history. This time it's Carter Winston, a noted civilian who worked to spread the cause of humanity in space.
As usual, the circumstances are less than ideal, but the way "Survivor" handles these particular circumstances serves as one of the better illustrations of the series' potential. Winston has been replaced by a shape-shifter, one of the many to precede Deep Space Nine's Odo and for the record have no relation to the Founders (another would be the Chameloid from Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country).
via the Viewscreen. Besides, Odo hates that color (except on Kira).
The fake Winston's been employed as a Romulan agent, thereby bringing another layer of significance to the episode. But he proves invaluable when his morals get the best of him, thanks to Winston's fiancee, who helps him see things the way Winston himself would have.
A nuanced episode filled with a bunch of interesting elements, and it features this timeless quip from Spock as well: "[...]Two Doctor McCoys just might bring the level of medical efficiency on this ship up to acceptable levels." Zing!
The episode also features the debut of feline communications officer M'Ress, one of several elements unique to the series for somewhat obvious reasons. Also, the only canon reference to McCoy's daughter Joanna.
four quarter analysis franchise * series * essential * character notable guest-stars:
Nichelle Nichols
Majel Roddenberry
James Doohan
Ted Knight
Far less known than the Deep Space Nine revisit ("Trials and Tribble-ations") of the classic episode "The Trouble with Tribbles," here's "More Tribbles, More Troubles" for you!
Once again, Kirk has Tribbles and Klingons and Cyrano Jones (as with his live action appearance, portrayed by Stanley Adams, a rarity for the series) to contend with, as well as a "Tribble predator" that's the episode's most obvious concession to the expanded capabilities of animation. Although the less spoken about that the better.
via Star Trek
While much of the series can feel a little disconnected from the rest of the franchise, no matter how similar its approach to the original live action adventures, "More Tribbles" is so close to a hugely familiar episode, a direct sequel even, with a number of callbacks without becoming cloying about it, that it's an excellent opportunity to sample the series. It's not one of the best episodes, but it's positively memorable.
This is the "space sirens" episode. You remember sirens from The Odyssey, surely?
But enough about that. If "Lorelei Signal" is significant or worth talking about at all, it's not for the elements that make it look like one of the worst possible episodes to sell you on the series, but rather its heavy focus on the female members of the crew. Uhura takes command of the ship after all the male officers are compromised by a society of aliens who seem to come straight from...the worst episodes of Next Generation's first season.
Yes, Uhura in command! Your one and only opportunity to see that happen!
via Mister Comfy Pants (let's just forget about that, shall we?)
The downside is that the episode, whether considered subsequently or not, also heavily features Nichelle Nichols in voice work for other characters in the episode. A voice actor she is not. Majel Roddenberry is not much better, and she's got a bunch of voices, too. Which means if you want to enjoy and/or appreciate this rare Uhura spotlight, there's a very tall price to pay. I was originally going to make this one of the rare episodes I wouldn't recommend for any reason, but "Lorelei" is at least significant even if it also happens to be tough to watch.
All that being said, not until Voyager would there be an opportunity for women in Star Trek to so thoroughly grab the spotlight. Any lingering concerns on how the franchise viewed the female sex in its earliest years at least has the making of an argument with this episode.
