ST:TOS 1-29 Operation: Annihilate!
Jul. 12th, 2018 11:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaylee66The Enterprise is investigating something very peculiar this episode. There is mass insanity spreading from one planet to another, in a straight line.
They still have yeomen at this point; one goes along on the mission. (I'm just keeping track because I'm curious when they stop having them.) This one had a non-speaking role, which made her boring. I want Yeoman Janice Rand back. I didn't like the stupid one-sided romance with Kirk, and her hairstyle annoyed me, but she had a personality!
Anyway, in this episode we find out that Kirk has a brother. Sam Kirk with his wife Aurelan and son Peter live on the planet Deneva. We've never heard of them before. I wonder if we'll ever hear of them again. Spoiler: Sam and Aurelan both die. It would be interesting to see Peter again, when he's grown up. I hope he has some other family to take him in, since he obviously isn't going to stay with Captain Kirk. I wish they would've at least mentioned where he will go, otherwise it seems like they're just forgetting about him as soon as he's no longer necessary to the plot. They do this sort of thing a lot, and it's annoying because they could easily give the impression of their characters being real people whose lives will continue beyond the current episode, simply by making a quick mention of "he's going to live with his mother's sister on Earth" or something.
On Deneva, they beam down in the middle of a huge city, but everything is strangely quiet. Everyone seems to be indoors. Then four men appear and run towards them with clubs, shouting "Get away! We don't want to hurt you! Please! Go back!" The landing party is forced to stun them.
KirK: Did you hear what they said, Mr Spock?
Spock: Indeed. They seemed most concerned for our safety.
KirK: They tried to brain us with these clubs.
Spock: Their attitude was inconsisten with their actions.
The doctor's tricorder readings of the unconscious people also show unexpected results. Intriguing!
The story was interesting, and pretty good overall. There were some things that didn't make sense, though. One that particularly bugged me: Aurelan went from trying to block the air vent, to sobbing that "They're here! They're here!" Nothing came through the vent during that period of time, and it seems that she had already been infected *before* the landing party entered her home. If she was already infected, then why was she trying to keep something out that was already inside her? That makes no sense. And we saw that people get infected by way of a painful stinger, so there's no chance that it could have happened without her knowledge.
Spock: I am a Vulcan. Pain is a thing of the mind. The mind can be controlled.
KirK: You're only half Vulcan. What about the human half?
Spock: It is proving to be an inconvenience, but it is manageable.
I guess this is where they start using "Vulcan" instead of "Vulcanian". Personally I liked the old way better; it was clearer whether they were talking about a person or the planet. Oh, well.
They catch one of the alien creatures, which looks like a bumpy pancake that breathes and can fly. (Yeah, that's a bit silly, but I don't mind.) This is what they find out: It is a one-celled creature resembling a huge, individual brain cell. They hypothesize that each of these things is one cell in a larger organism, and although it is not physically connected to the other cells, it is nevertheless part of the whole creature, acting as a single organism.
KirK: Existing so differently from any living matter or energy as we know it, that it may have come here, planet by planet, from an entirely different galaxy.
Spock: From a place where our physical laws do not apply. We may therefore find it difficult to destroy.
Um, first of all, we have already seen some very strange forms of life in this galaxy. There is no reason to suppose that just because an organism is strange, it must have come from another galaxy. There is also no reason to suppose that it comes from a place where our physical laws don't apply. Where are they getting this from? Just because phaser fire doesn't have much effect on it, doesn't mean that our physical laws don't apply to it. Lots of species react differently to the same stimuli. Even on Earth, there are animals that thrive in environments that would kill a human being. It's still the same physical laws, just different adaptations. Honestly!
So, there were things that bugged me, but I still enjoyed it. And I liked the name Aurelan.
Some trivia:
The neural parasites were created by prop designer Wah Chang from bags of fake vomit.
One scene did not make it into the episode. This scene came at the end of the story, and featured Peter Kirk (dressed in a command division tunic) sitting in the captain's chair on the bridge while his uncle, James T. Kirk, agrees to let him return to Deneva to live with Sam Kirk's research partner and friend. Although filmed, it was edited out due to time constraints. This left the episode with no explanation of what becomes of Peter.
