sustained fangirl squeeing I'm only about eight episodes in, but gAwD, it's amazing what studios can do when they actually do long-term planning. Consistent characterization that isn't just smashing foils together like Tuvok and Neelix or Tom and Harry? More than 4 recycled plots? YAY BOSS BAE JANEWAY. Unfortunately, Chakotay doesn't have enough screen time (yet) to see if they figured out what to do with him. Voyager definitely didn't seem to know what to do with him except as the vehicle for Creeping Heteronormativity. JUSTICE FOR CHAKOTAY

Synopsis

Remember back in "The Naked Time," the Enterprise was thrown back in time a bit by excessive warp speed. This was used (by my count) three more times: "Tomorrow Is Yesterday," "Assignment: Earth" (TOS 2x26), and The Voyage Home.

On this occasion, time travel was unintentional, and the Enterprise is spotted on Air Force radar. A jet is scrambled to investigate, and the Enterprise accidentally destroys it with its tractor. They beam the pilot aboard, and get caught in a conundrum: do they send USAF Captain John Christopher back to Earth, knowing he knows the future? Worse, it turns out Christopher's son will be an astronaut himself, so they can't bring Christopher back to the future.

They decide they need to destroy all physical evidence of their presence, so Kirk and Sulu snoop around an Air Force base looking for computer tapes and film negatives. They get caught by an MP, who also gets accidentally beamed up to the Enterprise. Then Kirk is captured by the bas

Forgive me for what I'm about to do.

Synopsis

The universe experiences a dragon break while the Enterprise is in orbit around an arid planet. They beam down to find Todd Howard with a stringy goatee has crashed his concept car in the California desert.

They take the Toddhead back to the ship, where he oscillates between between being reasonable and crazy, and injuries keep appearing and disappearing on him. Yes, it's true: the Toddhead has divided himself into the primordial forces of Anu and Padomay. If they should ever meet, the universe will be destroyed.

Anu (good Todd) steals dilithium crystals in order to power his car back up. Padomay (evil Todd) also steals dilithium crystals, also to power his car back up. As far as I can tell through the messy storytellin

Synopsis

The Enterprise is called to a far-flung colony on Cestus III. When they get there, the colony has already been destroyed. We learn that, in the future, mortar shells don't launch shrapnel. Also Starfleet seems to have continued that ludicrous US project to shoot nukes from artillery cannons. Happy Fourth of July everyone!

This episode is a two-for-one first contact. First we have the gorn, a race of people in clumsy green prosthetics, and second we have the metrons, a race of superpowered narcissists. The Enterprise chases the gorn (who destroyed the Federation colony) into metron space, and the metrons decide to have Kirk face the gorn captain in the most awkward one-on-one fight imaginable.

After Kirk and the gorn captain get tired of throwing big pieces of foam at each other, Kirk realizes the planet has all the materials to make a gun just sort of laying around. He picks up a section of bamboo; mixes sulfur, potassium nitrate, and carbon; puts chunks of diamonds

Okay, so "Daily Trek" means Weekday Trek. This is a nice way of coming down from the workday. By the weekend I just don't seem to have the energy for it.

Synopsis

In a stellar desert, the Enterprise encounters an uninhabited planet. They try to go around, but Kirk and Sulu vanish. Eventually the Enterprise finds a habitable zone on the planet, and McCoy beams down with two red-shirts. Shockingly, the red-shirts survive the entire episode.

They find an Eighteenth Century drawing room and a weirdo named General Trelane, retired, but you can call him the squire of Gothos. He didn't account for light delay, so he thinks his castle is contemporary. He's obsessed with militarism and honor, but it becomes very clear that those are just words.

Trelane says that he has matter-energy conversion technology, and Kirk reasons that it's being mediated by some device. Trelane's attentions are split between his playthings and his mirror, so Kirk challenges him to a pistol duel and uses his

Synopsis

The last sixteen episodes have taken their toll on the crew. They find an uninhabited planet that looks awfully similar to Southern California and send out scouting parties, in preparation for letting the crew take shore leave.

Everything is in order... until McCoy sees a giant, white rabbit being chased by an English girl. Kirk postpones shore leave until they figure out what's going on.

Kirk and McCoy talk about an obnoxious Irishman—and geez, this show sure is racist against the Irish—that bullied him at Starfleet Academy. Suddenly the bully appears and Kirk gets into a fight.

