Month: November 2019

Star Trek – The Original Series – Complete Series Review – Season 1 Episode 7 – What Are Little Girls Made Of?

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Here we are at episode seven of Season One and certain trends are already appearing.  Hopefully this will allow me to formulate a number of postulates as I did with the Twilight Zone.  For instance, whenever Kirk is replicated either by transporter mishap or incursion into an alternate universe or by action of a mad scientist hilarity is bound to ensue.

And such is the case in this episode.  The Enterprise is sent to a frigid ice world to locate Dr. Roger Korby who is not only the Louis Pasteur of archaeological medicine but is also Nurse Chapel’s fiancé.  In fact, mention of Korby’s preeminence as a scientist elicits the first utterance of the dreaded phrase, “his textbook was required reading at the Academy.”  Now we’re never told why a military officer needs to be versed in archeological medicine and in fact we never really find out what the hell archeological medicine is.  Anyway, by the fact that Nurse Chapel is his fiancée we know this guy is a loser.

When they reach orbit Korby communicates to them that they are to only send Captain Kirk down alone.  But when he finds out the that Chapel is aboard; he allows that she should join the captain.  We find out that Korby is really a robot with Korby’s mind implanted in it.  He is assisted by other humaniform robots who were created by a robot that was left by the “Old Ones.”  This robot is named Ruk and is played by Ted Cassidy who was Lurch on the original Addams Family show from the 1960s.

Korby’s evil plan is to substitute robots for humans throughout the galaxy and allow them to assume control and thus bring forth a logical new civilization.  Of course, it swiftly devolves into a murder spree wherein red shirt after red shirt is killed by Ruk.  To put this plan into action Korby duplicates Kirk with a twin robot.

And here the hilarity ensues.  Kirk is naked on a spinning table with only a metal console hiding his nethers.  The other side of the table has a sort of formless dummy that is the future home of Kirk’s mind in Robot Kirk.  As his mind is being copied into the Robot Kirk, Meat Kirk keeps repeating over and over, “Mind your own business, Mr. Spock. I’m sick of your half-breed interference!”  Meat Kirk is implanting this racial hatred in the mind of Robot Kirk to tip Spock off that Meat Kirk had been replaced.  We are treated to the Kirks verbally with sparring with each other.  I’ll have to say Robot Kirk seemed to get the better of it.

One of the robots is Andrea.  She is a very attractive young woman wearing a form fitting and meager outfit that improves the show substantially.  Nurse Chapel’s reaction to Andrea’s relation to Roger Korby is very entertaining.  When he assures Chapel that Andrea is just a robot and there cannot be any question of an emotional attachment Nurse Chapel does not appear either convinced or comforted by the story.  Later on, Meat Kirk is able to overcome Andrea’s lack of emotional or sexual capability by vigorous kissing.  She is somehow transformed into a woman and when later on Robot Kirk refuses her romantic advances, mistaking him for Meat Kirk and resenting his refusal, she disintegrates Robot Kirk with a phaser.

Finally, when it is revealed to Nurse Chapel that Roger is a robot and she rejects him for not being human.  He despairs.  And when Andrea then turns her romantic attention to Roger and kisses him Roger triggers the phaser and disintegrates himself and Andrea together.  So sad.

Okay, this is a lot of stuff.  Nurse Chapel is one of the really awful parts of Star Trek.  She always has some horrific hairdo or wig, she’s kind of homely and she’s a terrible actress whose character is always annoying.  But when she’s jealous of Andrea and angry at Roger it’s kind of hilarious.

Kirk has one pretty good shoulder roll in the episode and Ruk does pick Kirk up and pins him on the top of a wall at one point.  And passionate Meat Kirk grappling with Andrea and reprogramming her with his Kirk lust is funny.  And when she disintegrates Robot Kirk for spurning her that was funny too.  But all in all, naked Kirk spinning around at two hundred rpm is probably the highlight of the show.

As a story it’s passingly interesting.  Robert Bloch, the writer of Psycho wrote this episode so it’s not completely boring.  In terms of mockery this is one of the best.  For those two measures of the value of the show I will institute a binary marking scale and to give it a pseudoscientific aura I’ll use numbers instead of letters.  In each case the value is out of a possible 10.  This is a 5//9.
 

30NOV2019 – OCF Update

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So we’ve survived Thanksgiving and have today and tomorrow to recover sufficiently to stagger back into work on Monday.  Bravo, congratulations!

Looking ahead, The British General Election is a week from Thursday (December 12th) and by all accounts Boris Johnson will get his majority and the Brexit that it’s based on.  Supposedly he has all the Tory candidates sworn to a blood oath to vote for Brexit when they are elected.  As always, wait for the outcome but there may be some very good news for the English people by Christmas.

My article  “Reclaiming the Family – Part 3 – Recruit Grandma and Grandpa” seems to have been well received when I posted it on Tuesday.  I take particular pleasure in this because, from my point of view, advocating for practical and constructive action is greatly preferable to just spouting anger and predicting gloom and doom.  Not that there isn’t plenty to be angry and worried about but if you’re not going to do anything about it then just dig a hole and jump in.  I’ll try to expand the series when I have something useful to add.

Like everyone else I’m waiting impatiently for Durham to show some progress on his investigation.  Your guess is as good as mine on this whole thing.  We’ll just have to wait.

On the 2020 election things seem to be moving in the right direction.  The House is stuck with their impeachment fiasco.  Even the MSM has sort of gotten bored and wandered away from their freak show.  I don’t want to get too positive but it’s starting to look like the 2020 Democratic Presidential Candidate field is barren.  Even if Mrs. Clinton or Mrs. Obama “surprises” us by joining the race I don’t think that it will move the needle much at all.

