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Wacky Reviews: Star Trek

The Ambergris Element - Kirk, Spock, McCoy and a redshirt visit a water planet. They're attacked by a monster. It grabs their aqua-shuttle(!) with Kirk and Spock inside it. McCoy finds them alive but their lungs don't work. They've been turned into fish people and have to live in water! Seeing Kirk and Spock talk to McCoy from inside a water tank is pretty funny. "I can't command a ship from inside an aquarium!" Kirk and Spock explore under the sea using their fish powers (basically they look normal but have webbed hands.) They meet some fish people and discover a fish city. Their captured by nets, of course. A lady fish keeps defending Kirk and Spock because she's obviously hot for fish Kirk. The fish people admit they changed Kirk and Spock (for some reason?) but don't know how to change them back (for some reason?) They put Kirk and Spock back on the surface in nets to die, but the fish lady gets Scotty (who is in a STARFLEET BOAT) to save them. The fish lady talks about blah blah blah ancient beliefs but there's a seaquake about to kill everyone I think? Kirk and Spck enter the forbidden place and find a cure (I guess) but are chased by the monster from before. Kirk, Spock and and the fish people trap it in a big net because its venom can cure Kirk and Spock. McCoy cures them and Kirk plans to shoot parts of the planet to stop the quakes. It works! There's absolutely no drama to it at all, we just see the Enterprise firing its phasers and everything is fine. A city rises back to the surface. The young fish people decide to mutate themselves to live on the surface. The old fish person says they'll pass laws to make sure they stay in contact. Umm, the end?

This is certainly another example of a story they could only do in animated form. Any attempt to do an episode with so many underwater scenes would have looked terrible in live action. That doesn't mean it's a good episode though! There's never any decent explanation as to why Kirk and Spock are turned into fish people. None of the fish people are good chaacters. The plotting is really poor. Fish Kirk and Fish Spock are just exactly the same as normal Kirk and Spock except they have webbed fingers. The episode only exists because somebody thought it would be fun to turn Kirk and Spock into fish. It wasn't fun.

SCORE: 2/10


The Slaver Weapon - Spock, Sulu and Uhura are in a shuttle with a "slaver stasis box" that makes time stand still. They detect another stasis box. Spock gives a history of the makers of the stasis box who ruled the galaxy a BILLION years ago and invented magic belts and stuff. The second stasis box is on an ice planet but they're stunned by cat people (the Kzinti) wearing spacesuits. There's a bizarre bit where Spock says the Kzinti are meat eaters so Sulu should think about vegetables to goad them. Also they think women are dumb animals. The Kzinti want to eat human meat. The Kzinti mind reader tries to read Sulu's mind but he keeps thinking about eating vegetables to put them off. Uhura keeps getting shot. The Kinti leader is humiliated after plant eater Spock beats him up. Sulu uses his knowledge of weapons to work out what a weapon in the slaver box does (it converts matter to energy.) The episodes gets even more bizarre when the Kzinti leader talks to the living computer in the weapon. The weapon doesn't trust the Kzinti because so much time has gone by and blows them up.

It's a pretty bizarre episode. It's the only episode of Star Trek so far where Kirk doesn't appear at all ('The Cage' hasn't aired yet okay) but more importantly it was written by well known science fiction writer Larry Niven. It's adapted from a short story he wrote, set in his 'Known Space' univesre. So as a result it doesn't really fit in the Star Trek universe at all. The Kzinti were never used in Star Trek after this and the story about the species ruling the galaxy a billion years ago and leaving weapons behind of course never came up again either. It feels a bit more mature than the average TAS episode and is the only one in which anyone actually dies. It's also not boring at all like a lot of TAS episdoes and has some cool conecpts like the sentient weapon that rejects its masters. The Kzinti leader had some menace to him unlike most TAS bad guys. So I liked it, even though it wasn't really an episode of Star Trek.

