Tom Salinsky

TOS S02E07 Catspaw () really didn’t work for me. Redshirt Jackson beams back alone and promptly collapses. “The man is dead,” intones McCoy, but a voice from his corpse proclaims that there is a curse on the ship – definitely one of the sillier teasers we’ve seen. Rather than one of our regulars, someone called La Salle is put in charge of the ship as The Big Three beam down to investigate. La Salle has a stick up his ass and is mean to Chekov, but that never turns into anything particularly interesting. Meanwhile, the landing party ends up manacled to a wall, and before long, they are face-to-face with a Batman villain. “Why all the mumbo-jumbo?” Asks Kirk not unreasonably after 15 long minutes of tedious padding. He does not get a satisfactory answer. This is the playful alien with god-like powers yet again, only dressed up in Halloween clothes (it did air in late October). About the only Trek cliché more dreary than that is the alien sexpot to whom Kirk has to explain love. And that’s here too. I honestly couldn’t wait for this one to end. Just when I thought it couldn’t get any sillier, it turned into Kitten Kong.

TOS S02E08 I, Mudd () opens with Bones’s spidey-sense tingling when new crewmember Norman walks past. (Note again that the Enterprise is not far from home, seeking out new planets and new civilisations. They are less than 72 hours from a starbase which supplied them with a new crewmember – and yet before long they are orbiting a planet which has never been charted.)

“I don’t believe it!” exclaims Kirk on seeing Harry Mudd (he obviously didn’t read the title of the episode). Chekov doesn’t recognise him, so he joined the ship somewhere between Mudd’s Women and Space Seed. Mudd is no longer running a human harem but he’s still fairly unreconstructed, keeping an android version of his shrewish wife to torment for his amusement. Lol.

Just like last week, the main cast stroll around gaudy sets while a guest star villain strokes his moustache and pontificates until it’s time for the episode to end. I watch this show for three things – strong science-fiction adventure plots, character interplay between the regulars, and thought-provoking ideas about the future or the nature of humanity. This provides none of the above, but ploddingly takes us back to the OG Star Trek cliché, the gilded cage (which is even described as such). The plot is largely resolved when the androids turn on Mudd without our characters having to lift a finger. When they do start taking action, I rather wish they hadn’t bothered as they contrive to confuse the androids to death (yawn) in the most embarrassing way possible.

TOS S02E09 Metamorphosis (). It apparently takes three senior bridge officers to ferry one Karen-ish ambassador from A to B after she succumbs to a virus (she refused to get vaccinated I assume). All she can do is grumble about “The Star Fleet”. When they ditch on an asteroid, Shatner almost dances out of the shuttle, pointing his phaser in every direction. 18 months in and he’s still having the time of his life.

When they meet another survivor, he begins cracking on to the Ambassador because of course he does. It’s odd that the crew doesn’t immediately recognise him, given how famous Zefram Cochrane is in space-faring circles. Cochrane is willing to help them escape (so no gilded cage this week) which cuts down on conflict but we have Ambassador Karen for that. He is reluctant to see his jailer murdered, which is a fascinating wrinkle, recalling Devil in the Dark, but this time with Kirk urging lethal action instead of fighting to prevent it. The robot voice which speaks for the “companion” sounds female, which the crew takes to be a reflection of the feminine nature of the entity rather than the programming of the translation device.

Full of fascinating bits and pieces, this one doesn’t quite hang together (Why does it have to be warp pioneer Cochrane on the planetoid? Where did this Companion come from? What’s this war that she and only she can prevent (or not!)? What will happen now that she’s being metamorphosed into an Eve for Cochrane’s Adam on their barren Eden?) but it’s a huge step up from the last two. It ends when the Companion Superman II’s herself, giving up her powers for love. But did anyone ask Karen if this was what she wanted?

It’s ages before we see the Enterprise and Scott has to record the ship’s log. Kirk is never seen on board the ship – which I think is a first.

TOS S02E10 Journey to Babel () sees the return of Mark Lenard – and he’s Spock’s daddy! Not only that, he’s brought Spock’s mummy. The Enterprise is awash with alien dignitaries this week. The Telluride delegates are under particularly shitty masks but they do sound and behave like an alien race, albeit a rather monolithic one. The Andorians are another example of the series’ reach exceeding its grasp, but whoever said that was a bad thing? Lenard is iconic as Sarek and “Miss Jane Wyatt” is a bit of a treat as Amanda.

The dissection of Vulcan culture is utterly fascinating. Amok Time was exciting because it showed us a side of them we’d never considered. This episode is exciting because it shows us aspects of their culture which we already knew about but it explores consequences of that culture which we’d never considered. At one point, Kirk mentally rounds up the usual suspects –  Vulcans, Romulans, Klingons… the Star Trek galaxy begins to have more and more familiar faces and species. Kirk is beaten up so significantly, he offers to temporarily relinquish command, even as Spock refuses to abandon his post in order to save his father’s life. Keep watching, as Kirk’s command of the Enterprise will be called into a question a lot in this batch of episodes.

The unidentified alien following the ship becomes a murder mystery plot which in turn gives way to a medical emergency/family sacrifice story and the combination is a little muddled, but the components are all first class. Even if Shirtner gets his shat off again (strike that, reverse it) for no good reason.

TOS S02E11 Friday’s Child. () is a relentlessly silly runaround with poorly-matching studio sets and location work at Vasquez Rocks. More diplomacy. More Klingons. Tige Andrews doesn’t look much like the Klingons we’ve seen before (or since). They’re portrayed as much more cunning and charming than they will be later. More redshirts get mown down too. Bones says to Kirk at one point “I know what it means to you to lose a crewman.” After this many deaths, he should know.

Main guest star is Julie Newmar, who does much to class up the joint, but the whole plot turns on the fact that the red-shirts are dumb-dumbs and that Kirk refused to do his homework before beaming down. Thank heavens for Scotty, who at least still knows how to Captain a starship.

TOS S02E12 The Deadly Years () features heavily in the book about the making of Star Trek which I devoured as a boy, going into great detail about how the makeup was done, so the surprise for me was seeing geriatric actors as the colonists/scientists/ambassadors/whatever on the planet of dreadful ageing. This is a great science-fiction concept of course – recently repurposed by M Night Shyamalan for his diverting movie Old.

I was briefly surprised to see Kirk treating a woman on board as a subject matter expert and not as tottie, but in moments it turns out that she’s an old flame because of course she is. The initial effects on the crew are delightful subtle. Kirk has a moment of forgetfulness. I think I can see a little grey at McCoy’s temples. But our team are a bit slow on the uptake – until a virtually decrepit Scotty walks into sickbay.

Somehow Shatner manages to look more fit and healthy today at ninety than he does under the final stage of his old age make-up here. Whether he’s wearing a thinning hairpiece over his regular toupee or not I could not say. It’s lucky that Kirk’s natural aging doesn’t make him this forgetful this quickly or The Undiscovered Country might have gone very differently.

The science fiction aging-to-death stuff is all great, there’s some lovely Spock and McCoy stuff as age increases their foibles – there’s even some good material for Chekov. Kirk’s dalliance with his old flame is of scant interest, however. The trouble is that the “affliction” is so grave that a full and hard hitting of the reset button cannot be too far away. Making the story more about Kirk’s competency helps to distract us, but it’s an in-built flaw of the premise – thus the young Lieutenant who keels over with unseemly haste to raise the stakes. And the result is that when they should be racing to solve the problem, our team is sitting around a conference room, reviewing the events of earlier scenes. Then when the reset button is hit, Kirk rebounds to full strength like an overstretched bungy cord, ricocheting around the bridge, hammering out his Corbomite bluff once more. Consequences are for losers.

TOS S02E13 Obsession () is Star Trek’s first go at Moby Dick, but not the last. Kirk confronts an alien cloud he failed to defeat on his first mission and his judgement is clouded as a result. This is another episode with a very high redshirt bodycount and Kirk keeps putting these young men in harm’s way, which makes his chewing out of the poor boob who froze when confronted with the menace even less acceptable.

Kirk is considered possibly unfit for command for the third time in as many episodes, with some dialogue near identical to last week. This is fairly clearly the superior version, rooted in character and not a space virus, but it is so much less impactful due to the broadcast order of the episodes. The resolution, when it comes, is tense and well-handled (although the outcome is hardly in much doubt) and the episode is well-paced with good character stuff. Although I was somewhat surprised to see Spock going to give the pep talk to Lt Frozeup? They give this job to Spock? Spock??

Stray observations

• We’re past the half-way point of TOS now and the strain is starting to tell. There a couple of famously fantastic episodes to come – but there’s also Spock’s Brain.
• If you’re ever tempted to show someone an episode of Star Trek who’s never seen it before, I can’t recommend not showing them Catspaw or I, Mudd highly enough (no I did not make that mistake).
• The average score so far for Season Two is quite a lot lower than Season One, hovering around 3.1 out of five. Can the back 13 redeem the season?

TOS S02E01 Amok Time () is another one where I know the James Blish version very well, but what Blish’s lucid prose can’t convey is the depth and detail of Leonard Nimoy’s acting. In the middle, on board the ship, fighting with the raging torrent within him, it’s just incredible, and luckily The Shat is nowhere to be seen this week. It’s a testament to the confidence of the series, that even after five months off the air, they trust that the audience knows the characters well enough that Spock refusing to eat his soup is a big enough climax to send us into the opening titles (which now include McCoy as well as Kirk and Spock).

Making his debut, with a gorgeous close-up, is Chekov, who’s made to seem like another member of the crew who’s just always been there (and who sits next to Sulu, which I believe is a rarity – normally episodes use one or the other).

The Kirk/Spock fight reminds me of something I saw about the making of Generations, where one of the writers (Ron Moore?) observed that their original vision for the poster was the two Enterprises firing on each other. But in the writing, they couldn’t figure out how to bring this about without one or other captain coming off like an asshole. Here, it’s Kirk vs Spock to the death and the plotting is seamlessly, ahem, logical. Even the ending makes sense, although you have to wonder what the therapeutic value is of whatever McCoy injected Kirk with. On the Blu-ray version, the hypo is very clearly non-functional, barely even touching Kirk’s uniform.

