Author: robert

My first question after watching this episode was ‘who on Earth is Adonais’? It’s a strange episode title, easily the strangest so far. As an episode, it’s not bad, overall. The ‘what if the gods where from the skies’ thing was actually fairly new: Erich von Daniken’s book *Chariots of the Gods* wouldn’t actually be…

Season 2 is off to a very good start. It’s not hard to imagine that the genesis of this episode was the contract negotiations with Leonard Nimoy demanding more screen time and more interesting roles. As opposed to other great examples of actors demanding their own way (*cough* Star Trek V *cough*) this one turns…

I’m going to come back after each season for a quick review, and then to produce an overall ranking, from best to worst. So, the first year of Star Trek. Was the promise there? In spades. This is really really good science fiction TV. Better than I expected really. The show settles down remarkably quickly,…

Another episode that really picked up in the second half. A grand threat seems to bring out the best in Kirk – he seems to be at this best when the life and death of entire planets is on the line. I’m not entirely sure why the write bought his family into it, as his…

The episode popularly ranked as the best of the original Star Trek. And? It’s a pretty strong episode, but it’s a bit held back by the sheer number of times the story has been repeated. It would, I suspect, be a lot better if you watched the episode cold. As it is it’s well constructed,…

Oh hey, Vasquez Rocks again. That’s just about the only highlight in a ‘blah’ episode. Again, it didn’t feel a lot like a Star Trek story – it could have been in a story in any one of a dozen different series. It also felt a little ‘short’ – some of the special effect sequences…

Great episode. The idea of Kirk and Spock alone together on a planet fighting a guerilla war against the Klingons is a lot of fun. The final twist at the end, with the Organians deciding to use their god-like powers, turns it into an interesting bit of SF. The story doesn’t quite add up, as…

I was fully prepared to not like this episode from the fairly sketchy start it has, but I found myself enjoying it quite a bit. My memory of this episode was a long way away from its reality. The idea of an alien life form based on Silicon is an old one in SF, and…

Some great moments, but generally a fairly slow episode. I really like the part of this episode with Kirk wandering around like a lonely god on the otherwise abandoned Enterprise. It almost feels like the kind of nightmare any slightly insecure starship captain might have from time to time. And the fight scene between Kirk…

“Prime directive? What prime directive?” Leaving aside the “Kirk knows best”, this was an interesting episode. Not sure if it was intended as a Vietnam war analogy or a cold war analogy, but it raises an interesting dilemma. Is a ‘clean war’ a bad thing, because it allows the war to go on forever? It’s…