Author: robert

The episode so good they made a movie as its sequel. Well, not really. The episode is pretty good, but it didn’t exactly scream ‘sequel’. Watching this today the episode falls for a common trap in Science Fiction – giving too specific a date in the near future. Referring to Khan ruling a quarter of…

A nice little planetside episode, albeit one that spends a bit too much time establishing the GREAT BIG MYSTERY. I think a subtler build up would have been more effective, although maybe that’s a bit much to ask from a single episode. Still, it was good to see the crew at least attempting to blend…

Another first for a plot that Star Trek would use time and again: the court martial episode. Of course, that brings another element with it, which is perfectly dreadful treatment of real life law and procedure in courts. My lawyer wife was shouting at the screen in places during this episode. Generally it’s pretty pedestrian.…

The first ‘real’ Star Trek time travel story (Naked Time doesn’t count – time travel wasn’t really used in that episode – in fact, it was originally meant to be a device to lead in to this episode). It’s OK, but misses out on its opportunities. The pilot snatched from his own time is given…

Ah, back to Vasquez Rocks. So soon! (And, I noticed, actually going there twice in the one episode – both planets seen have been shot at the same location, if you look closely). Another iconic episode, and one which is quite different to my memory of it. In memory I just recalled the final sequence…

A great episode, which clearly influenced the later development of one of Star Trek’s most enjoyable characters, Q. William Campbell is great as the Squire. He plays the role in a very clever way, which both sustains the suspense of the episode, but also makes the final reveal feel like a revelation, rather than a…

A solid Spock episode, let down by the side plot on the Enterprise. It’s interesting to see the weaker side of Spock, when he finds that his ‘logical’ way of commanding doesn’t work well with humans. It’s a little reminiscent of the complaints I’ve heard some people make about Generation Y – you have to…

I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to like this episode from the introduction. Giant white rabbits don’t really fit with my idea of what Star Trek should be. The episode at least partly redeemed itself, though. The idea (and script by SF stalwart Ted Sturgeon) was a good one, and some of the individual…

Wow. Easily the best episode so far. Probably one of the best Trek episodes I’ve ever seen. Clearly the story has a cold war analogy in it, and it wouldn’t be too far fetched to imagine most of the episode happening in a submarine. But the episode goes beyond these origins, and tells an interesting…

Yikes this is a bad episode. For a start, nothing about this story makes it a Star Trek story. This story could have been in any one of twenty TV series with very little problem. I’m pretty sure this would even work as a Love Boat episode. And then there’s the overacting. I know they’re…