Tom Salinsky

TOS S02E14 Wolf in the Fold () never quite commits to being a “Scotty” episode. Despite the fact that the teaser in three minutes of belly-dancing we don’t get to see the incident which earned the ship’s chief engineer his shore leave and he is rapidly sidelined after his arrest for a knife murder in foggy old London Town (by way of Aladdin’s Agraba). Kirk suddenly remembers the Prime Directive and his diplomatic responsibilities. He has a flashback/mind-reading machine sent down from the ship, but he makes the rookie error of having a woman sent down with it who is promptly gutted. (This gizmo seems like a handy thing to have. Odd that it was never mentioned before.)

This episode is very peculiar mix of Perry Mason, Sherlock Holmes, Arabian Nights and 12 Angry Men with very little actual Star Trek. (It turns out that Psycho author Robert Bloch repurposed his short story Yours Truly Jack the Ripper, crossing out existing character names and writing in “Kirk”, “Scott” and so on. Bloch also wrote What Are Little Girls Made Of and Catspaw, so at least I know who to avoid from now on.)

Of course, it all works out for the best, and everyone’s laughing and smiling at the end, as they wash the blood of their friends and co-workers off their hands. That’s par for the course. What’s also common, but far far worse than usual here, is the patronising and parochial treatment of women who are practically treated here as a separate species, even harder to understand than Klingons or Romulans.

TOS S02E15 The Trouble with Tribbles () is one of the show’s most famous episodes and it is quite a treat, especially given the recent run of mediocrity. Again, it’s one I knew from the Blish books (although I at first mis-read the title as The Trouble with the Tribbles, which I still think sounds better). There isn’t a lot I can add to the thousands of words already written about this instalment, which is basically tremendous, if not quite hitting the heights of the very best of the season, such as The Doomsday Machine or Amok Time. Herewith some stray observations.

• Chekov is easier to write for than Sulu. Chekov is young and silly and thinks everything good was invented in Russia. Sulu’s just this guy.
• Even by the standards of this series, the lighting here is bonkers (in a good way). Every wall is a different colour.
• Cyrano Jones (Stanley Adams) is far preferable to Harry Mudd and other comedy characters that the series has visited on us. Like Indiana, in early drafts his surname was Smith.
• It’s nice to spend some time with some of the other bridge crew.
• The unit of currency is “credits”.
• These Klingons again look quite similar to the ones we will meet in future incarnations of the show. In fact, Koloth looks very similar (because it’s Trelane actor William Campbell). The brusque Klingon attitude has not been refined yet, however.
• Comedy episodes (or moments of episodes) of Star Trek tend to marred by tiddly-pom musical cues to tell us how amusing everything is, and this is no exception. The difference is that this genuinely is amusing and the problem manages to be both absurd and very nearly intractable.
• Who threw the first punch? If only we had a machine on board which could replay memories, or tell whether or not someone is speaking truthfully.
• Same issue here as in Peter Harness’s majestic Kill the Moon. You can’t get two 1lb tribbles from a single 1lb tribble unless you first give it at least 1lb of food. Sure, they gorge themselves on quadrotriticale, but what are they eating on board the Enterprise? Dilithium? You don’t care about it here, so why do you care about it there?
• The whole cast is having a wonderful time, and Shatner in particular is effortlessly charming and charismatic.

TOS S02E16 The Gamesters of Triskelion () suffers from a lot of drawbacks of sixties Trek. This is another recycled plot – in this case it’s a re-run of Arena (with a dose of, yawn, The Cage) – but this time with extra-ridiculous costumes, a Batman villain pulling the strings and some pretty shoddy fight choreography. The silliness isn’t helped by a couple of really nasty moments. It’s implied at one point that Uhura is going to be raped in her cell which is a bit fucking much for a show that won’t allow a bare navel or an “open-mouthed” kiss. I almost stopped watching at that point.

All the good stuff happens on board the ship, and it’s a relief whenever we cut back there. Ensign Haines is treated by acting Captain Spock as a valuable member of the crew, and not on object of lust or a subject of mystified speculation, which is something of a rarity. In fact, Spock, Scott and McCoy get some good material throughout – frustratingly good. All three act according to their natures, and they almost constantly butt heads, yet my estimation of all of them does nothing but increase.

Meanwhile, on the planet, we have a scantily-clad handmaiden in a tinfoil bikini and green hair, asking Captain Kirk what love is. He explains: “Love is the most important thing on Earth. Especially to a man and a woman.” A short while later, Kirk kisses her, belts her hard enough to knock her out, and then starts fishing around in her underwear. Jesus.

The problem isn’t just that it’s a rehash of Arena (and it really is, the shots of the Enterprise crew watching the fight are almost identical) it’s that it’s far less interesting version. Of course Kirk isn’t going to slaughter tinfoil bikini girl. The point of Arena is that he didn’t murder ugly lizard guy – because killing… is wrong. The message here seems to be that impaling big burly men to save your own skin is fine, and nobody should shed a tear over it, but sticking a knife in a pretty young woman is barbaric.

No jokey tag scene, we end on the moist eyes of the woman Kirk manipulated, lied to, snogged and abandoned (in that order).

TOS S02E17 A Piece of the Action () does give us a cool set-up. We get to revisit a planet that had contact with the “Federation of Planets” 100 years ago and see what transpired. It’s a lesson in why the Prime Directive exists. In reality, of course, this is just a flimsy excuse for transporting our crew into a Damon Runyon-style gangster movie. What works well about this is that the balance between the fun of the pulp world and the reality of the high concept science-fiction show is maintained. Kirk takes responsibility for what has happened on Sigma Iotia II and wants to fix it. But we also have the fun of hearing our noble Captain using the local slang and seeing him in fancy duds. Once again, it’s utterly impossible to connect the charming and amusing Star Fleet captain who struggles with a 1930s automobile to the brash and cocky asshole stealing a sports car in the JJ Abrams parody version.