SCORE: 8.5/10


Eye of the Beholder - Kirk, Spock and McCoy are exploring a planet looking for a missing ship as usual and get attacked by lots of monsters. They walk around a lot. Spock keeps bringing up things that are weird about the planet. They're attacked by more monsters. Some monsters with tentacle trunks take them to a city. Spock finally concludes that they're in a zoo. They meet more Starfleet officers who were captured before. The episode drags on with overly dramatic music trying to make it exciting. They FINALLY use the old "pretend to be sick" trick to try to escape and implant a suggestion in one of the young aliens to give them a communicator. The young alien is accidentally beamed to the Enterprise by Scotty. The aliens invade Kirk's head and Shatner gets to do some terrible acting. Scotty trying to talk to the young alien is adorable. The alien brings Scotty back and Scotty says it's only six and has an I.Q. in the thousands. I don't think that's how I.Q.s work. The aliens let them go and say the humans will be welcome back in twenty or thirty centuries.

So this is back to being a very conventional TAS episode. It doesn't have enough plot to fill even 22 minutes and drags pretty badly. Spock keeps talking about how intelligent the aliens are but they still have a frickin' zoo and don't do anything particularly impressive. It's not terrible, I do like the part with Scotty and the young alien and there's lot of "shooting at monsters" stuff at the start for people who like that.

SCORE: 5/10
 
Jihad - That's quite the episode title! Kirk and Spock meet with some animal themed aliens in a forest. A cat lady aliens has a mission of them: they have to find a religious relic to prevent a holy war on the entire galaxy. They go to a "mad planet" to search for this stolen soul. If this doesn't sound much like a Star Trek plot it's because this isn't reall much like a Star Trek plot! The human woman in the group flirts with Kirk a bit but he's not interested because it's the Animated Series and he isn't allowed to get laid. They drive around in a car thing as volcanoes erupt. They redirect some lava in a typically unexciting TAS action sequence. They then get into some trouble on ice. Spock sees some other aliens on the supposedly uninhabitated planet. Kirk keeps turning down sex. They're attacked by robot monsters. They find the "soul" inside a building. Shatner says "sabotage" again and it sounds quite normal? Turns out the bird alien is the traitor who's trying to start a bloody jihad because he doesn't like how soft his people have become. He turns the gravity off(?) so that everyone can fly(?) and fight him. He's nuts! Luckily Kirk and Spock worked out in non-gravity combat excercies together just last week and easily defeat him! The human woman is still salty that Kirk didn't shag her. Kirk and Spock return home with no knowledge of this wacky adventure!

It's another weird episode! If you want to see Kirk and Spock driving around in a sci-fi car with some aliens this is the episode for you. If you want to watch Kirk reject sex for the first time ever this is the episode for you. The problem is that it's an action story and the action isn't very good because the animation was so limited. So it's a perfectly average "not terrible but nothing to really recommend it" TAS episode.

SCORE: 5/10


Pirates of Orion - Spock is dying! He needs a rare drug to save him. There's actually some depth when McCoy admits he doesn't want Spock to die. That counts as a character moment for TAS. Another Starfleet ship has the drug but a mysterious ship is stalking them. This takes up a lot of time. Spock keeps falling over and getting scanned by Bones to pad out the episode. The Enterprise finds the other ship and searches it for the drug, padding out the episode some more. The Enterprise chases the mysterious ship into an asteroid belt. Arex and Kirk say "Orion" weird. Yep, that's right, fifteen minutes into the episode we find out that it'st he Orions who stole the drug. Kirk offers to let them keep the dilithium they stole if they give him the drug. The Orions don't trust Kirk and come up with some plan to blow everyone up. I suppose it good continuity since the Orions commited suicide in 'Journey to Babel.' They end up getting the drug, somehow (I lost interest.) Spock's life is saved. He's just as stubborn as ever, everyone laughs!

Maybe it's just me but this episode was boring as fuck? There's two plot points at the start: Spock is dying and someone's stolen a drug. Besides one scene of McCoy worried about Spock there's nothing interesting done. The stolen drug plotline is boring as fuck. Like I said it takes 15 minutes before we even see the Orions and they don't turn out to be very interesting. I did not like this episode.

