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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Another iconic episode.\u00a0 Alright let\u2019s get it out of the way right at the beginning.\u00a0 Ratings must have been fading so they hired a Las Vegas burlesque queen in a very revealing costume to give the show a boost.\u00a0 And as I remember my adolescent self was not opposed to this aspect of the show at all.\u00a0 Honestly, she was probably the best-looking babe they ever had on the show.\u00a0 In terms of acting, well it was Star Trek so really, who cares?<\/p>\n
Kirk, Chekov and Uhura (boy that\u2019s an odd combination) are in the transporter getting ready to beam down to planet XYZ123 when suddenly they vanish without the transporter even being energized.\u00a0 Scotty, Spock and McCoy jabber at each other trying to figure out what happened.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile we see Kirk, Chekov and Uhura on a distant planet called Triskelion being assaulted by mismatched gladiators with silly weapons.\u00a0 The hot looking warrior woman named Shahna is dressed in an aluminum foil bikini and armed with a giant-sized bottle opener.\u00a0 A caveman in a Fred Flintstone suit is armed with a whip and a net.\u00a0 A relatively ordinary looking guy in hose and doublet named Lars has a letter opener as his weapon and then there\u2019s this really small old woman who doesn\u2019t do very much and maybe also had a giant bottle opener but since I was watching Shahna most of the time I\u2019m not really sure what the other woman had.<\/p>\n
Once the Enterprise crew is subdued by the \u201cthralls,\u201d a weird skinny, bald headed guy in a black robe tells them what\u2019s what.\u00a0 He is the Master Thrall named Galt.\u00a0 He runs the gladiatorial games for the \u201cProviders.\u201d\u00a0 The Providers are disembodied brains living in a cavern a thousand meters below the surface of Triskelion and they spend their pathetic lives capturing beings throughout the galaxy with their powerful transporter beam and betting a currency called quatloos on the fights they organize between the captives.\u00a0 But since they are disembodied brains that live in a cave what they would do with the quatloos they win is completely meaningless.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile back on the Enterprise Spock confirms that the landing party is not on the planet below and finding an energy signature in a cloud decides to head twelve light years in that direction to find the captain and company.\u00a0 McCoy and Scotty whine and complain about this decision and finally Spock has the best non-Shahna moment in the show when he tells them that since he is in command that he will do as he pleases unless (and hear he lowers his voice so that only the two of them can hear him) McCoy and Scotty intend to start a mutiny.\u00a0 The two complainers immediately started hemming hawing and denying they had any such idea and fall in line with the plan.<\/p>\n
Kirk and company learn the hard way that Galt and the Providers use collars on the necks of the thralls to train and punish disobedience.\u00a0 They seem to learn that there is no escape and no way to resist.\u00a0 So, Kirk quickly gets down to business and seduces Shahna with his Shatnerly charms.\u00a0 He hugs and kisses her and tells her about the stars and Earth and how much he likes her.\u00a0 But in the next scene he kisses her and then socks her in the jaw to get her key to his cell and make a break with Chekov and Uhura.\u00a0 And since Providers are omniscient, they are quickly subdued and sentenced to die.<\/p>\n
Kirk is now doomed to die but first he asks to meet the Providers face to face.\u00a0 He is transported into the crappy cave that the Providers live in and berates them for their pathetic existence.\u00a0 At this point the Enterprise reaches Triskelion and is immediately immobilized by the Providers.\u00a0 Kirk appeals to the Providers\u2019 gaming blood and proposes a wager.\u00a0 If he defeats a thrall in single combat, he and his people will go free and the Providers will give freedom and training to the thralls to become independent beings on Triskelion.\u00a0 If he loses then the whole crew of the Enterprise will become thralls.\u00a0 The Providers decide instead that he\u2019ll have to fight three thralls.\u00a0 Take that Kirk!\u00a0 Kirk dispatches the caveman and Lars but the third guy is only injured so he is replaced by Shahna who is still mad about the sucker punch Kirk gave her earlier.\u00a0 Finally, Kirk takes away her bottle opener and with Lars\u2019 letter opener at her throat she surrenders.\u00a0 The Providers turn out to be good sports and keep their word and let the Enterprise go free and agree to turn the thralls into people.<\/p>\n
There is a maudlin scene between Kirk and Shahna and after the landing party beams up Shahna gets a short monologue where she talks to the sky and thanks Jim Kirk for showing her the road to female empowerment and possibly less-revealing clothes.<\/p>\n
So much to say.\u00a0 Besides Spock\u2019s mutiny game I think the other stand out comedy was Chekov being cornered in his cage by his selected mate, the old short weird looking woman thrall.\u00a0 She\u2019s smitten with him and he tries to be civil but he\u2019s obviously weirded out by her appearance and overeager attentions.\u00a0 It\u2019s very creepy.<\/p>\n
This show is just overflowing with Shatner doing his thing.\u00a0 His shirt has been taken away and has been replaced with a harness that reveals his noticeable weight gain.\u00a0 He\u2019s leaping around kicking and punching everything in sight.\u00a0 And of course, his amorous moments with Shahna highlight some of the very corniest acting Bill Shatner ever committed.\u00a0 But I think what I like best is when Kirk is dismissing the idea of the Providers betting \u201ctrifles like quatloos\u201d when human lives were so much more meaningful.\u00a0 There we see Kirk the negotiator, Kirk the gambler.<\/p>\n
So, all in all the girl is very attractive, although her eye makeup looked to be about an inch thick.\u00a0 The plot was amusing and reasonably clever.\u00a0 The Shatner mockery value was almost off the scale.\u00a0 I\u2019ll give this an 8 \/\/ 10.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Another iconic episode.\u00a0 Alright let\u2019s get it out of the way right at the beginning.\u00a0 Ratings must have been fading so they hired a Las<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[237,4,244,2149,240],"tags":[2150,38,1355,44,309,265,1691,293,2637,154,1692,837],"class_list":["post-11910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","category-sff","category-sff-tv-reviews","category-star-trek","category-tv-reviews","tag-gene-roddenberry","tag-review","tag-reviews","tag-sci-fi","tag-sci-fi-tv-review","tag-science-fiction","tag-sff-tv-show-reviews","tag-star-trek","tag-the-gamesters-of-triskelion","tag-tv-review","tag-tv-reviews","tag-william-shatner"],"yoast_head":"\n