A blazing start to the second season and an all-time great episode. Spock’s delighted cry of “Jim!” when he sees Kirk alive is enough to make a grown man weep.

TOS S02E02 Who Mourns for Adonais () begins with three men sharking after one mini-skirted lieutenant who they ruefully surmise will quit the service when she finds a man. When she transports down, she’s magicked into one of Bill Theiss’s abdomen-and-shoulder-baring (but navel-concealing) silky gowns (which she proclaims to be beautiful) and immediately falls for the good-looking bad-guy. DC Fontana should hand in her feminist card.

In the latest (but not the last) iteration of Roddenberry’s go-to plot “the Enterprise meets God”, a glowing green hand looms in front of the ship and holds her in place. Very quickly, the Hulk hand is replaced by an NPR-sounding dude on the view screen who tells the crew that their long wait has ended. Chekov gets to join the landing party – on a sound stage rather than on location. And of course, this is another version of the trapped-in-paradise dilemma which goes all the way back to The Cage.

I love how flexible this series is (as I’ve said before) and I love seeing it go for broke. There’s certainly some fun to be had in the story trying to be a glorious fantasy riff on Greek mythology, while Kirk continues to insist that he’s in a science-fiction adventure drama, but this is all far too ridiculous for its own good and there are no saving graces in the character interactions – indefatigable Scotty is rendered here as a whining hormonal teenager. And here comes The Shat: “What if he… is… really… Apollo?” Like Gordon Ramsay, he appears to be able to stress every single word in a given line, which is arguably a talent, but is also a gift to impressionists.

With Chekov and Sulu both present, we have a complete set of seven in this episode (although Spock doesn’t get much, by his standards). Only Nurse Chapel fails to report for duty. Compared to Season One, this feels a lot more like – look it’s our regular family who you see every week (as opposed to – hey, haven’t we seen him before?).

TOS S02E03 The Changeling (). Right, stop me if you’ve heard this one. A hugely powerful alien cloud is approaching and destroying everything in its path. It treats the Enterprise as a valuable commodity and the humans on board as “units” which “infest it”. Kirk and Spock discover that it was an Earth probe sent out in the long distant past, but contact with an alien race has given it prodigious destructive powers. After some tense negotiating with its “creator”, the threat it presents is neutralised.

So, there’s no Decker and Ilia here, and the whole thing is wrapped up in 45 minutes, but despite all the Phase Two scripts knocking around, the Nomad probe from this episode is essentially recreated as Veejur for The Motion Picture a dozen or so years later. As far as the 1968 incarnation is concerned, Nomad is a mighty threat (and an implacable one) which manages to be a bit more interesting than the standard-issue quixotic alien being with god-like powers. But at the end, Kirk talks it to death which is a bit ho-hum (although his logic is nifty).

Building up a regular “family” of bridge crew has benefits and drawbacks. On the one hand, when Scotty is whammied (“he’s dead, Jim”) it counts for more than when a nameless red-shirt is offed. But it’s also hard to believe that he’s going to stay that way. Same goes for Uhura’s memory-wipe which is barely reset at the end of the episode. And note that Nomad’s assessment of her – “Its thinking is chaotic, a mass of conflicting impulses” – is put down to her being a woman. Sigh.

Speaking of nameless redshirts, four get offed here and are never referred to again – the credits roll as Kirk trades gags about being Nomad’s daddy with his senior officers. Ho ho ho.

TOS S02E04 Mirror, Mirror () begins in media res on the planet Purple Cyclorama with Kirk indulging in a little friendly diplomacy during an electrical storm. Lo! After beaming back to the ship, Kirk, Scotty, Bones and Uhura find themselves in a goatee universe of wrong ’uns.

Much has been written over the years about NBC’s Standards & Practices which oversaw everything which Roddenberry and co attempted to put on the air. Among their forbidden fruit was the infamous “open-mouthed kiss”, the depiction of hypnosis on camera (lest the audience be hypnotised in their living rooms) and a general dislike of violence and brutality (while of course, including as much “action” as possible). They were also squeamish about women’s belly buttons and so legend has it that once freed of this odd restriction (which required costume designer Bill Theiss to add little extra patches over women’s abdomens) Roddenberry showed them off wherever and whenever he could – notably on Denise Crosby in The Naked Now. However, this is one of those stories about Star Trek which can only be disproved by taking the extraordinary measure of watching Star Trek because – among other examples – here’s the shocking sight of Nichelle Nichols’ comely navel, on full naked display in scene-after-scene.

We’re in a parallel universe of course, where (despite all logic) every familiar detail is present, save for a handful of specific difference – which specific differences never amount to a wider divergence no matter how much time elapses. Quibbling aside, this is great fun and the mirror universe proved to be a wonderful playground for storytelling. Seeing our familiar characters as malevolent versions of themselves and/or pretending to be malevolent versions of themselves is hugely enjoyable. Evil Spock is a particular pleasure, but it’s also great to see George Takei and Walter Koenig flex their acting muscles a little.

Watching softie Kirk negotiate with Fascist Spock is great fun, so it’s shame that the situation is largely resolved with fisticuffs and not with an appeal to logic, decency or even curiosity. McCoy insisting on treating the injured Vulcan is a nice touch, and so is Sulu’s final move. The ending is deliciously open-ended too.

TOS S02E05 The Apple () gives us another paradise planet and another alien plant poofing spores into the face of a nameless red shirt, this time with fatal consequences (and in the studio instead of on location). This trope of offing anonymous crew members, which you might imagine to be the stuff of legend, is 100% real. Scotty and Kirk spend a moment regretting the loss and then start bantering away about whether or not the ship’s engineer will get any shore leave. You can either bump off crew members to raise the stakes and make the threat seem real and present – or you can retain a light tone of jolly japes, but you can’t do both. Kirk’s bitter speech of recrimination helps a little, but only a little.

It’s Chekov’s turn to crack on to the mini-skirted yeoman who beams down with the rest of the landing party. You can bet she a) lives to the end of the episode and b) we never see her again. Spock is the next to be struck down (and note that he gets tended to by McCoy with despatch). The repeated refrain of Star Fleet’s monetary investment in the crew returns, with Spock able to give a precise figure (although he’s cut off by Kirk before he gets to the units).

When our first inhabitant turns up, things take a definite turn for the silly. This is a crude and patronising depiction of a primitive tribe, who say things like “What is love?” and who look fairly ridiculous. “Nothing makes sense down here,” muses Kirk and I know what he means. The rest of the episode is basically vamping until Scotty nukes the planet from orbit. The fate of the “natives” is paid lip-service but never really addressed. This dreadful mess has been my least favourite episode so far. Even the nonsensical The Alternative Factor didn’t irritate me like this one did.

TOS S02E06 The Doomsday Machine () features a white blonde lady sitting in Uhura’s chair throughout the episode, for reasons I haven’t been able to determine. Not for the first time, the Enterprise arrives at a planet and discovers it’s no longer there – which still manages to amaze Kirk. A certain “Matt Decker” is in command of the USS Constellation, which we find adrift in space and so it’s our first time beaming our crew on to another Star Fleet ship – which looks an awful lot like the Enterprise – and Commodore Decker turns out to be the only survivor.

There’s some lovely lighting on board the wrecked Constellation which does much to disguise the reused sets and a lovely committed performance from William Windom. Whether Stephen Collins is playing his son is never made clear in The Motion Picture, but it’s certainly possible. Conceived as a cheapie episode, this is hugely high stakes adventure story, told with great vigour and energy. “There is no third planet.” “Don’t you think I know that!?”

Compared to Nomad a couple of episodes ago, this thing can’t be reasoned with which makes it a greater, even more implacable foe, but a less philosophically interesting one. Instead, the drama comes from the unhinged Commodore Decker attempting to take control of the Enterprise while Kirk is stranded on the crippled Constellation. Internal battles for the command of a vessel are a staple of naval dramas of all kinds and one to which versions of this show will return in future, but it’s the first time we’ve seen it here and it works gangbusters.

Scotty has just earned his pay for the week by charging up one phaser bank on the QT and the transporter effect this week is blue instead of yellow.

Thoughts and observations

• As we approach the mid-way point of TOS (The Doomsday Machine is episode 35 out of 79) the cracks are beginning to show a little. The series is still capable of superb highs, but the lows are getting lower and the tropes are getting tropier.
• Behind the scenes, things are getting tougher too. The cast got pay-rises but Desliu cut the budget which meant less money up on the screen every week.
• Looking ahead, there’s only one truly famous episode yet (albeit, one of the show’s most celebrated instalments of all time). Can the rest of Season Two keep up the quality of Season One?

TOS S01E27 The Alternative Factor () Baffling and repetitive, this muddled entry suggests that there was little gas left in the tank (although it was 20th in the production order) as much time is spent running around, achieving little. The first real dud of the season, this is borderline nonsensical with Kirk blithely letting a dangerous lunatic roam around the ship, getting himself trapped in an alternate universe, not trusting McCoy and generally making matters worse wherever he can. It’s hard to know what’s less convincing, the overlaid shots of a nebula to suggest a rip in space and time, or Robert Brown’s disappearing/reappearing facial hair. Dilithium crystals (not just lithium) are at the heart of the Enterprise.

TOS S01E28 The City on the Edge of Forever () We join the ship in the midst of a crisis. Sulu’s own console turns on him, and in the midst of the action, McCoy mistakenly gives himself a shot of a tricky drug and goes berserk. It’s one of the most action-packed teasers of the whole first season – and has almost nothing to do with what makes the episode itself so well-remembered.

This is another one I know very well, but I know the shape of the story more than I remember any of the details. There’s some lovely lighting on the planet set – and Uhura gets to join the landing party, so we have another full set of Top Trumps this episode. When the landing party stumbles across a magical talking do-over door, this seems to be the way to save McCoy. But McCoy flings himself through and undoes the present. Kirk and Spock decide (during a commercial break) to go through and stop him.

The existential terror of the results of McCoy’s actions and the desperate measures which the crew must take give way to some Voyage Home-style shenanigans in Depression-era New York, with some lovely comic timing from Shatner and Nimoy. It’s a testament to the quality of the writing and the comfort of the actors that these tonal shifts don’t jar. And then – bang! – there’s Joan Collins just being fabulous all over everything, purring “A lie is a very poor way to say hello.” She’s sensational and her psychological evaluation of Kirk and Spock is captivating.