SCORE: 2/10
 
Bem - An alien named Bem is travelling with the Enterprise crew for some reason. He talks weird. He comes with Kirk and Spock on an away mission and his body splits in two. He runs off and basically behaves like a idiot. He's like Jar Jar but less well behaved and if Jar Jar could split in two. Some lizard aliens surround him with spears. Kirk and Spock discover that Bem has switched their communicators and phasers with fakes. The aliens capture Kirk and Spock too. Bem let himself be captured on purpose and what the fuck is the point of all this, really. Scotty mentions the Loch Ness Monster like all Scottish people do in their daily lives. Then a hire lifeform paralyses Kirk and Spock to stop them shooting the lizards. Where the fuck did that come from. They end up back in their cages. Bem walks off in three pieces (his head can fly) leaving Kirk and Spock to die or something. More stuff happens. They find Bem and tell him off. He tries to kill himself(!) but the hgher lifeform tells him not to. WHAT THE FUCK AM I WATCHING. They go back to the ship and the alien just randomly says they've learned much and it's over.

I've watched a lot of Star Trek in my time (probably too much!) and i've seen some weird episodes but normally I can at least tell what they're going for. This...THING though...I don't know what this was. I don't know what they were doing. At times I thought it was a comedy episode because some of the lines felt like they were supposed to be funny. Due to the pretty poor voice acting on TAS I thought maybe the comedy wasn't working. At other times I thought it was just an outright parody of Star Trek, written by someone who hates Star Trek trying to make fun of it. And at others time I though it was just a really badly written episode. It was probably the last one! And weirdly enough it was written by David Gerrold, writer of The Trouble With Tribbles. Was Bem supposed to appeal to kids like the tribbles would have? Did kids love Bem? I doubt kids wold have loved Bem. He was a prick! This was offensively bad.

(Memory Alpha says that Gene "I've written one good Star Trek scipt in my life" Roddenberry kept interfering with the writing and forced Gerrold to add the godlike entity, so maybe that explainst he quality a bit.)

SCORE: 1/10


The Practical Joker - I'm getting really sick of the repetitive "action" music. I liked it the first couple of times but it's exactly the same every time. Romulans attack the Enterprise. The Enterprise flies into a weird energy field to get away from them. I'm sure that won't be a mistake. They get away from the the Romulans but find that someone's put holes in their glasses and they all get wet. Who is the practical joker!? Spock gets the old "black eye telescope" thing from his science scope and everyone laughs. Arex and M'Ress eat lunch together and I totally ship it. Scotty gets hit by a cream pie! Scotty works out that the computer is behind it all. McCoy, Sulu and Uhura are in the holodeck (okay they call it the recreation room but it's clearly a holodeck) and the computer traps them there. Yep, first ever holodeck appearance has the first ever holodeck malfunction plot. The computer also turns the gravity off when Scotty tries to fix it. Then the computer releases laughing gas and everyone laughs. McCoy and friends get out eventually. The computer somehow makes a balloon version of the Enterprise (what) and the Romulans shoot it and get angry because there's nothing Romulans hate more than practical jokes (what.) Kirk pretends to be scared of the energy field so that the Enterprise will fly through it again. That's why he's the Captain! Of course ths fixes the coputer instead of fucking it up even further. The Romulans fly thorugh the energy field and their computers go craz too and everyone laughs and how many more episodes of this shite do I have to watch.

Well, it was better than Bem because it at least had a plot that I could follow. I can see kids finding it funny, maybe. But the over the top laughter at lame jokes killed it for me. I can't really hate something that has a giant balloon replicae of the Enterprise though.

SCORE: 4/10
 
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Albatross - Kirk is presented with a warrant for McCoy's arrest by some aliens. They claim he's responsible for a plague that killed hundreds of people nineteen years ago after he carried out a mass incoulation. TAS Kirk actually shows some emotion for once when he's angry at the suggestion Bones would hurt people. Kirk lets an alien investigator sneak aboard by "accidentally" leaving the hangar doors open, then impounds his ship for being a stowaway. That Kirk! They go to the plague planet to find out what happened. They find an alein who survived the plague living in a cave. He looks a bit like Skeletor and says McCoy saved his life. But he comes down with the plague himself before he can testify on McCoy's side. Then Kirk turns blue he's got the plague too oh snap! Everyone else comes down with the plague too except Spock, since Vulcans are always immune for plot reasons. Spock beams down to the planet to rescue McCoy so he can cure everyone. Turns out the aurora they flew through is what caused the plague. McCoy cures everyone using Skeletor's antibodies. We get a comedy ending with Spock and McCoy squabbling and Kirk laughing. Hahahaha!