There probably isn’t quite enough plot for the run-time. Spock and McCoy get captured, escape, beam up to the ship, beam back down to the planet and promptly get captured again. And the final negotiation is largely free of tension, as Kirk comprehensively has the upper hand throughout, but this is largely very entertaining stuff. I’m sure I heard James Doohan doing one of his silly voices on the radio. And that’s Vic Tayback (from TV’s Alice) as the number two boss who wants to be number one.

TOS S02E18 The Immunity Syndrome (). Long before Nicholas Meyer conceived of the Enterprise as a submarine, or before Wolfgang Peterson created Das Boot, Star Trek was playing around with these story ideas, and there’s an amazingly oppressive atmosphere of doom in this story, which starts off with some familiar tropes involving missing planets and mysterious blobby things on the viewscreen, but which develops into something very tense and chilling in which Kirk makes some of his toughest ever command decisions. It’s very linear and maybe gets a little repetitive in the third act, but these are minor criticisms of a very strong episode, with decent sci-fi concepts, palpable tension and wonderful character work. There’s a very good chance that if you don’t like this episode, you don’t like Star Trek.

TOS S02E19 A Private Little War () begins strongly as Spock is shot in the back (it’s not a very gory wound, with or without the green blood). For the second time in three episodes, we’re going on a return visit to see how things have changed since we last made contact, but here the Prime Directive is summarily suspended so that Kirk can personally arm the natives in a heavy-handed Vietnam allegory that smothers everything else about this episode, but can’t quite eclipse the ludicrous sight of a very silly unicorn teddy bear monster with poison fangs which nobbles the Captain and causes him to speak only in single word sentences.

Of all the things that TOS struggles with, the one I really can’t stand is the patronising depiction of primitive cultures. This is better than embarrassments like The Apple and Friday’s Child but it’s still not great. Nancy Kovack (with another bare belly button on flagrant display) does a huge amount to try and make this work but it’s uphill all the way. Nurse Chapel’s chief character trait turns out to be: has the hots for Spock (and has to spank him back to health).

TOS S02E20 Return to Tomorrow () gives us our first sight of Diana Muldaur in a Star Fleet uniform (accompanied by soaring strings as if the mere sight of a female officer is the most surprising and alluring vision imaginable). We haven’t done much with alien possession on this show so far, which is surprising as it’s a) cheap and b) plays to the strengths of the show: casting and characterisation. Taken over by Sargon, Shatner goes for broke, and luckily doesn’t go full Kroagnon on us. He teeters on the brink a few times though.

The deal that the incorporal aliens make seems acceptable at first – they merely want to borrow Star Fleet bodies and will return them unharmed (I recall a very funny Red Dwarf episode which played with this idea). They even let the crew return to the ship to think it over, which they do while munching the scenery. Kirk’s big speech at the conference table is pure Shat through and through (but I kinda love it). DeForrest Kelley is a very underrated actor. His speech to Kirk when he’s restored is pure nonsense but Kelley sells the shit out of it.

Pretty soon, Kirk, Spock and Diana Muldaur (why isn’t it Nichelle Nichols??) are all mere vessels for alien minds. As soon as the all-powerful pure energy being wakes up inside Spock, he starts coming on to Nurse Chapel, natch, but Nimoy has great fun playing the chipper psychopath. It’s a slight issue that three all-powerful mind-reading aliens have no clue that one of them is plotting to kill one of the others. Maybe Henoch is “shielding” his thoughts?

Kirk’s “death” is exciting but it’s clearly not going to be a permanent state of affairs, although it is hard to guess how the resolution will play out. Thalassa attempts to swap Mulhall’s life for Kirk’s and McCoy turns her down, which is a great bit of nobility from the irascible doc. In fact, the only real problem with this story is that our heroes don’t have much to do. The fact that it’s their lives that are at risk sustains our interest, but almost all the crucial decisions, nefarious and noble, are taken by the telepaths with Star Fleet officers merely observers until “Nurse Chapel” turns that hypo on “Spock”. The ending is pure Trek, compassionate, complicated, and slightly ridiculous – but it works. I can’t help thinking that Kirk needs a Picard-style ready room, though.

Stray thoughts

• I can see why this show was so beloved, but also why it was so endlessly parodied. When it goes silly, it doesn’t just go a bit wonky, it goes fully ridiculous.
• For a series which can go anyway and do anything, a small number of plots get recycled an awful lot – the quixotic alien with godlike powers, the gilded cage, the infection which sends the crew mad, the naive alien species which needs to learn about how to live freely (or how to bone). The best episodes are often the ones which find something genuinely new – Devil in the Dark, Space Seed, City on the Edge of Forever, Amok Time.
• Some weaker episodes are saved or nearly saved by the interplay between the main characters. This cast really is fantastic and when the writers keep the emphasis there, the series can do little wrong.
• Even the weaker episodes are very well paced. Watching some 80s shows like Moonlighting or The A Team now they seem amazingly sluggish. With very few exceptions, these episodes fill 50 minutes amply with plenty of plot, action, and character detail.
• Why are these episode titles so vague and so hard to remember? I never have any trouble recalling which Doctor Who story is which (you’re a real Doctor Who fan if it’s never even occurred to you that people might mix up The Seeds of Death and The Seeds of Doom) but without looking, I couldn’t tell you now which one was Wolf in the Fold, which one was Return to Tomorrow and which one was Errand of Mercy if my very life depended on it.