After a lot of episodes in which Kirk has let his libido do the talking and the men on board ship have been reduced to imbeciles by the sight of an attractive woman, we get out first honest-to-goodness love story. Kirk and Edith Keeler are a perfect match, but almost as soon as they start getting to know each other, we (and Spock) now how this must end. McCoy saved Edith’s life and to get back everything he knows, Kirk will have to watch her die. It’s gut-wrenching stuff. And if that isn’t good enough for you, McCoy says “I’m a surgeon not a psychiatrist.”

About the only thing wrong with this episode is the name – a relic from Harlan Ellison’s first draft, subsequent revisions by Fontana, Coon and Roddenberry rendered it meaningless.

TOS S01E29 Operation – Annihilate! () The duh-duh-duh revelation at the end of the teaser is that Kirk has a brother (but not for long). I have crystal clear memories of the crew exploring that location and phasering those parasites, presumably from watching this episode on BBC2, but it isn’t one of the greats. Space madness is a bit ho-hum after various earlier episodes going over the same ground and it’s hard to be too invested in Spock falling victim after everything else we’ve seen him go through. Nurse Chapel is back (with a new wig).

Once again, nothing gets past Scotty, but the rest of the crew seem to be suffering from fatigue (well, it is the end of the season) as they really aren’t thinking things through properly. No attempt is made to give Spock any protective eye-wear, they couldn’t wait five minutes for the test results to come through, Spock himself seems unaware of how his own biology functions, and Kirk’s nephew is placed in mortal danger and then never referred to again.

That having been said, this is decent stuff with good location work, and the cast are as good as ever. It just doesn’t have the power and energy of the very best of this year’s episodes.

Season One observations

• My decision to explore classic Trek was an excellent one and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed almost all of these. The best have been better than I ever expected and the duff ones were very thin on the ground.
• It’s noteworthy that the pitch – exploring the unknown – gradually gives way to the Enterprise mainly floating around Federation space. It also becomes an instrument of the state which when it does find new worlds and new civilisations, aims to impose its values on them. This approach has benefits and drawbacks, as will become clear over subsequent decades.
• I guess I shouldn’t be, being so familiar with the movies, but I’m very struck by the fact that this is the Kirk and Spock show – and in that order. Whole episodes go by without Sulu, Scotty, Uhura or sometimes even McCoy. The relationship between captain and first officer is wonderfully detailed and fascinating. Why did no-one want to explore any of the supporting cast in anything like the same depth?
• Average star rating for Season 1 was 3.75. Best episodes: Balance of Terror, Space Seed, This Side of Paradise, The Devil in the Dark, The City on the Edge of Forever. Worst episodes: What Are Little Girls Made Of?, The Conscience of the King, The Alternative Factor.
• Right, everybody get some rest, recharge your batteries, and then sharpen your pencils and start coming up with ideas for Season Two.

TOS S01E22: Space Seed () is not one I remember watching, but I know all about it because of course it gave rise to The Wrath of Khan. Unfamiliar with Trek, incoming producer Harve Bennett sat down and watched the whole of The Original Series and immediately saw the potential for a rematch with Khan, who in both his appearances is an absolutely exceptional villain. 23rd century Star Fleet officers may have evolved beyond petty grievances but you can’t say the same for a survivor of the Eugenics Wars of the… (checks notes) 1990s?

This is also I think the first true appearance of The Shat. I’ve been impressed by William Shatner’s performances so far and his often-imitated vocal tics have been largely absent. But opposite Montalban’s scenery-chewing, sensitive Canadian actor William Shatner fades away and his evil doppelganger The Shat emerges, who will act you off the screen given half the chance.

In a neat reversal of the usual Benny Hill style capers in the face of a beautiful woman on the Enterprise, here it’s Madlyn Rhue as Lt McGivers who goes goo-goo eyes over Khan. His relentless negging and then near-raping of her is some this episode’s strongest and most disturbing stuff. Her torn loyalties are fascinating and it’s a shame that she too wasn’t brought back for the movie.

The ending is perfection as well – a thrilling race against time, followed by a selfless act of clemency on the part of the Captain (with no chance of anything going wrong). Well played everybody. I say everybody. Uhura is present but largely mute until captured by Khan. No Sulu in sight (and of course, no Chekov).

TOS S01E23: A Taste of Armageddon. () Having tackled organised religion, Trek now sets its sights on mutually assured destruction. Of course the Captain isn’t going to willingly march into a disintegration chamber for the sake of diplomacy, but nor does he even consider leaving them to their antiseptic war games which aren’t harming anyone else (whither the Prime Directive?). Picard would be wringing his hands far more.

My favourite part of this episode is the way that Scotty is able to see through every deception which Anan 7 tries. He’s indomitable, a magnificently immovable object against which both Ambassador Fox and Eminian’s futilely batter themselves. I love seeing our characters at their very best.

The flip side of this is that we are introduced to The Patrician Federation who knows far better than the inhabitants of the planets they visit what is best for them, and can solve in a few hours problems which they have been wrestling with for years, or in this case centuries. And there’s more 1960s anti-computer sentiment here which has dated badly. I do like that the stuffy ambassador, who is wrong about everything, is given the chance to redeem himself rather than being humiliated and mocked.

Some of the plotting here is fuzzy. The Eminians have orders to fire as soon as the “screens” are lowered. But the ambassador beams down and the ship isn’t destroyed. And is General Order 24 a real thing? Or was this a codified bluff? Some sort of pre-medicated Corbomite Maneuver? I’d like to think the latter but it isn’t made clear.

TOS S01E24: This Side of Paradise () at first seems like a re-hash of The Naked Time, with a hint of Return of the Archons and a bit of The Cage. But if that’s true, then it outstrips all of them with its fascinating exploration of Spock, its hugely complex problem to solve and the deep relationship stuff between the two leads which resolves the plot. About the only thing which lets it down at all is Jill Ireland as Spock’s girlfriend – she’s a bit stiff and bland compared to McGivers or Mea 3.

Having Spock smile and laugh is wonderfully transgressive, but also a risk. In clumsy hands this could have been pointless and stupid (like all those avaricious producers who wanted Harpo Marx to speak or Buster Keaton to smile). But this script and Nimoy’s sensitive playing make it work brilliantly. It’s genuinely shocking to see him smile and laugh and kiss. Sulu, alas gets less to work with.

When Spock is whammied, it knocks out one of the legs of the command stool so it’s also shocking to see the same plants detonate in the faces of Kirk and Sulu. But Kirk suffers no ill-effects (unlike McCoy who is affected off-screen and who begins happily transporting plants aboard the Enterprise). The sight of Kirk alone on the bridge (and alone on the ship) is very striking and a wonderfully insoluable problem for him. If he beams down, how can anyone get back to the ship with nobody to operate the transporter? If he doesn’t, he’s powerless to solve the problem. But The Shat’s overlong pauses are starting to creep in “I don’t know what I can offer against… …. … paradise!”

The solution, when it comes, is tremendous. Kirk has to make Spock angry, so the resolution doesn’t depend on technobabble but on character, and wildly transgressive character at that. The flicker of sadness across Spock’s face when he becomes himself again is deeply affecting. Nimoy is fantastic in this scene (and throughout). We also learn that Mr Spock’s first name is unpronounceable. I just wish that the inescapable pathogen infecting everyone on board the ship wasn’t deriving from somewhere called “Omicron”.

TOS S01E25: The Devil in the Dark () Unusually, we start on the alien planet before the Enterprise’s arrival (in the Doctor Who mode) and this mine has very smooth floors. “The Federation” is now referred to with no further explanation and is in desperate need of Unobtanium, adding to the already high stakes. (Death by chemical corrosion is simultaneously very nasty and family-friendly.)

Those high stakes are provided by an undetectable monster (Spock’s notion that it is silicon-based seems to drop out of the air) which sadly, when revealed turns out to be light years beyond what the budget of the show is capable of. But the plotting and the character work absolutely sings. Kirk is clear that killing the creature is the duty of every crew member. Spock attempts to subtly undermine him and suggest that if they could capture it alive, that would save having to exterminate the last member of a species. Kirk is forced to privately admonish him.

Moments later, Spock believes Kirk to have been caught in a rock fall and cries “Jim!” in near panic. When he realises Kirk and the monster are face-to-face, Spock urges Kirk to fire his phaser. Love for his friend overwhelms any scientific curiosity or moral qualms. And brilliantly, the Horta is a mother protecting her eggs, which the miners have been thoughtlessly destroying. This is absolutely magnificent stuff on every level. McCoy even gets to say “I’m a doctor, not a bricklayer”.

TOS S01E26: Errand of Mercy () can’t quite maintain the sky-high standards of the last few episodes. I think it is probably the last piece of the TOS puzzle, though. We meet the Klingons for the first time, the United Federation of Planets needs no further explanation and, sadly, The Shat is out in force.

After his open-hearted sparing of the Horta last week, this episode gives us Kirk as ruthless pragmatist (“I’m a soldier, not a diplomat”) opposing the pacifist Organians, whose attitude to violence goes mysteriously unquestioned by Kirk and Spock in order to prolong the episode.

Kirk makes all sorts of offers to the council to share Federation technology with them – again, whither the Prime Directive? But while it’s somewhat of a pleasure to see the sanctimonious Federation be taught a lesson, the cost is that Kirk and Spock come off like chumps, unable to see that the Organians are clearly vastly more powerful than they at first seem.

In the plus column, here’s John Colicos as the world’s first Klingon, a superbly villainous performance from behind some suitably Fu Manchu facial hair. Despite all the contortions that the series will later go through, it’s fairly easy to imagine that Kor and Worf are members of the same alien race.

The Klingon occupation is a riff on the Nazis, although the Klingons will later be re-thought as Samurai, obsessed with honour. Spock is referred to as “Vulcanian” yet again, although later Kor tells him, “All right, Vulcan, you may go.” I also note that money is still a thing in the 23rd century as a great deal of it has been invested in Kirk’s training.

At the end of the episode, the Organians tell Kirk that in the future humans and Klingons will work together. How right they were.