Hey, this one was pretty good! It felt like it could have been a regular Star Trek episode as the plot was more mature than the average TAS episode. No real complaints here!

SCORE: 8.5/10


How Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth - There's a crewmemer named Mr. Walking Bear, so that's pretty cool. The Enterprise is trapped in a "force globe" when a mysterious ship attacks them. It looks like a big snake in space! Walking Bear recognises it (oh, that's why he's there) as the Mayan God Kukulkan. Oh look it's another alien who visited Earth centuries ago and was mistaken for a God. That happens a lot. It beams Kirk, McCoy, Scotty and Walking Bear onto its ship. They walk around a mysterious city of ancient Earth artefacts and work out that the ancient people of Earth never made his city accurately. They do some Indiana Jones shit to get Kukulkan to appear before them in his true form: a flying snake. He wants them to destroy him with their weapons. He thinks of them as his children. He's a weirdo. He's shows them some of his worshippers: little aliens living in cages living in virtual realities. He keeps shouting exposition and flapping his wings as we get more of those weird half-face close-ups on Kirk that TAS loves so much. Spock gets the Enterprise out of the force globe. Kirk and McCoy let a "power cat" loose to fuck with snakey. Kirk makes a speech about how they don't need Kukulkan anymore and he's won over pretty quickly. He was just a lonely old alien who wanted to help! And happened to look like an evil snake thing. Spock says ancient aliens visted Vulcan...and left wiser. That's a great line. Oh, what happened to Walking Bear? He just disappeared.

Star Trek does this "ancient alien mistaken for a God!" thing a lot and it's pretty silly. This one is okay for a TAS episode but there's nothing to particuarly recommend it unless you really want to see a "power cat." Good line from Spock at the end though! That bumps the score up a bit.

SCORE: 6/10


The Counter-Clock Incident - The Enterprise is on the way to Babel with 75 year old Commodore Robert April, the first Captain of the Enterprise. April's wife was a doctor in space too! She says something about the Enterprise being the first starship with warp drive and I wonder how people who try to include TAS in canon handle that line? They encounter a ship travelling at warp 36. That's silly! The ship is being flown by a young woman speaking BACKWARDS. The alien ship pulls the Enterprise as stupidly fast speeds with the Enterprise's own tractor beam in scenes that would have been exciting if the animation wasn't so crap. The Enterprise and the other vessel fly into a weird space thing and the Enterprise flies backwards in a white void where black stars shine. The flow of time is backwards in this weird universe and everyone's getting younger. The woman is from the backwards universe and was just trying to get home. They feet the woman's son who is an old man (people are born old and die young...like Benjamin Button shit!) Her father is a baby in a crib just to hammer this nonsense home. They have a way to escape involving causing the birth of a new star while a star in the proper universe dies. April is still sad about being old. CAN YOU SEE WHERE THIS IS GOING. The Enterprise crew start aging backwards super fast (for some reason the episode never gives) and it's pretty funny! Spock is the oldest (IT'S ALWAYS SPOCK) and stays an adult while even Kirk turns into a child. But April is older than Spock I guess and ends up in charge. The baby versions of the Enterprise crew are cute! They're still children when they get back to their own universe and use the transporter to return to their normal age. The transporter can do anything, remember! April and his wife choose to return to their old age which I actually didn't expect. I thought they'd go and live in the backwards universe. They're allowed to continue serving as ambassadors and are happy becaue even old people have value! A good message to end TAS on FOREVER.

Well, this episode is obviously very silly and makes no sense (you can't be born before your parents...that's stupid.) But it is fun and that's usually the best you can hope for from TAS. We get to see Robert April and his wife, we get to see the Enterprise crew turn into babies (I'm still not sure why) and it has a pretty nice ending. And..that's it. No more TAS. No more Star Trek episodes with the original crew. At least this was a better ending for them than 'Turnabout, Intruder' was.

SCORE: 8/10
 
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