So between now and Christmas there may be several very interesting stories developing.  Once I recover fully from the several hundred thousand calories I ingested this week I’ll diligently report on and bloviate about what I think they mean.

And of course I’ll faithfully update my Star Trek series.  The schlock shall not dry up.

Stay tuned.

Guest Contributor – War Pig – On Family

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War Pig put up a comment on my Reclaiming the Family thread so I asked him if I could add it to his folder and so here it is for anyone who didn’t see it on the comments. – photog

We moved to California from Ohio in the 60s when dad got transferred from North American Aviation to Rockwell/Rocketdyne and went to supervise the making of the boosters for the space program. Mom took a fall at the ice-skating rink at the Topanga Plaza and had to have bone chips removed from her brain. Her father came out to stay with us kids until mom was back on her feet. Six months. Dad had to keep working to provide the health insurance and also to feed us and pay the rent (even back then California rents were horrible compared to Ohio). Since papaw was retired and his other daughter lived across the street from his home, he could leave mamaw there while he came out. He cooked, made us kids clean, took us to school functions and all the rest of the things mom would have done. He took us to visit mom at the hospital so she could remember us (she had temporary amnesia and did not know she was married or had kids, initially). She had lost twelve years or memory in the fall and skull fracture.

Papaw was always a hoot. He had a little larceny in his heart and was a lot more lenient than mom had been about what we did. He aided and abetted me and my brother’s carbide cannon incident, for instance. We had fruit trees in the yard and he’d go out and pick oranges and make fresh squeezed OJ for us at breakfast. He makes pancakes and biscuits using buckwheat flour.

Later, after the space program ended and massive layoffs happened in the aerospace industry, we moved back to Ohio. Dad got a supervisor job at a plant that made wheels for US military vehicles. We were close to both sets of grandparents. We kids worked on our paternal papaw’s farm and also rode with our maternal papaw when he delivered frozen chickens. Me and my brother loaded and unloaded chickens and papaw drove the truck. On the farm we drove tractors and other farm equipment and the pickup truck, too. We baled hay and straw and put it up in the barn. Me and my brother ate like starving Clydesdales but worked it all off on the farm or the chicken runs. Sis stayed with mamaw on the farm and helped her. At our other papaw’s house, she helped mamaw bake pies for the local restaurants while we helped papaw with the chickens.

Later, when I was a papaw, I took care of my grandson. My wife got to see and hold her grandson before she passed. Since I had no wife and was retired, I concentrated on being papaw for my grandson. I babysat while my daughter and her husband worked. They dropped him off for breakfast and picked him up after supper. All day we played and did things together. To the playground, fishing, walking in the woods. When he was school age, I picked him up from school and we goofed off or I helped him with homework and we had supper together. I would not trade my time with him for a billion dollars. This year he graduates college. Hopefully, I’ll live to see some great grandchildren.

 

Thanksgiving Message – 2019

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How the year does fly.  Another remarkable journey around the sun is almost complete and so of course we get to the two Great Holidays, Thanksgiving and Christmas.  These are the times when we gather together with friends and family and enjoy rich food and good company.  And Thanksgiving is supposed to be the day we count our blessings.

The last couple of years have been happier and more prosperous thanks to President Trump’s policies.  The economy has recovered from the Bush/Obama Depression and a number of his executive actions and judicial selections have given us something to be hopeful about.  The “Resistance” has seemed to reach the point of open absurdity with impeachment now looking like a losing issue for the Democrats instead of the President.

So, all of that is reason to be thankful and I agree it is.  But what I’m most thankful for is that I can see.

I can see through the GOP Establishment in the government and in the press and recognize them as just part of the enemy that we must beat.  They are the ones who have been responsible over and over for snatching defeat out of the jaws of victory and selling us down the river to the Progressives for money.  The Republican politicians did it for the money they get from lobbyists to vote for sending our jobs and industries to China and allowing endless immigrants to replace us.  The Republican Pundits (and judges) sold us out for the right to go to the Left-Wing dinner parties and rub elbows with the Cloud People.

That knowledge is what I’m thankful for.  Now I know who my enemy is and I also know what I have to do to protect me and mine from their agenda.  Donald Trump showed us what it means to be unafraid of being called a deplorable.  If all they can do is call you a racist or misogynist or homophobe or transphobe then we can ignore them and get on with our lives.  We can search out like minded individuals and form our own society.  It won’t be easy or without pain but so what?  What good thing ever is?  And we won’t vote for anymore McCains or Bushes or Romneys.  No more mealy-mouthed losers who call themselves Christians or Conservatives or whatever they want to pretend to be but vote for depravity and defeat.  No more.

This year I took the whole Thanksgiving week off and was able to enjoy time with family and help prepare a little for the feast.  This year we have family from near and far arriving and Camera Girl has risen to the challenge and will have a total of 48 pounds of turkey and two refrigerators full of other mouth-watering delights including cornbread and sausage stuffing, mashed potatoes, turkey gravy, sweet potatoes, candied yams, buttered rolls, buttered corn, cranberry sauce, cranberry jello mold, peas and onions, roasted Brussel sprouts and cranberries and string beans and almonds.  For dessert there will be apple pie, pumpkin pie, cocoanut custard pie, blueberry pie, home-made ricotta cheese cake, ice cream and chocolate covered fruit.  And lots of strong coffee

After that we’ll collapse in the living room and watch Laurel and Hardy in the 1934 movie, “March of the Wooden Soldiers” and the 1939 animated version of, “Gulliver’s Travels.”  Then I’ll spend time playing with my grandchildren and making plans with them for the holidays.

So, tomorrow may not see much in the way of posting unless something earth shaking occurs.

But Happy Thanksgiving to all you folks out there and may you and your family enjoy a feast and a wonderful time.