TOS S01E15 Shore Leave () opens with a Kirk and Spock-less landing party having been despatched, as well as a replacement for Janice Rand making her lithe presence known on the bridge. We’re on location again as everybody needs a rest (as well they might if the preceding 14 episodes are at all typical of life on board the Enterprise). Helmsman Sulu turns out to be a botanist. And McCoy’s right – this planet is like something out of Alice in Wonderland – exactly like!

I continue to be astonished at the nimbleness and flexibility of this series. A week after the intense Das Boot-like tactical claustrophobia of Balance of Terror we get white rabbit costumes and Lewis Carroll allusions. Again, rather than further exploring the characters of Scotty or Uhura, we spend time with two new young officers (who get menaced by a tiger) plus Yeoman Sexypants. Sulu is present and swaps his fencing foil for an antique revolver before beginning some enthusiastic target practice. So, this is basically The Naked Time Part II, plus bits of The Cage, but on location and with a wider streak of surrealism, and it’s striking how much more confident the show is now, with some lovely flourishes in the direction.

Once more, the gender politics lets the side down. Kirk gets to spar with an old Academy rival, but Yeoman Once-Only gets menaced by Don Juan and spends half the episode with a torn uniform before changing into a princess frock as McCoy leers over her before getting run through by a jousting knight. It’s hard to be too invested in this seemingly fatal injury when we’re on Planet Illusion, and Kirk’s fisticuffs with Finnegan don’t tell us anything new about him. He’s also rather unconcerned about the body count which is a bit of a giveaway that nothing here is real, or at least permanent, and the arrival of a benevolent being with godlike powers to sort out the mess is, even at this early stage, hardly much of a surprise.

TOS S01E16 The Galileo Seven () opens with a rather snazzy overhead shot of the bridge. The transporter having been invented to save on the budget, the Enterprise does now turn out to be equipped with shuttlecraft and one such is launched containing Spock, Scotty, McCoy and a bunch of expendables to investigate a quasar. The shuttle’s immediate distress combined with a baleful passenger on the bridge makes for a very beguiling teaser.

The sight of the shuttle on the planet’s surface is a striking one, and there’s some nice interplay between Spock and McCoy regarding the former’s desire (or not) for a command of his own. Spock’s logical mind may be the only thing which will save (most of) the shuttle team but his dispassionate nature can’t help but alienate the rest of the crew. The Roddenberry who killed dramatic situations in TNG on the basis that there must never be conflict between Star Fleet officers should take some lessons in television scriptwriting from the Roddenberry who oversaw this script.

A neat blend of high jeopardy race-against-time problem-solving and excellent character work, foregrounding Spock over Kirk for the first time (and demonstrating the potential limitations of his logical thinking) contributes to a fine episode which kept me guessing about almost everything. A recent episode of Discovery stranded Tilly on a dangerous planet, struggling to keep a team of trainees alive, which trainees didn’t yet trust her leadership style. It worked just as well there as it did 55 years ago. Sure, the spear-chucking aliens look a bit pony, but I’ve seen Warriors of the Deep and then went to school the next day, I can’t be embarrassed by a poorly-realised monster (or a polystyrene rock for that matter). The happy chortling after an encounter that left three crew dead is a bit harder to accept.

TOS S01E17 The Squire of Gothos () opens with both Kirk and Sulu disappearing into thin air. Nobody seems to think it’s anything to do with the transporter (maybe because it’s a cheaper effect?) and everyone on the bridge is in a panic. Spock has to take over recording the log. We also have our complete set of all six regular cast members given lines within the first few minutes, which is a far rarer occurrence than I would have expected. Mr Spock orders Scotty to start transporting the landing party with “Activate” instead of “Energise”. For the first time the landing party wears dinky oxygen masks until they’ve verified a breathable atmosphere. They’re also equipped with a (useless) laser beacon.

The sight of a gothic castle on an alien world just two weeks after Shore Leave doesn’t quite have as much impact as might have been hoped, but it all looks splendid. Shatner and Takei’s struggle to remain frozen in place reminds me amusingly of Police Squad. But, blah blah blah. This is all about William Campbell as General Trelane (retired) who is frustrating, charming, unpredictable, whimsical and idiotic in equal measure. It’s a lovely performance. What he isn’t is much of a threat which makes this a diversion rather than a classic for the ages. He’s also an old letch, which is no surprise. Given his effective reincarnation as Q, putting humanity on trial in Farpoint, his appearance as a judge in the final act is particularly noteworthy. At the end, he is carted off by his parents, just like Charlie Evans was. Ho hum.

TOS S01E18 Arena (). This almost feels like cheating, but I know this one very well. It was in one of the James Blish books which I read and re-read as a child and the climax is one of those moments that built Star Trek and set it apart from the thick-eared action yarns on offer elsewhere. So this will largely be an exercise in distinguishing memory from reality. In the teaser, I note that Kirk is meeting up with Commodore (Tonker?) Travers, and that the camera pans away from the transporter pads to save an optical shot. In this age of ten minutes elapsing before the opening credits, I adore these punchy opening moments which establish the drama with fabulous economy.

I think this is our first actual red shirt death. Plenty of expendable crew members have beamed down to the planet and barely got out a line of dialogue before meeting their maker, but I don’t believe any of them have worn red shirts. This time, the only member of the landing party in red is vaporized in the first five minutes of Act One. Indeed, while I praise the economy of the teaser, the Gorn and the mano-a-mano battle takes much longer than I remember to show up. The location work looks great though – our first visit to Vasquez Rocks I believe – and there are some suitably thrilling practical explosions going off near Shatner and Nimoy in the opening skirmish. Weirdly, Kirk appears to give helmsman Sulu command of the Enterprise in his absence, but he doesn’t get to sit in the Captain’s chair.

It’s also the first script from Gene L Coon, who will be a vital member of the creative team going forward and it’s the first time the Federation is mentioned (and “Star Fleet Command”). The wider universe of the show starts coming into focus at last – although Kirk does insist that “Out here, we’re the only policeman around,” as he pursues the aliens to enact vengeance for the destruction of the Earth outpost.

This is really three stories in one – adventures in the ruins of the Earthy colony, pursuit of the alien ship, and then the gladiatorial contest – and the progress is largely a smooth one, although it’s the final act which defines the episode. And it’s a marvel: a highly entertaining, well-constructed and thoughtful battle of wits, followed by a tremendously humane final act of defiance from Kirk. It’s also nifty that Spock, watching Star Trek from the bridge, figures out the solution before his Captain, so that we’re willing him to succeed (and Nimoy can articulate Kirk’s thought processes). It loses half a star only because it takes a little longer than is ideal to decide what the story is really about. The Metrons promise a further encounter, but I don’t think it ever happened.

TOS S01E19 Tomorrow Is Yesterday () A highly unusual opening – instead of the Enterprise processing smoothly through space, we see 20th century military craft on the runway. 1967 viewers could be forgiven for thinking that NBC had cued up the wrong tape. But it quickly turns out that the craft buzzing the US Air Force base is our own USS Enterprise – and we also quickly see why creating the transporter was so key to making the weekly production budget work.

The ship’s time travel journey through the black hole is thus presented in voice-over and flashback which is a very efficient (if undramatic) way of getting us into the real story. Following a series of fairly poor command decisions, the crew ends up transporting a fighter pilot on board the ship (who materialises in a standing posture). Shatner introduces himself as “James T Kirk” for the first time and we discover that there are 12 ships such as the Enterprise under the authority of the “United Earth Space Probe Agency” – which I don’t think is ever referred to again. At the end of the episode, Kirk reports in to the more familiar-sounding Star Fleet Control.

This episode was intended to follow on from The Naked Time and as such is the introduction of time travel for both the viewers and the crew. It takes rather too long for Spock to point out the problems inherent in giving Captain Christopher a tour of the bridge. It’s also a pity that he gets put into standard 23rd century uniform so quickly, which means he blends in with the rest of the crew, rather than standing out, as he should. And there’s that dreadful 1960s sexism over everything. Kirk reassures Christopher that the women on board are crew members, but the soundtrack can’t help but pull out a slinky sax line – and the less said about the ship’s annoyingly female computer the better. Genuine People Personalities are best left on the Heart of Gold.

I complained that in another episode or two, scenes took place oddly on the bridge, presumably because there were no other standing sets available. Here, Kirk’s quarters are seen several times. We also fill in some more Earth history. This episode was broadcast in January 1967 (the day before the Apollo 1 disaster) when the moon landing was over two years away, but the crew still confidently states that this happened in the late sixties. And Christopher’s son heads up a mission to Saturn which presumably took place in the eighties or nineties.

This lays the groundwork not for classic stories like City on the Edge of Forever but rather Star Trek IV with the crew having jolly japes on Earth at the time the episode happened to be made. It’s a lovely change of pace for this supremely flexible format and it works very well, a few unfortunate lapses and a slightly too neat ending notwithstanding.

TOS S01E20 Court Martial () The show which can be a thrilling adventure story one week, a goofy comedy the next, and a bizarre fantasy the week after that turns its hand to a courtroom drama. But whereas the show seems effortlessly able to transcend the usual clichés of science fiction, here the tropes of melodrama drag it down into mediocrity. The dead man’s daughter wanting “One last look at the man who killed my father,” is a notable low point. The format of the genre fights a little with the format of the show – court room dramas are designed to centre the lawyer not the defendant. The bureaucracy of the still not clearly named Federation makes its presence felt – Kirk has to fill in paperwork following the off-screen death of a red shirt. God help him if he has to do that after every fatal away mission.

There are some stunning guest stars coming up. Here we get Elisha Cook Jr, probably gunned down by more Hollywood gangsters than any man who ever lived, defending the Captain and doing a very nice job even if he doesn’t trust computers. In a neat twist, an old flame of Kirk’s has the job of prosecuting him. The outcome of the hearing is never in doubt and there are precious few wrinkles in the progress of the case (unless you count Spock describing himself as “Vulcanian”), which makes this diverting rather than essential. No “regular cast” members appear outside Kirk, Spock and McCoy (who contributes very little).

