I\u2019m more than halfway through my episode by episode review of the complete Star Trek, the original series (TOS), and it has been eye opening to see how terrible some of the episodes were.\u00a0 Of course, that\u2019s probably more a reflection of how long it\u2019s been since I\u2019ve seen these shows.\u00a0 Nonetheless I think there are some observations I\u2019d like to make.<\/p>\n
Over the course of the show we\u2019ll see planets with humanoid inhabitants almost exclusively.\u00a0 Oh, sure once in a while they\u2019ll have pointy ears or green skin but nine times out of ten, they look like they come from California.\u00a0 And just to make the situation even more ridiculous we\u2019ll even find planets that have Space Nazis, Space Romans, Space Bootleggers and even Space Americans and Russians who have survived a Space WWIII and are living like nomads but still wielding an American flag and a copy of the Constitution.\u00a0 And I say, sure, why not?\u00a0 After all they could get the costumes at the Desilu props department and we could chalk it all up to some multiverse probabilistic hand waving stuff.<\/p>\n
But where I draw the line is the planet sized amoeba made of protoplasm.\u00a0 This doesn\u2019t make any sense at all.\u00a0 In fact, it\u2019s insulting to anyone of even modest intelligence to think such a thing is anything but laughable.\u00a0 I mean come on!\u00a0 What\u2019s next?\u00a0 If you ran out of awful plots what would they find next inside of an opaque interstellar cloud?\u00a0 A giant negative energy absorbing aardvark or lemur?\u00a0 Maybe there could be a planet-sized ranch or Cape Cod building along with an equally cosmic sized old guy sitting on his porch yelling at the Enterprise for travelling across his lawn at warp factor 3 and threatening Kirk with a light years spanning garden hose?<\/p>\n
I guess I\u2019m getting a little cantankerous but is it so much to ask that a show that forces us to suspend disbelief about faster than light travel and inexplicable teleportation devices at least meet us half way and make believe that they\u2019ve provided us with a fig leaf to cover the colossal absurdity of whatever gold-plated impossibility they are foisting off on us at the moment.\u00a0 At least get Spock to say that the amoeba is composed of some unknown form of condensed negative energy that behaves like a cosmic equivalent of protoplasm.\u00a0 Would it be that hard to say some gobbledygook like that just so we didn\u2019t feel that we were watching a show that couldn\u2019t rise to the level of realism exhibited by the Teletubbies?<\/p>\n
So, I\u2019m not asking how Apollo got his temple to a planet, light years from Earth.\u00a0 Maybe it has a warp engine in one of the columns.\u00a0 I\u2019m not complaining that the Gorn\u2019s head looks like it was put together out of craft supplies bought at Walmart.\u00a0 All I\u2019m asking is that a science fiction show give me at least some plausible fake science to placate my sense of scientific decency.<\/p>\n
Oh, and would it have killed them to have a few more of those Vegas show girls show up once in a while?\u00a0 Nurse Chapel truly should have been retired on a pension and replaced with Terri Garr or Barbara Eden.\u00a0 Just saying.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I\u2019m more than halfway through my episode by episode review of the complete Star Trek, the original series (TOS), and it has been eye opening<\/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":[293],"class_list":["post-12152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","category-sff","category-sff-tv-reviews","category-star-trek","category-tv-reviews","tag-star-trek"],"yoast_head":"\n