Similar events happen all over: a samurai attacks Sulu, the new Yeoman Barrows is accosted by Don Juan, and a couple of red-shirts hide from a tiger. Kirk runs into yet another old flame. Barrows discovers a princess dress, and randy old McCoy asks her to put it on. McCoy gets impaled by a jousting knight.

Anyway, the planet has mind-reading devices and replicators that fabricate anything any

Synopsis—The Cage

The Enterprise picks up a radio distress call, meaning it was sent decades ago. Spock points out that a ship, the Columbia, did crash on Talos IV eighteen years ago. Pike decides that, absent evidence of survivors, they'll stay on their current mission.

But then they get an interstellar fax saying there actually are survivors.

They find a camp of old men and one hot chick. Before they can beam anyone up, Pike is lured away by the hot chick and captured by big-brained aliens. The camp vanishes.

The aliens can make illusions, and they've trapped Pike in their menagerie. The hot chick, Vina, tells him that the Talosians destroyed the surface in a war, hid underground, and developed mind powers that let them create illusions. Pike wonders why he's talking to an illusion, though Vina tells him that the illusions can still make him feel pain, so he can't brush them off.

The Talosians manipulate the transporter control such that only Number One and Yeoman Colt b

I hate it when Star Trek tries to do Perry Mason, with one exception. And the exception is not "The Measure of a Man."

Synopsis

An officer dies in an ion storm, and computer records show that Kirk caused his death through negligence. The man is the ship's records officer, Lieutenant Commander Ben Finney. This sends Kirk to a court martial, and an old flame is the prosecutor.

The prosecution's evidence hinges on this wacky control panel, where the only three usable buttons are yellow alert, red alert, and kill a guy. Video from the bridge shows Kirk sending Finney into a pod, signaling yellow alert, telling Finney to stand by to leave the pod, then ejecting the pod into the ion storm.

Years ago, Kirk and Finney were ensigns on the Republic. Finney left the engines in a dangerous state, then Kirk came on shift and logged the mistake. This put a black mark on Finney's career. The prosecutor latches onto a theory that Kirk reflected Finney's resentment back at him, and someho

Synopsis

The Enterprise is delivering medical supplies to Makus III, but they encounter a quasar. Kirk launches the shuttle Galileo to gather data. Unfortunately, the Galileo immediately loses control due to space stuff from the quasar and crash lands on a shit planet called Taurus II. Which leaves open the question of why they call it Earth rather than Sol III.

There's some stuffy Federation jerk pressing Kirk to abandon the crew of the Galileo, but Kirk insists on searching.

The main cast members on the Galileo are Spock, McCoy, and Scott, with Spock the ranking officer. McCoy points out to Spock that this is his first command, and Spock replies, "I realize that command does have its fascinations, even under circumstances such as these, but I neither enjoy the idea of command, nor am I frightened of it. It simply exists, and I will do whatever logically needs to be done."

Taurus II turns out to be inhabited by people in goofy yeti costumes who throw even goofier spe

This episode is the 60s at its best.

Synopsis

Is Anton Karidian, classical actor, in fact the aptly named Kodos the Executioner? Kirk's friend Thomas Leighton thinks so, and the water gets bloodier after Leighton turns up dead.

Anton's company performs Macbeth, and Leighton thinks he recognized the voice. Kirk seduces Anton's daughter Lenore who, of course, played Lady Macbeth. At this point you know everything that happens for the rest of the episode.

Kirk uses some connections and some wile to put Lenore into a position of asking him to transport the company to their next show. Kirk plays hard to get, but agrees to transport them when Lenore offers to perform for the crew.

Three very important things drive us to our conclusion:

First, Spock retraces Kirk's steps and logically concludes that Anton is Kodos. Kirk, Spock, and McCoy debate the issues. Kirk wants more than logic to accuse. McCoy wants to know if Kirk wants justice or vengeance. "Do you play God? Carry his head

This episode is deeply uncomfortable.

Synopsis

The Enterprise receives a distress signal and tracks it to a duplicate Earth. They beam down to find decayed infrastructure, horrible incongruous architecture, diminishing food supplies, mass unemployment, vagrants roaming the streets... just as it was in the year 2023.

My only guess is that this episode is set on a duplicate Earth for budgetary reasons.

Anyway...

