Season 2 Episode 3 ('The Changeling')

I'm pretty sure this episode ended with a Jewish-mother joke. I approve.

That said, generally speaking, it was also just a pretty decent episode in general. It wasn't all Cold-War-y, although it could become so in future episodes, if they ever meet the race that made Nomad. Basically, they run into this tiny little thing that is spitting ridiculous amounts of energy at them in an attempt to destroy them. It turns out, it's an old satellite launched by Earth that was initially tasked with finding new lifeforms, but had a bad car wreck with an unknown alien civilization, and got super-powered and tasked with destroying everything that was not perfect.

It think Kirk is its creator, so it assumes Kirk is perfect, and is willing to chill, but then Kirk gets mad and fucks up, and admits to imperfection, at which point, all bets (which were previously on, presumably) are off. If I had to name just one complaint with the episode, the most obvious and heinous flaw would be that it does nothing with Spock. There is room for serious hi-jinks and comedic escapades, when you've got a computer that wants to kill everything that isn't perfectly logical and absolutely efficient, and a Vulcan that thinks it is but isn't. That could have been hilarious.

Alas, they didn't take advantage of the opportunity, but it's still a lot of fun.

Random trivia: one bottle of Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon, one shot of Eagle Rare, and two South Paw Lights, one Bond movie watched previously, too late being how up I am, and one happy continuation of the series.

Season 2 Episode 2 ('Who Mourns For Adonais?')

Odd, how the last line of the episode made me like it a lot less. But more on that in a second... basically, some guy had recently read 'Lord of Light' by Roger Zelazny, and then got asked to write a Star Trek episode, and he did an appropriately schlocky 60s TV take on beings with powers-that-seem-magical posing as gods.

The Enterprise is checkin' out a previously-un-checked-out planet, and a massive energy field in the shape of a hand grabs onto it. A Grecian looking fellow then declares that the hand is never going to give them up, because he is the god Apollo and they are returned unto the rightful fold and can now be what humanity was always meant to be, namely, subservient to him.

Kirk, McCoy, Chekov(!), Scotty, and the episode's silly-headed-bimbo teleport down to the planet, to deal with him directly, while Spock is tasked with figuring out how to kill the fist-fucking energy field from aboard the ship. Apollo demands that they all worship him, they all have no truck with that, except the bimbo because she is a Star Trek chick who is not a main character, which means that she is just a bucket of hormones, pheremones, and don't-want-to-be-alones, and is therefore ripe for the plucking.

And the plot progresses; watch the episode if you want the specifics. You know how it's going to turn out; it's basically another Cold War metaphor, with the bad-guy offering/imposing every physical need being met in return for complete subservience. Hint: Stalin never wins, in Star Trek episodes.

The thing that was really annoying - the aforementioned final line of the episode - was that after all was said and done, and they'd conquered the 'god' so they could bounce, after the bimbo redeemed herself and Spock did great work with calculations, was that maybe it would have been okay to just be a little subservient. Which is like...

I mean, if he'd thought that was a good idea at any point in the preceding 50 minutes, the episode could have been completely different, the tragedy could have been averted, it could have avoided being another same-ole plot and done something interesting... or not. There's no way to know, there's basically nothing to know, because it is fiction and only what is actually fictionalized has any reality.

But the episode proceeds down its inevitable procession because that is a compromise Kirk can't make, and subservience is never acceptable, freedom can never be compromised, bla bla bla. To invalidate that assumption that underlies not only this episode but most every episode with a similar premise which is a decent number of episodes in the first season, as well as this 'un... it just felt lame. Like, why even bother being such a dick about your principles, if after you're done being a dick, you're going to be all "Well, maybe my principles aren't that great, eh? Oh well! Onward!"

I feel like you should probably settle on your principles first, and then act on them, personally.