Seriously? So the writers *did* give the character a life, but because of time constraints, someone decided it would be okay to scrap that and leave Peter as a cardboard cutout? Ugh! I am really annoyed about this decision, but I feel better about the writers now.
They still have yeomen at this point; one goes along on the mission. (I'm just keeping track because I'm curious when they stop having them.) This one had a non-speaking role, which made her boring. I want Yeoman Janice Rand back. I didn't like the stupid one-sided romance with Kirk, and her hairstyle annoyed me, but she had a personality!
Anyway, in this episode we find out that Kirk has a brother. Sam Kirk with his wife Aurelan and son Peter live on the planet Deneva. We've never heard of them before. I wonder if we'll ever hear of them again. Spoiler: Sam and Aurelan both die. It would be interesting to see Peter again, when he's grown up. I hope he has some other family to take him in, since he obviously isn't going to stay with Captain Kirk. I wish they would've at least mentioned where he will go, otherwise it seems like they're just forgetting about him as soon as he's no longer necessary to the plot. They do this sort of thing a lot, and it's annoying because they could easily give the impression of their characters being real people whose lives will continue beyond the current episode, simply by making a quick mention of "he's going to live with his mother's sister on Earth" or something.
On Deneva, they beam down in the middle of a huge city, but everything is strangely quiet. Everyone seems to be indoors. Then four men appear and run towards them with clubs, shouting "Get away! We don't want to hurt you! Please! Go back!" The landing party is forced to stun them.
KirK: Did you hear what they said, Mr Spock?
Spock: Indeed. They seemed most concerned for our safety.
KirK: They tried to brain us with these clubs.
Spock: Their attitude was inconsisten with their actions.
The doctor's tricorder readings of the unconscious people also show unexpected results. Intriguing!
The story was interesting, and pretty good overall. There were some things that didn't make sense, though. One that particularly bugged me: Aurelan went from trying to block the air vent, to sobbing that "They're here! They're here!" Nothing came through the vent during that period of time, and it seems that she had already been infected *before* the landing party entered her home. If she was already infected, then why was she trying to keep something out that was already inside her? That makes no sense. And we saw that people get infected by way of a painful stinger, so there's no chance that it could have happened without her knowledge.
Spock: I am a Vulcan. Pain is a thing of the mind. The mind can be controlled.
KirK: You're only half Vulcan. What about the human half?
Spock: It is proving to be an inconvenience, but it is manageable.
I guess this is where they start using "Vulcan" instead of "Vulcanian". Personally I liked the old way better; it was clearer whether they were talking about a person or the planet. Oh, well.
They catch one of the alien creatures, which looks like a bumpy pancake that breathes and can fly. (Yeah, that's a bit silly, but I don't mind.) This is what they find out: It is a one-celled creature resembling a huge, individual brain cell. They hypothesize that each of these things is one cell in a larger organism, and although it is not physically connected to the other cells, it is nevertheless part of the whole creature, acting as a single organism.
KirK: Existing so differently from any living matter or energy as we know it, that it may have come here, planet by planet, from an entirely different galaxy.
Spock: From a place where our physical laws do not apply. We may therefore find it difficult to destroy.
Um, first of all, we have already seen some very strange forms of life in this galaxy. There is no reason to suppose that just because an organism is strange, it must have come from another galaxy. There is also no reason to suppose that it comes from a place where our physical laws don't apply. Where are they getting this from? Just because phaser fire doesn't have much effect on it, doesn't mean that our physical laws don't apply to it. Lots of species react differently to the same stimuli. Even on Earth, there are animals that thrive in environments that would kill a human being. It's still the same physical laws, just different adaptations. Honestly!
So, there were things that bugged me, but I still enjoyed it. And I liked the name Aurelan.
Some trivia:
The neural parasites were created by prop designer Wah Chang from bags of fake vomit.
One scene did not make it into the episode. This scene came at the end of the story, and featured Peter Kirk (dressed in a command division tunic) sitting in the captain's chair on the bridge while his uncle, James T. Kirk, agrees to let him return to Deneva to live with Sam Kirk's research partner and friend. Although filmed, it was edited out due to time constraints. This left the episode with no explanation of what becomes of Peter.
Seriously? So the writers *did* give the character a life, but because of time constraints, someone decided it would be okay to scrap that and leave Peter as a cardboard cutout? Ugh! I am really annoyed about this decision, but I feel better about the writers now.