They discover that the people of 2023 were trying to build an immortality virus—though the virology lab seems to be in the US, so they missed that prediction—but instead it killed every adult. The children were blessed (?) with very long childhoods, but once they reach puberty they die.

Children, it turns out, are little assholes. The Enterprise crew who beam down (Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Rand, and two red-shirts) are infected, and the kids steal their communicators because why not?

Miri is a girl on the cusp of womanhood. I imagine that the script intended for Kirk to

Sad, tired, throwing up, devastated, shook, mad, confused, upset, surprised, etc.

I really enjoyed this show, and was looking forward to having a cute kid friendly series to use to introduce nieces/nephews/future kids/cats to the incredible universe of Star Trek 😭😭

Sorry I missed yesterday. I was too tired. Which I guess is fitting for this episode.

Synopsis

During a cargo exchange, the Enterprise picks up a stowaway from a penal colony/mental hospital. They capture the fugitive and discover that he's Dr Simon van Gelder, one of the staff psychiatrists. He's pretty deranged, and winces in pain whenever he tries to talk about the colony.

The Enterprise returns, but McCoy insists Kirk investigate. Kirk beams down with a psychologist, Dr Helen Noel, and gets a tour. Everything seems to be in order, except for a strange treatment room.

Spock mind melds with van Gelder—the first time that power is used—and discovers the treatment room is a "neural neutralizer." It empties the subject's mind completely, which makes them tremendously suggestible.

Kirk asks Noel to demonstrate the neutralizer by using it on him, but midway through the facility director, Dr Tristan Adams, catches them and implants his own suggestions: Kirk loves Noel and woul

Here's a curious fact... Christine Chapel accompanies Kirk in this episode. The android bodyguard, Ruk, is played by Ted Cassidy, who was Lurch on The Addams Family. Chapel, of course, is played by Majel Barrett. Ruk is instructed to protect Chapel, and to follow her orders.

In The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine, Majel Barrett played Lwaxana Troi, Deanna's mother. Lwaxana's valet, Mr Homn, is played by Carel Struycken, who was Lurch on The Addams Family.

Synopsis

The Enterprise is sent to search for Roger Korby, an anthropologist presumed dead on an icy planet. Chapel is engaged to marry him. They do get in contact with Korby, and he asks Kirk to beam down alone. Kirk brings Chapel along, and when they arrive and don't find Korby, Kirk has two red-shirts follow.

Lurch kills the red-shirts while nobody is looking, and it's quickly revealed that Exo III is a den of androids and Korby is the ringleader. Kirk makes Korby tell Lurch to protect Chapel, and to follow he

There are some episodes/movies that are so special, they deserve special recognition. I glanced through episode lists, and found sixteen: TOS—Balance of Terror, The City on the Edge of Forever; TOS movies—The Wrath of Khan, The Undiscovered Country; TNG—Family, The Drumhead, The Inner Light, Lower Decks, All Good Things; DS9—Duet, The Visitor, Homefront, Paradise Lost, Far Beyond the Stars, In the Pale Moonlight, It's Only a Paper Moon.

It's not that Voyager and Enterprise are bad; they have a lot of fun episodes, and a lot of good episodes, but not that good. I may have missed some, and there are some great episodes (like "The Best of Both Worlds") that don't quite make the cut for me.

These entries will not have synopses. You owe it to yourself to watch them, and if you've already seen them, you owe it to yourself to watch them again.

Commentary

Game theory is a domain for insane people. I don't mean this lightly. If you've ever seen Dr Strangelove, the titular characte

The Enterprise faces the worst threat in the galaxy: a seventeen-year-old boy with godlike powers.

Synopsis

The science ship Antares transfers a passenger to the Enterprise, and the captain of the Antares can't leave fast enough. Charlie Evans runs into Yeoman Rand, and his hormones leave him paralyzed.

In a recreation room, Spock plays the lute and Uhura sings—first about Spock, then about Charlie. Charlie can't handle being the center of attention, and uses his mind powers to silence Uhura. He tries to hit on Rand with card tricks, which entertains her, but doesn't seal the deal.

His powers become increasingly apparent. Kirk initially manages to play the adult and keep him somewhat in line, but eventually Charlie's rebelliousness overtakes his submissiveness. He starts making people vanish, including Rand.

Kirk figures Charlie can't simultaneously control the Enterprise and defend himself from attack. He tells Spock and McCoy to try and jam him, by spuriously runni