TOS S01E21 The Return of the Archons (). Again, we start in media res and we get another visit to the back lot and it’s fun to see our regular crew in eccentric clothes. Curiously, when Sulu says “two to beam up” the transporter is unable to lock on to his fellow crewmember. Since we’ve seen people transporter who aren’t holding communicators, was this just a cock-up?

The set-up here is fascinating. A genuinely alien society, albeit one heavily influenced by early 20th century Earth. In a way it’s another version of The Cage – imprisoned in paradise is still imprisoned. The explosion of violence and lust at the “Festival” is genuinely shocking and disturbing especially in the context of a very thinly-veiled attack on organised religion (as well as being a trial run for the Borg (absorption is a lot like assimilation). This is also the first mention of the Prime Directive (although I note that Landru’s cult has a prime directive also).

And the stakes are sky high. Sulu being brainwashed is fairly arresting but McCoy being headscrambled is devastating and Kelley plays it brilliantly. Only the ending lets it down in any way at all. Following a classic “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain,” sequence, Kirk argues a computer to death – one of the least satisfactory ways of resolve a Star Trek plot. I suppose I should be grateful Landru’s parents didn’t come and take it away. And overall, the conclusion is somewhat hasty, although it’s nice to hear that they left a sociologist behind to sort out the mess.

TOS S01E09 Dagger of the Mind (). Another day, another intruder on the Enterprise. This time it’s penal colony (more like a resort colony, according to Lock ’em Up Kirk) escapee Simon van Gelder. The Enterprise crew is well practiced now in tracking down intruders who aren’t what they appear to be and so van Gelder is overpowered fairly rapidly – particularly when he marches on to the bridge and announces himself.

Kirk asks McCoy to send a qualified member of the medical staff to accompany him and McCoy despatches one of Kirk’s previous conquests. Hilariously, Kirk reacts as if he didn’t even know she was on board. Compared to many of the sweaty liars we’ve beamed down to meet, Dr Adams is warmly convincing, which helps to keep us guessing. Morgan Woodward constantly looks is if he’s going to dislocate his jaw or pop out an eyeball and is the first human to experience a Vulcan mind meld. Here it is portrayed as nearer to hypnosis than a touch-based psychic connection.

Meanwhile Kirk is undergoing a brainwashing which makes The Manchurian Candidate look like a vague suggestion. He’s remarkably helpless in his captor’s grip – more shades of The Prisoner. Again, TNG would have had the Captain’s brainwashing as a reveal but it works perfectly well when we know what’s happening from the off, trading mystery for dramatic irony. It’s also surprising that Dr Sexy Pout isn’t immediately written out, having concluded her arc (but nor will we ever see her again I suspect). Even the red shirts make it back alive, but Kirk looks genuinely disturbed by what he’s experienced.

TOS S01E10 The Corbomite Maneuver () is a bit of Trek history – the first regular episode to be filmed after the two pilots (but as you can see, transmitted tenth). A few things are a bit wobbly. Neither Nimoy’s hair nor makeup are quite right (but no fluffy eyebrows), Uhura is in gold, McCoy looks like he hasn’t shaved and it’s a Kirk-less teaser which is highly unusual (not even a Captain’s log). It’s also one of those episodes of which I have no memory whatsoever.

McCoy asks “What am I – a doctor or a moon shuttle conductor?” which is one of the more absurdist variations on this theme. Spock thinks that adrenal glands sound inconvenient and ponders whether they could be removed. This is used to burn poor Mister Bailey who is roasted by Kirk moments later and pretty soon is given a dressing-down around the conference table (where a mute Uhura is included under the term “gentlemen”).

There’s some striking camerawork here – a big crane move at the beginning and some handheld shots when Kirk enters the bridge. They know that we’re going to be on this same set a lot this week and they’re determined to shoot it as flashily as they can. The lighting is nuts here as well (in a good way).

Compared to some of the more exotic menaces the crew has been up against recently, this colourful space cube doesn’t seem all that exciting, but its implacable omnipresence become increasingly arresting as the story unfolds. Interesting too that Kirk waits and waits and waits before opening fire on the thing – desperate to avoid destroying it before he’s solved the mystery. A far cry from the shoot first, ask questions later gunslinger which he’s sometimes portrayed as when comparing him to Picard. He repeatedly emphasises the importance of preserving life – all life – to his crew. And this episode is an interesting study in tactics, leadership and personnel management. Should Kirk be pushing Bailey harder and harder, or cutting him some slack so as not to burn him out?

Kirk and McCoy’s relationship is solid right from the off, but Kirk’s attitude to Yeoman Rand betrays the shuffling of episodes – she’s presented here as new in the role, but we’ve seen her and Kirk go through a lot together, particularly in Miri. Don’t get too comfy Janice…

We’re apparently on board the “United Earth Ship” Enterprise and the enemy appears to inhabit “a planet of the first federation”. Eventually, it turns out that the geometric solids are the work of – ho hum – a childlike alien with god-level powers. All right, at this stage, it’s still a pretty nifty reveal. As with The Cage, a disorienting effect is created by having one performer on camera and another behind the mic. On camera is Ron Howard’s little brother Clint. The initial vision of Balok is one of those indelible Star Trek images, a Mekon-like blue head issuing dire threats from the view screen.

This episode forms a well-spring of ideas that will be returned to again, and again, especially when Roddenberry has his way. The probing of the Enterprise by Balok feels a lot like Star Trek The Motion Picture, the sense of hopelessness recalls early encounters with the Borg, and the there’s a clear line connecting Balok to Q (via the Squire of Gothos and various others). The ship is caught by a tractor beam, which I believe is another one of those things which we imagine was always part of science-fiction storytelling but which was in fact invented out of whole cloth by Star Trek writers.

What makes this episode sing, as usual with TOS at its best, is the interplay of the characters. Kirk, Spock and McCoy all take different approaches to Bailey, ship operations and the threat of Balok, but mutual respect is at the heart of their interactions. The desperate improvisation which Kirk engages in is uniquely his, however, and a brilliant piece of scriptwriting. This may also be the first mention of poker in the series, which becomes a big feature of TNG in years to come.

For a series that only got on the air by promising action and adventure, the warmly optimistic ending is revelatory – closure for poor old Bailey, for Kirk and we hope for Balok. This has got it all.

TOS S01E11 The Menagerie Part I (). Our first glimpse of a bigger organisation behind the Enterprise starts here. Spock claims to have orders from Star Fleet, we’re on Star Base XI, there’s a commodore waiting to see the Captain – even though “Space” sent no message summoning them. Nor did rangy, angular Captain Pike who is now a mute version of Davros – 23rd century space science lags behind what Stephen Hawking got in the 1980s. Spock having served with him – for eleven years! – also begins to add richness to the backstory, not just of these characters but to the “world” of Star Trek.

This of course is the emergency manoeuvre which enabled the writing team to create two episodes of Trek out of about two-thirds of an episode’s worth of scripting and filming. So we get an episode of Star Trek in which our regular characters sit around and watch an episode of Star Trek, in which episode a bunch of aliens sit around and watch an episode of Star Trek. It doesn’t play quite as meta as that sounds. It does however require some production-created continuity issues to be hastily swept under the carpet, and not for the last time – you try asking Worf about TOS-era Klingons.

It takes a while for the pilot episode to get on-screen – longer than I remembered (this is one I definitely saw on BBC2 in the 1980s). To begin with this is fairly standard Trek intrigue, albeit with a fascinatingly duplicitous Spock at its centre. Part I is half over before the hearing starts and Spock begins showing the old footage, everyone having put on their dress uniforms, all Christmassy gold braid and colourful insignias.

For some stupid reason (possibly to do with managing clearances for the use of the old footage) the voice actor for the Talosians is in the framing story is Commodore Mendez, which required further treatment on the Talosian voices to conceal the doubling-up. He also has to remind Spock that he in a “court of space law” which is a pretty dreadful line.

How much you enjoy this episode depends greatly on what you think of The Cage. The framing story grinds to a halt once Spock starts his home movie show, so if you’re in the “Star Trek’s original pilot was a misunderstood work of genius” camp you may love this, but if, like me, you think that the original pilot got a lot of things wrong and they needed another go, then seeing those mistakes all over again isn’t terribly interesting. Under the extraordinary circumstances though, this works well enough to fill two weeks and avoid NBC having to show fifty minutes of test card.

TOS S01E12 The Menagerie Part II (). Part II is almost all The Cage so I don’t have a lot more to add. Although watching Kirk be compassionate, thoughtful and measured week after week (if often highly libidinous) makes the more aggressive Pike seem even less suitable to be the lead of this show. Even the Talosians make fun of his pugilistic instincts and he escapes captivity mainly because of his restless human nature, not because of any stratagem or insight specific to him.

The resolution of the framing plot when it finally comes is neat enough and just about makes sense of Spock’s insane-seeming actions (as well as giving the Talosians a happier ending than they got in The Cage) so it’s unlikely first-time viewers would be too frustrated. The death penalty for visiting (or even talking about) Talos IV is a bit hard to swallow, but Shatner and Nimoy are as committed as ever and pretty much make me believe it. More egregious clip shows will follow (or at least one will) meanwhile this should be celebrated primarily for keeping the show on the air in any form at all.

TOS S01E13 The Conscience of the King (). By now the series is devoted to demonstrating that it can do anything, tell stories in any genre. This is essentially a murder mystery in space with a dose of Shakespeare for added class (nice to see that arts subsidies are still going strong). Talk of a new synthetic food which would end famine is odd given we’ve already had talk of replicated meatloaf. Plastic surgery seems to have made little progress in 250-odd years too, as Tom Leighton is forced to wear a Phantom of the Opera-style half mask to conceal his disfigurement. And genetic fingerprinting (or even regular fingerprinting) appears not to exist in this world either.

William Shatner wears Kirk like a glove by now. The leer he gives the chief suspect’s 19-year-old daughter on first seeing her is simultaneously delightful and grim. Sexual politics is the big blind spot of this series. Talk of Shatner’s absurd acting style is greatly exaggerated. Talk of Kirk’s demented libido is not, but we haven’t really had anything like a love story since The Man Trap and that was with McCoy. It’s all just been teenage ogling so far. When Kirk strands her acting troupe on the planet, Lenore negotiates for a lift on the actual Enterprise bridge, which looks like flagrant cost-cutting – surely they had a Captain’s ready room set still standing?

