Author: robert

So it would appear that the 23rd century Star Fleet is trapped in the 1960s when it comes to gender equity. Personally, I find that a bigger leap of logic than the idea of a machine that can exchange the bodies of Kirk and Dr Lester. “It’s better to be dead than live alone in…

Right in the dying moments of The Original Series, another pretty strong episode. There are some silly bits – the musketeers who arrest Kirk, for instance. But for the most part the episode hangs together pretty well. The library/portal to the past is a clever idea, and for once the attempt to do something a…

Another somewhat infamous episode – the Star Trek episode where Lincoln fights Genghis Khan. It wasn’t too bad – once you get past the silliness, there is a lot to like. For instance, instead of choosing only from pre-20th century historical figures some of the figures are from our future. I was a little disturbed…

While the final conclusion of the episode (everyone is equal) fits well, some of the politics in this episode are a bit troubling by todays standards. It’s one thing to have the ‘inferior’ race. It’s quite another to have the doctor scientifically find that they are ‘inferior’ (even if reversible). Overall this is a much…

This is supposed to be the second worst episode of all time, according to [GEOS](http://www.geos.tv). Third worst is Spock’s Brain, and worst is the Next Generation Season 2 finale Shades of Grey (a.k.a. the clip show). So in order to prevent myself getting too depressed, I’ll be liveblogging my watching of the episode. You may…

There was a potential here for a truly fascinating character – a man who had not only lived through millenia, but had in fact been some of the greatest people in history. But instead the episode noticed that it’s been three episodes since Kirk last got the girl, so let’s focus on that. The episode…

Once again, it is very clear that the Enterprise very clearly needs a sexual harassment contact officer. Sexual Harassment Panda perhaps? But senior officers in love with junior officers just feels ‘icky’ today. Otherwise yet another Season 3 episode in the ‘dull’ column. Nothing much of interest here. Even Scotty’s ‘romance’ is just flat -…

Any episode that starts with a reference to ‘the fifth interstellar geophysical conference’ has a fair way to go before it reaches ‘fun’ or even ‘tolerable’. Ten minutes in, the direction is clearly ‘downhill’ – there’s a one minute montage of people scanning plants with tricorders. And the climactic moment of tension? Mr Scott with…

So having dealt so deftly with racism (*cough* not), Star Trek moves on to Abortion. A little less heavy handed, perhaps because the answer is a lot more complicated than in the case of racism. More potential than actual achievement, as the episode itself just doesn’t quite do anything with it subject matter. The idea…

Star Trek’s infamous ‘racism’ episode. The problem with this episode isn’t just that it takes its moral and beats you over the head with it until you plead ‘enough’. No, in addition to that it has some pretty bad acting from one of the guest stars (Loki, I thought the Commissioner was mostly OK), some…