I'm still slooowly working my way through TOS. I just watched The Apple. Okay episode, but a bit of a letdown after just seeing the crazy iconic Mirror, Mirror the episode before. It seems like the "Prime Directive" concept is still developing in this. In fact, it's a big part of it. The premise is that the people on this planet are all under the control of a nearby machine in a cave. The machine keeps them all immortal, healthy, attractive, etc. And they're happy. They don't reproduce or anything... they don't even know how. They just bask in the sun eating exotic fruit, smiling and joking.
When they get there, Spock and McCoy get into a big philosophical argument about it. Spock says they have no right to interfere, and McCoy says fuck that, these people are slaves and it's unnatural. Kirk sides with McCoy, and has Scotty fire up the lasers and blow the hell out of the machine from space. The episode ends with Spock still a little uneasy about what they did, and Kirk and McCoy respond by cracking jokes at his expense. The end.
Meanwhile, Chekhov is part of the landing party along with a one-off blonde crew member, and oh my god, it's just instant make-out city from the second they hit the ground. Kirk even has to tell them to cool it. Definitely not behavior that would fly later in the series. Or in any military ever.
Next up the The Doomsday Machine, which I'm aware is one of the signature episodes of TOS, won a bunch of awards, etc.
Okay, excuse the double post. I just watched Kirk vs Unicron, aka The Doomsday Machine on my lunch break. Man, that was great. Beginning to end, that was a fantastic representation of TOS. I guess it was meant to be based on Moby Dick a little bit? Whatever the case, that was one of the best ones yet. Commodore Decker was a great tragic character, all the regular crew was at their best, the pacing tension and acting were all top notch. So good.
I'm really digging TOS right now. S1 took me several months of just watching an episode here and there, but it really has clicked with me lately.
EDIT: Okay now it's the next day. Just saw Catspaw. Dumb Halloween themed episode, haha. Fun, though, kind of. Same ol' "we got trapped on a planet by aliens with psychic powers" shtick, though.
EDIT: Last night I watched the next one, too: I, Mudd. Another kind of comedy relief episode, but a good one for sure. It was cool to see Harry Mudd come back from season 1. He is an awesome character, just a hilarious scumbag. I feel like I've seen Kirk "talk a computer to death" several times now, but this time was pretty good... the whole gang just goes crazy and turn into the Animaniacs, irritating the androids until they just spark and smoke and shut down.
Metamorphosis is next.
My quest to watch all Star Trek has continued into the meat of TOS Season 2.
Metamorphosis - Pretty good. It was a sad story. A female alien cloud monster was in love with a stranded Zephram Cochran, a man who was famous in history and should have been dead for 150 years. I read afterwards on Memory Alpha that an aged version of the same character is played later by James Cromwell. So that's something. I liked the episode.
Journey to Babel - fantastic, one of the best I've seen yet, maybe THE best. Cool to see some background on Spock... I kind of vaguely remember Sarek from TNG years ago, but I sure didn't expect to see him OR Spock's mom step out of the ship. Great script, so cool to see all the other aliens... great stuff. Exciting "surgery during a battle" scene.
Friday's Child - Eh. Pretty good episode, but kind of a let down after the last two good ones. For a bit I thought they were implying that it really was Bones kid, as in he'd impregnated her when he was on the planet before. That would've been a lot better. Man, that tribes costumes were beyond stupid, holy shit. Kind of cool that Julie Newmar was in it.
The Deadly Years - This is the one where everybody catches a virus that makes them really old. Pretty mediocre. That hearing to relieve Kirk of command was sooooo dragged out.
Obsession - Kirk remembers an evil cloud monster from ten years ago that they cross paths with. Okay episode. Doomsday Machine was a much better Moby Dick redo, though. And it was pretty unfortunate to run two "Kirk went crazy and we had to take his ship away" episodes in a row. Netflix has the non-remastered version up for some strange reason, so it was kind of interesting to see that, as it's the only episode like that.
Wolf in the Fold - One of my least favorites of all so far. It starts out pretty good with the fellas visiting a brothel and a murder mystery, but the killer turns out to be the
dismembered spirit of Jack the Ripper?? What the HELL. And the process by which they figure that out is ridiculous... one of the victims (the Mayors wife) said a weird word just before she was killed. They google the word and figure out that it's an alternate name for Jack the Ripper, then correctly conclude that it must be him in spirit possessing everybody.
The Trouble With Tribbles - Ah, now that was back to form! Great to finally see the iconic episode. I've always knows about it, basically, but good to finally see it. Great, snappy script, great fight scene, it was funny, and the remastered version went ALL out. It seems like they spent a lot on the new GC, more than any of the previous ones. If I have one complaint, it's that everyone was a little exaggerated: Scotty and Checkov were kind of portrayed as bigger idiots than normal, Spock had more of a stick in his ass, Kirk was more standoffish than usual... but hey, that's fine. It was great dialogue, great plot, cool to a few civilians and some Klingons being antagonistic. Solid stuff, I see why it's such a classic.
Next up is
The Gamesters of Triskelion...