Although Kirk seems to be thinking with his groin, his actual agenda is to try and unmask an infamous mass-murderer. So why does he never take Spock into his confidence? Is it revenge for Spock pulling a similar trick on Kirk last time? I also think that’s Majel Barrett as the computer – for the first time? And speaking of familiar faces, Lt MacIrish from The Naked Time is back.

I appreciate the shift in tone, but this feels like a hangover from a more exciting story we only get to hear about. We also don’t get enough face-time with the supposed villain, and the plot relies on characters wilfully concealing information from trusted friends and colleagues and suffering hysterical blindness on occasion. A Columbo-style trap which definitively exposed the truth would have added considerably, but as it is, Kirk just keeps putting himself in harm’s way until everyone confesses. No sign of Sulu or Scotty, but Uhura continues her song writing career in the rec room.

TOS S01E14 Balance of Terror () opens with Kirk having to split his time between investigating Earth outposts and officiating an onboard wedding – the old softie. The Neutral Zone (between planets Romulus and Remus) makes its first appearance as do the Romulans. Unlike many aspects of the series – phasers, transporters, Vulcans, communicators, much else besides – the appearance and culture of the Romulans is unknown to the crew as well as to the viewer. The backstory needed to set up both the existence of a treaty and the cultural amnesia about Earth’s long-ago foes stretches credulity a bit (22nd century spaceships didn’t have Zoom, nobody took any prisoners) but the human drama works wonderfully well. Kirk again is compassionate, thoughtful, telling a crewman that this was not his war despite his family history (compare this to Kirk’s “Let them die” regarding the Klingons in Star Trek VI). Kirk reports back to “our nearest command base”.

Romulan ships are said to look like birds of prey and have cloaking technology. Later episodes will tend to overlap Klingon and Romulan technology and terminology for reasons I’m not sure are deliberate. But the big overlap here is between Romulan and Vulcan physiognomy which is an amazing way of ramping up the internal tensions between the crew.

In fact, compared to last week’s rather relaxed encounter, the tension throughout this story is incredible. It’s a shame that the Romulan war backstory is given to an interchangeable right hand console crew member rather than be used to flesh out one of our regulars, but that does give them more leeway to put narrow-minded views in the mouth of that character – which dissenting views Kirk calmly solicits in order that his conference table receives a full range of options. And of course, that’s Mark Leonard as the Romulan commander – later to be immortalised as Sarek, father of Spock. The mutual respect between the two ship’s captains is fascinating.

Much of the Romulan iconography established here would survive to TNG and beyond, save for the bird-like helmets worn by junior officers, which resemble Flash Gordon more than anything else. The glimpses of life on board the Romulan vessel are fascinating too – there are two sides to this story as well as this conflict. And in the debate which Kirk moderates, it’s Spock who offers the logical reasons for striking first – to McCoy’s horror. In a fascinating reprise of the Pike/Boyce “I’m tired” scene from The Cage, Kirk and Bones have a heart-to-heart before the final battle. Coming half-way through the first season, it means so much more. And that final battle isn’t without cost, it transpires.

Uhura takes over the navigator’s station at one point, but all she gets to say is “hailing frequencies open, Captain.” And thanks for your service, Yeoman Rand. We’ll see you in The Motion Picture.

Key observations

• This is where the series starts spreading its wings. It can be a conspiracy thriller one week, a murder mystery the next, tackle hard SF themes, even do broad comedy. What it isn’t doing is making much use of the regular cast – this is the Jim Kirk show, with able support from Spock and McCoy. All the other “regulars” drift in and out, missing whole episodes and rarely contributing more than a scene or two.
• Gradually, the world of Star Trek begins to emerge. Wisely, the creative team spent most of their time on the ship and its people. The organisation behind them and its history could wait and so it was assembled piecemeal without much forethought.
• Roddenberry’s obsession with eliminating conflict between the crew has yet to appear. The passionate debates between Kirk, Spock and McCoy are the lifeblood of this show, and Kirk is consistently presented as more compassionate, thoughtful and reasonable than some of his bridge crew. It’s impossible for me to watch these episodes and recognise swaggering, bratty Chris Pine as playing anything remotely like the same character.

TOS S01E05 The Enemy Within (). No Captain’s Log in the teaser! Now that the series has found its feet and established some core concepts, it can start playing around with what else those concepts imply. The transporter was a budget-saving measure – landing a ship the size of a football field on an alien planet every week was financial suicide. But having invented it – what else can we do with it? Answer – duplicate evil Kirk!

What’s fascinating about this episode is the idea that – unlike in the mirror universe stories where we have regular old Kirk vs evil goatee Kirk – Kirk needs this evil side of himself, and without it he’s a weak, indecisive milquetoast. The debate between Kirk and Spock about whether or not to tell the crew is a lovely evocation of this idea. And stranding Sulu on the freezing planet below while the transporter is fixed is a great way of raising the stakes even further (although disliked by original writer, Richard Matheson from off of The Twilight Zone).

Shatner has impressed me hugely so far, but it’s clear that despite his Jewish heritage he has no fear of thickly sliced ham. Here he goes for broke and it’s glorious. He also gets his shirt off again, because of course he does, and the green wraparound top gets another outing. Kirk losing his ability to make decisions upsets the usual dynamic of Spock and McCoy presenting opposing points of view and Kirk casting the deciding vote. His inability to decide whether or not to risk a transporter merger is wonderfully agonising – but what’s missing is the way I’m sure TNG would have played it: relying on the relationship between the two Kirks to arrive at the decision. Here the evil Kirk is only ever portrayed as a duplicitous monster who must be defeated – never as a thinking, feeling being who can be understood and reasoned with.

That weird purple blood is back (maybe they bought a job lot) and, sure, we’re five for five in stories about something nasty sneaking on board the ship when no-one is looking, but this is, if not the very best of the five, very probably the most fun. McCoy even gets to say “He’s dead Jim,” referring to a weird alien dog thing.

TOS S01E06  Mudd’s Women (). Some dynamic camerawork gives a dramatic start to an enjoyably silly episode. Then, as his ship enters an asteroid field, Kirk orders “Deflectors on” – first mention of shields I think. We’ve had some amusing character moments between the regulars, but this is the first time that a fully-fledged comedy character has been dropped in amongst the ultra-professional Enterprise crew. Sadly, while Roger C Carmel is amusing enough, the male crewmembers react to his trio of lovely ladies as if they’re in an episode of The Benny Hill Show and the score goes completely nuts as if Kirk and co. have been living an entirely monastic existence to this point.

Kirk also is accused of having exceeded his authority, but we are still no clearer from whence this authority derives. This also has benefits. When out of lithium (not yet “dilithium”) and struggling to maintain orbit, Kirk can’t call on Star Fleet Command to mount a rescue mission. The ship is exploring the unknown in a way which feels very unfamiliar to regular viewers of most later series (which was the problem that Voyager attempted to solve).

The interplay between the playful Mudd and the all-business all-the-time crew puts me immediately in mind of Adam West’s gently mocking performance as Batman opposite a gallery of ripe comedy villains. Batman had been on the air since January and this went out in October so it’s not impossible that it was an influence, but I’d guess instead that they’re both responding to the same cultural touchstones.

Compared to the existential crisis of the last episode and the threat to the whole ship the week before, this is pretty flimsy fare, but it’s nice to see the series trying something new – even if this is yet another version of uh oh, this new arrival on board isn’t quite what they seem, making it six in a row.

The negotiations with the miners also make it clear that money is still a thing in the 23rd century, and Rigel XII feels like a real alien civilisation in ways that other planets we’ve visited haven’t managed. The underlying premise of the story – a woman’s worth is in her attractiveness to men – while it is mildly critiqued, still leaves me feeling a bit queasy. The flip that a placebo can (sometimes) work just as well is neat though – Kirk cons the conman.

TOS S01E07 What Are Little Girls Made Of? (). We haven’t had a Sulu episode yet, or a Scotty episode, or an Uhura episode. The nearest we’ve had to a McCoy episode is the first one. We haven’t even had a Spock episode really. So far, this has entirely been the Captain Kirk show with everyone else playing second fiddle. But – here it is! – the Nurse Christine Chapel episode that the fans couldn’t wait for.

“Send down two red shirts,” orders Kirk (nearly) and it isn’t long before both of them stumble into a bottomless pit. And that’s Lurch from The Addams Family as the murderous android “Ruk”, picking up William Shatner like he’s a Captain Kirk action figure. In a rare blunder from the costume department, Dr Brown wears cross-your-heart dungarees in bright blue and puke green. Sherry Jackson as Andrea wears it better. This is the Thiess Titilation Theory in full effect. Andrea’s costume doesn’t get the male audience members’ blood pumping because of how much skin it exposes – the effect is due to the fact that it has no visible means of support and thus can be supposed to be about to slip and reveal far more. Kirk cracks on to her as soon as they’re alone together – all in furtherance of the mission of course.

This slightly fuzzy and sluggish episode can’t quite decide whether it’s about sex robots or free will. It’s too coy to engage fully with the former and its attempts to tackle the latter stumble into a confused muddle of essentialism before everybody kills everybody else. It’s also our second duplicate Kirk in three episodes, but I miss Bones and Spock who are relegated to babysitting the ship till the captain gets back. It’s not bad exactly, it’s just not all that interesting.

This episode doesn’t revolve around a seeming human on the Enterprise who isn’t all that he seems, but the android Kirk does briefly beam back up to the ship and pass himself off to Spock as the real thing.

TOS S01E08 Miri () opens with another really punchy teaser – “Another Earth!” And then before long we’re on the Culver City backlot for, I think the first time. It’s amazing what a difference this makes. Instead of those stagey “exterior” sets we’re in the open air, able to see the sky. And the mystery is fascinating too. Following complaints received after its first UK broadcast in 1970, the BBC did not include the episode in any Star Trek repeats until the 1990s. Three other episodes, Plato’s Stepchildren, The Empath and Whom Gods Destroy were not shown at all until the 1990s. Kim Darby (“Miri”) would be seen a few years later as Mattie Ross in True Grit opposite John Wayne. And that’s Moss from Bonnie and Clyde as “Jahn”.

The threat is a chilling one – a wasting disease which first makes victims feral. And rather than one of the red shirts being infected and dropping dead as an early warning, Kirk himself is the first to notice signs of contamination. This also isolates the landing party from the ship which raises the stakes, but unlike last week, we have our core team all present – and Janice Rand is along for the ride, still seemingly like more of a regular cast member than Sulu, Scotty or Uhura. Don’t get too comfy, Janice.

This is a brilliantly weird episode, tinged with tiny bit of the same flavour as The Prisoner or some of the odder episodes of The Avengers. It’s also thematically rich, playing with notions of childhood and the unsettling changes of puberty. It feels like a story which only this show could tell and yet it’s completely different from any of the preceding entries – not least because there’s hardly any male chauvinism or shirtless cavorting. But the action does flag in the middle – seven days is a realistic timeframe but too long to really ramp up the tension. And the riddle of the duplicate Earth is never resolved.

Key takeaways from these episodes

• Captain Kirk doesn’t spend his time ferrying diplomats around or observing stellar anomalies. He’s really exploring the unknown, with no Federation to fall back on (although Kirk does contact “Space Central” to come and look after the kids in Miri). It’s not unlike Doctor Who being only gradually revealed as a Time Lord from Gallifrey. But in the British series, the lead character’s origins are established as a mystery in need of solving. Here (as always happens) the universe of the show just gradually accumulates material.
• Kirk is very much the lead character and we haven’t really zeroed in on that iconic core group of six yet. Sulu, Scotty and Uhura get whole episodes off. In some episodes, Nurse Chapel and Yeoman Rand get more to do than characters who will later be seen as indispensable. Only McCoy and Spock are guaranteed screen time, and even then, neither of them has carried an episode so far.
• The ambition of the show is growing, almost by the episode, and shows no sign of stopping. Imagine being on this writing team – the whole universe is yours to explore!

TOS S01E01 The Man Trap () gives rise to one of my favourite stories about television production. The plot revolves around a creature that craves salt and thus the Enterprise crew needed to be seen salting their food. What is easy to overlook watching these early episodes is they had to invent everything. Consider the problem of imagining the 23rd century from the vantage point of the mid-1960s. What would doors look like? What would shoes look like? What – crucially for this episode – would salt shakers look like?

A gallant props man scoured local flea markets and exotic boutiques and came back with an assortment of peculiar objects, all of which he was assured could be used to season food. They all looked suitably weird and futuristic but none of them looked like salt shakers. Using them in the scene would thus require some dreadfully clunky dialogue to be written. “Could you pass the salt please?” “Why, yes, here it is in this salt shaker – see?” And so eventually they fell back on just using regular 1960s salt shakers. But the bizarre articles rejected for this purpose were immediately put to good use as Dr McCoy’s operating instruments, enhanced with suitable sound effects.

Watching this episode, of which I have scant memories, what’s amazing is how much they got right first time. All right, not quite first time. This was the first episode transmitted, but the fourth after the two pilots to go before the cameras. (There is an argument to be made for watching these in production order, the better to track the evolution of the series, but, oh well.) The second pilot, Where No Man Has Gone Before, transmitted third after a quick re-edit, looks a bit shakier. We’ll have to wait till next week for The Corbomite Maneuver, the first regular episode to be shot.

In any case, here we have the vital Captain’s Log – missing from The Cage – the familiar triumvirate of Kirk, Spock and McCoy, the notion of “beaming down” to the planet (which must have a lot of suns judging by all the shadows cast on that very smooth ground), and the uniforms we’re all used to.

Almost immediately Kirk is teasing McCoy about his old girlfriend. This is the crucial difference between Kirk and Pike, between Shatner and Hunter. Kirk loves being captain of the Enterprise and Shatner loves being Kirk. His joy at being able to play space hero for a living radiates out of him. He’s fantastic. As with Dr No (another iconic series which got an awful lot right first time) we’re plunged into the middle of the story. There’s no set-up, no origin story, no first meeting. Here’s the ship, here’s the crew, here’s the mission. We don’t even get the “series sell” until after the teaser – which wastes no time in setting up the key mystery for the beginning of the story. It’s amazingly clear, bold, confident stuff. And it’s fun. And clever, building to a really complicated suspenseful situation in which the fate of our antagonist is being unwittingly discussed in front of them.

We also get our first “red shirt” death, although Crewman Darnell is wearing blue (science/medicine). And the shock and dismay which Uhura feels on learning this news is effectively used to create a contrast with Spock’s cold, calculating nature – avoiding the earnest, business-as-usual teamwork of Pike’s dour, characterless crew. Before long, Sturgeon and Green have bitten the dust as well, further thinning out the Enterprise’s bustling corridors.

This episode marks the debut of Yeoman Janice Rand, who gets to use the salt shaker (and who should definitely report some of the men aboard the Enterprise to HR) but no sign of Scotty. Sulu gets to say “May the great bird of the galaxy bless your planet” – which gave rise to a fond, or sometimes not-so-fond, nickname for Gene Roddenberry. And of course, in the climax, Star Trek’s signature humanity and compassion shines through, although it doesn’t, this time, carry the day.

TOS S01E02 Charlie X () gives us our first look at the transporter room and Kirk’s tummy-flattening wraparound green tunic (Shatner also takes his shirt off for the first time). The transporter room is a bit of a funny one. Having invented the transporter as a budget-saving measure, the writers had to struggle not to make it a magical get-out-of-jail-free card. Having a special room which is necessary to effect transportation helps, but the need will get ignored from time-to-time as point-to-point transportation becomes a thing.

Again, the teaser is super-punchy and effective, setting up the key mystery of the episode. And this is our first look at that most indefatigable of Star Trek clichés – the child-like alien with godlike powers. This was hardly new to TV – science-fiction fans would remember it from The Twilight Zone if nothing else – but it becomes a Trek staple, probably because it feels huge and yet is cheap to film – the destruction of the Antares happens off-screen and most of Charlie’s special abilities are achieved with simple editing.

This kind of story also plays into the philosophical aspects of the show as well as the jeopardy. Robert Walker does everything the script requires of him and Charlie Evans is a fine enough example of the type, but the device will get old fast, and the first incarnation isn’t necessarily the best. It also feels needlessly repetitive to have the first two stories both revolve around a human-looking intruder on the ship who has terrifying powers that the crew don’t even suspect are there. Surely it won’t be this same story every week? It’s also an entirely ship-bound episode which feels like a lack of ambition this early on, although some strikingly non-naturalistic lighting partly makes up for it.

Charlie’s minders have uniforms from the second pilot, but with different insignias. The familiar Star Trek “delta” insignia was thought of as the symbol of the Enterprise at this stage. Yeoman Rand exists only to be lusted after again. White Charlie can’t be seen to be lusting over Uhura – that would be offensive. Likewise, a playful slap on the rear is fine between two men, but inappropriate when Charlie does it to Rand. Poor old sixties Trek struggles nobly for progression but falters as often as it succeeds.

Off-duty officers strum alien harps, play with familiar-looking decks of cards and improvise torch songs, sometimes all at the same time. Kirk beats Spock at chess, even though his mind isn’t on the game. Spock is a lousy chess teacher, taking 30 seconds to beat Charlie and then ending the lesson. Kirk if anything is even worse, but at least his judo lesson reveals Charlie’s true nature.

What’s fascinating (Captain) is that, even discounting the repetition of format from last week, this feels less engaging than the excellent The Man Trap even though the threat is far greater. The salt creature slowly picked the crew off one at a time, whereas Charlie could melt everyone on board with a single glance. But The Man Trap was about McCoy’s emotional crisis and Charlie X is about Kirk solving a problem, which feels less engaging – although we do connect more with Charlie than we did with Salty McSuckface.

No Sulu and still no Scotty. The regular cast of this show is Kirk, Spock, Bones, Uhura and Rand – which makes her apparent death at Charlie’s hands (eyes?) the most shocking part of the episode. The final act feels apocalyptic – Charlie makes force fields vanish, ages up young girls who reject his advances, magics away people’s faces to stop them from laughing. It’s a nightmare for the Enterprise, except that those bustling corridors make it feel like business as usual. In a rather drab ending, Charlie’s powers are overcome not by Kirk’s ingenuity but by his parents coming to take him away. The use of this reset switch also means that technically the ship suffered no personnel losses this episode. Interesting to recall that this is DC Fontana’s first episode for the show – is Charlie her attack on the adolescent man-babies whose advances she had to fend off even into adulthood?

TOS S01E03 Where No Man Has Gone Before () as noted, is the re-edited second pilot. This is the footage which convinced NBC to commission a series. The early, oft-excerpted dialogue between Kirk and Spock is a primer for those unfamiliar with the show and as such is somewhat over-written – Spock would never say “one of your Earth emotions”. As S01E01 showed us, we don’t actually need anything like this to understand how the show works. But maybe NBC in 1966 needed reassurance in the opening minutes that this wouldn’t be The Cage Redux.

Spock’s silly haircut, fluffy eyebrows and sallow makeup from The Cage are all back, as are the costumes with ribbed collars (which oddly echo the Wrath of Khan costumes which will debut 16 years later). James Doohan finally appears, in a strange oatmeal jersey, operating the transporter. That same colour is worn by other crewmembers including – hey it’s Gary Lockwood from 2001. And in blue (with trousers) it’s Hotlips from MASH. They’re kind of the Decker and Ilia of this episode – two senior officers we’ve never met before who have their own relationship arc and are then written-out.

Compared to episodes one and two, the teaser is a bit feeble – the old box transmitting data isn’t anything like as interesting as freaky Charlie or three-faced Nancy. We’re initially ship-bound again, but the sparking consoles, shaking camera and general sense of Das Boot claustrophobia (even Spock is barking orders) does much to mitigate this. Sadly, this is the third episode in a row in which the corridors of the Enterprise are stalked by one or more seeming humans with deadly powers – in this case “Espers” who sound like they are going to be a big feature of the Star Trek universe, but which I don’t believe are ever mentioned again. In fact, Mitchell has exactly the same patter as Charlie – insisting that people be friendly to him and threatening dire consequences if they aren’t. It does seem at this stage as if this most imaginative of series can only tell a single story.

Lockwood and Kellerman’s silver contact lenses are very effective, far more so than Robert Walker rolling his eyes back in his head. Mitchell’s tales of their time together at the “Academy” does much to build this world and these characters in a few lines. Note that neither Star Fleet nor the Federation have been mentioned so far, only “Earth bases”. Kirk’s “gravestone” gives him the middle initial “R” instead of “T”.

Instead of McCoy we have an older and crustier Dr Piper who doesn’t make much of an impression and nor does Sulu who pretty much just stands mute in the background. Shatner is the one holding the whole thing together. His narration about the crippled ship strikes the perfect balance of crisis and competence. We want him to succeed and that’s what makes the episode work as well as it does. It would work even better for a room full of network suits who hadn’t just watched The Man Trap and Charlie X.

But when Spock suggests murdering Mitchell while they still can, it not only jars, it cries out for McCoy to put the other side of the debate. Mitchell’s personal relationship with Kirk adds what The Man Trap had and Charlie X lacked, and this has a better ending than last week, but this still isn’t quite as good as that fantastic first episode with its perfect blend of heartbreak, high concept and jeopardy.

TOS S01E04 The Naked Time () presents an odd approach to character development for a brand new show: let’s really get to know our regular cast by having them act totally out of character. It shouldn’t work, and yet it does, because the crew are in the position of having to be professional (and shh, don’t let Gene hear you) military, which means when they do show some personality (such as when Uhura baits Spock on the bridge) it can seem rather unbelievable. By stripping off some of that professional façade we can see a bit more of who these people really are. It worked so well here, it was repurposed as an early episode of TNG too. And yes, this is another uh-oh, something snuck on board the ship when we weren’t looking story but it plays very differently than the first three.

It’s distressing in these times of COVID to see that the Enterprise is in danger because a redshirt didn’t keep his mask on properly, but the crew have to be numbskulls from time to time or there would never be any good stories.

McCoy is back so we have our core trio in full effect, although the good doctor fails to take any of notice Crewman COVID’s distress even when he’s pawing anxiously at his own flesh (to be fair, neither does Kirk, but there’s clearly something medically wrong with the crewman, which really should have shown up on McCoy’s examination). When he stabs himself, he seems to bleed purple blood. We’re also still reporting back to “Earth Science” not the Federation. And – gloriously – here’s Scotty proudly talking up “his” engines, and complaining that he can’t change the laws of physics, not to mention it’s the first appearance of Nurse Chapel (in a weird silver wig).

George Takei was pitched this episode and told he would be wielding a samurai sword. “I see what you’re getting at,” he responded, “But I’m a Japanese American. I grew up watching Errol Flynn as Robin Hood. Why can’t I have a fencing foil?” The writing team agreed and Takei immediately booked himself some fencing lessons in preparation for his shirtless cavorting. Then in quick succession we get our first Vulcan Nerve Pinch followed by an early appearance of Sarcastic Spock – “Take D’Artagnan here to sickbay,” he quips over the body of the fallen Sulu.

1960s sexism alert: “That’s what I like! Let the women work! Universal suffrage!” chortles Crewman MacIrish as Uhura takes over his station, before later dictating female crewmembers’ hair and make-up choices as the infection further addles his brain.

This is fantastic stuff – the ship in deadly danger, the antics of O’Reilly and the others is blackly comic, Shatner and Nimoy are on top form (Spock’s breakdown in his quarters is exceptional, as is Kirk trying to snap him out of it) and it’s a good vehicle for Scotty, Uhura and of course Sulu. And absolutely no-one fucks an android. I’d like the ship to feel more imperilled as the countdown continues, and I desperately wanted Uhura and Scotty to go nuts as well so we’d have the full set, but these are minor quibbles. This is the show firing on all cylinders. And then they discover time travel. Wow.

Key takeaways from these first four episodes

• These are really good, well-told, science-fiction adventure stories that still hold up today. Which is lucky, as otherwise, this would be a long three months.
• Some of the things we take for granted aren’t here yet – no Federation, no Star Fleet, no Klingons, no photon torpedoes, no Chekov.
• The triumvirate of Kirk, Spock and McCoy is key but although Nimoy is the best actor, Shatner is the series’ MVP. His charisma is undeniable and he holds the whole show together.
• There’s more stuff on board the ship than I remember – those standing sets were cheaper, which means the temptation to keep telling the ship-has-a-hidden-menace-on-board story is a significant one, but I’m hopeful that the series will spread its wings more fully as more episodes unfold.

I hadn’t planned to watch The Cage on the basis that it wasn’t shown on TV (well, all right, it was as part of a celebration of Trek during the TNG era) and because I was going to see most of it in The Menagerie anyway but a bout of COVID has left me with extra time on my hands, so – as it was included on my Blu-ray box set – I popped it on.

Doctor Who fans, whose knowledge of the show in the 1960s is at the mercy of the random quirks of the BBC archive and overseas sales policies, can look at Star Trek with a certain degree of envy. Everything exists, all shot on 35mm film and able to be cleaned up and look fantastic (until we get to Deep Space Nine anyway). But we almost don’t have The Cage for the stupidest of reasons.

The two-part story The Menagerie was a desperate manoeuvre during Season One which enabled the Star Trek production team to magic up two whole episodes with the bare minimum of extra writing and filming. Kirk, Spock and co. sit around and watch Star Trek’s original pilot while a thin court-room drama unfolds. Shades of Trial of a Time Lord but that was on purpose.

To make this happen, Gene Roddenberry handed over the only known existing colour print of the pilot assuming that the editing team would make a duplicate and return the print to him. In fact the editing team assumed that they had been given a duplicate and merrily began hacking it up with scissors in order to assemble The Menagerie. When the pilot was finally released on video and shown on TV, the now-missing sections had to be patched from a black-and-white workprint.

Then – hurrah! – the negative trims turned up in a warehouse somewhere (or most of them did) and so now we can watch the pilot in all its glory. You can even watch it with early 2000s CGI spaceships if you want.

The story behind the story has been told often enough. Roddenberry sold the studio a space western – Wagon Train to the Stars – and then delivered a cerebral mini-movie with almost no action and a female second-in-command. This was Roddenberry’s girlfriend Majel Barrett and depending on who you ask, the studio couldn’t bear the idea of a woman on the bridge, or that’s what Roddenberry told her to spare her feelings, when actually they savaged her performance.

There’s a lot to like here. The crew works together very well – one of the pleasures of Trek is seeing a group of professionals problem-solving as a team – and the problem is a knotty one: once they know they can’t trust their senses, how do they know if they’re ever making progress? And the script doesn’t tease us for very long. Almost as soon as the crew has met the “colonists”, we zoom out to see the Talosians watching Star Trek. Not long after that, the illusion melts (very convincingly) away and Captain Pike knows what we know.

The ground-breaking effects look great, especially considering that this is before even 2001: A Space Odyssey had hit cinemas, so Forbidden Planet was the high watermark of moving-image science fiction (and there’s quite a big chunk of Forbidden Planet here). The Talosians, with diminutive and heavily made-up women playing the parts, but dubbed by male actors, look and sound completely original and their attitudes to the crew are fascinating.

But if the plot and the guest performances are all working, what’s wrong? A few things aren’t quite as we remember them. Spock orders that the Enterprise proceed at “time warp factor four”, he isn’t the emotionless Vulcan we remember, and he has a silly haircut and fluffy eyebrows. Reports are faxed to the bridge (I think paper was nixed from the second pilot onwards), the guns are called “lasers” and the communicators are very chunky. Also, the uniforms aren’t quite the ones we remember, although I rather like the grey-blue away jackets worn over the colourful pullovers – more functional and more interesting to look at than the plain velour jerseys we’d get next time.

But it’s the characters that don’t work. I rather like Majel Barrett as “Number One” and it’s refreshing to see a female second-in-command, but even after Captain Pike lampshades her sex, audiences couldn’t get on board with a bossy woman, so when the show is re-tooled the Enterprise becomes the boys club we’re familiar with. Number One’s emotionless cool was transferred to Spock instead. Variations on this character crop up again later in the form of Seven of Nine, T’Pol and (sort of) the Borg Queen. Leonard Nimoy becomes the only actor to survive to the second pilot (although Barrett is slipped in as recurring character Nurse Chapel in a blonde wig).

The other members of the regular cast don’t really register. There’s a young ginger kid who didn’t even get a name as far as I can recall, a perky Yeoman who keeps being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and there’s a crusty doctor who exists principally to shine a light on Captain Pike’s character. As the lead character of the show, he’s genuinely fascinating. Jeffrey Hunter plays him with a fiery intensity and he even seems to have an arc of sorts – at the start of the episode, he’s haunted by an away mission that went wrong and is beginning to buckle under the weight of command responsibility.

What he isn’t, however, is fun. I really don’t imagine very many viewers would be tuning in week-after-week, in 1966, to spend more time with this sourpuss. Hunter does exactly what’s asked of him – including bawling out Perky Yeoman for no reason – and the camera loves his freakishly angular handsomeness, but the sense of a family unit, which Roddenberry and co would carefully contrive and/or happily stumble into, is fatally missing. We get the sense that Spock and Number One are rescuing their clinically depressed Captain out of a weary sense of duty, rather than a passionate need to save a beloved comrade. In fact, apart from Pike’s various outbursts from his titular confinement, the rest of the crew barely breaks a sweat. In the series, Spock’s calm in the face of a crisis is the exception – here it’s the norm, which lends proceedings a dry and tepid air. It’s this I think, more than the exotic concepts in the plotting, which gave this 60 minutes of film its often-repeated tag of “cerebral”.

So – we didn’t lose a masterpiece when the studio rejected this pilot. Hunter may be a better actor than Shatner, but Pike would never have been able to carry the series, and while we can only imagine that Perky Yeoman and Mister Ginge would have been given more to do in future episodes, they completely fail to register here. Crusty Doctor is a good idea for a character but he doesn’t jump off the screen, and while I’m sad about Number One, her absence created the Vulcan mythology which built the series, so it’s hard to get too cut up about it.

Okay, that’s the first go. Who’s ready for the first episode to be actually transmitted? We begin on New Year’s Day with The Man Trap.