Once Upon A Planet

WHY AM I WATCHING ONCE UPON A PLANET

In which Sulu is menaced by a dragon. No, seriously.

Space. The final frontier. 

The Magicks of Megus-Tu

WHY AM I WATCHING THE MAGICKS OF MEGAS-TU?

In which my science fiction show has a goddamn wizard's duel.

Yeah, fine. Spock is a wizard now.

The Infinite Vulcan

WHY AM I WATCHING THE INFINITE VULCAN?

In which there are a lot of good ideas, until there aren't. 

"Captain, maybe we could let Chekov come just this once"
"He knows what he did,"

Man, this one started so good too. The crew beams down to a planet that appears to be abandoned, but the sensors are showing a bustling city. Sulu goes to pick a flower. The flower poisons him and runs away. Yes, this is a planet full of sentient plants, which is a pretty neat idea. We probably should have seen that coming when the planet was named Phylos, but it is a cartoon for the smallest of children. Anyways, some asparagus looking dudes show up and give Sulu an antidote.

The Phylosians explain that humans had visited their planet before, but they ran around spraying Round Up everywhere because now the Phylosians are a species on the brink of extinction. But there's no time for that, because everyone gets attacked by giant phallic looking monsters with wings. Oh no! Dickbats! The dickbats grab Spock with their tendrils, and somebody learned they had a fetish that day. It turns out this has all been a clever trap, because the Phylosian's master needs Spock for his own sinister purposes. Kirk is not happy about his best friend getting kidnapped, so he looks for the Master himself. And finds him! The Master is Dr. Stavos Keniclius 5, a very tall human. Like, twenty five feet tall. So there's that. He declares that he's keeping Spock and sends the rest of the crew back up to the Enterprise.

Uhura finds out that Keniclius was a scientist during the Eugenics Wars of the 1990's (remember those?) Yes, the same War that brought us Kahn Noonian Singh, the genetically perfect dictator, also gave us this evil master of cloning. Proving once again that Star Trek has no idea what eugenics means. He's been cloning himself for the last 300 years, and increasing his size each time, I guess. Armed with this new information, Kirk returns to the planet where the episode goes off the rails pretty quickly.

Keniclius has already cloned himself a giant Spock because why the fuck not. He's transferred Spock One's tiny brain into Giant Spock (Which, sadly, there is already a precedent for.) and Kirk has to convince him to put it back before Normal Sized Spock dies. I think the dickbats come back, too. After several tedious minutes, Kirk convinces the tall Vulcan with the most logical statement heard on Star Trek. "Spock's death is meaningless if it's only to create a giant version of himself." Wise words indeed. So Large Spock mind melds with Small Spock and the day is saved. The two large scientists vow to put their giant brains together to create "a good master race" Then there's some casual racism towards Sulu and we all have a good laugh. What the fuck, Walter?

This... this fucking show, man.

THE RANDOM THOUGHTS

• So, yeah. This is the episode written by TV's Walter Koenig, AKA The Guy Who Played Chekov, AKA The Worst Thing To Happen on Original Star Trek and Yes I'm Including The Apple.
• There's a reason Chekov was not invited to be on the cartoon. 
• For the other times we dealt with Augments see the TOS episode Space Seed, the movie Star Trek II, the DS9 episode Statistical Probabilities, the ENT three part episode starting with Borderland, and if you must, Star Trek Into Darkness
• I really hate Chekov. Old Chekov, that is. New Chekov is pretty great.
• Speaking of which, Star Trek Beyond was pretty great.
• Speaking of which, Star Trek is pretty great.

The important thing is, Walter won't get any royalty checks.

The Survivor

WHY AM I WATCHING THE SURVIVOR?

In which Gene discovers tentacle porn.

"This high five has gone horribly wrong!"

The Enterpise is patrolling the Romulan Neutral Zone, which is the most Star Trek thing they could possibly be doing, when they come across the wreckage of a ship. Luckily, the pilot is still alive, and he is none other than Carter Winston, man about town. Remember that name, Carter Winston, you'll be hearing it a lot. Carter Winston is the best humanity has to offer, constantly using his fame and fortune to help out others. Kirk can't stop telling Carter Winston how great he is. And when Carter Winston isn't on screen, the other characters should be saying "Where's Carter Winston?" Spock wants to check Carter Winston's identification before letting him roam about the ship. Bones acts like Spock just took a shit in the captain's chair. Carter Winston, of course is happy to provide all the evidence he needs to prove who he is. He's just that sort of guy.

By strange coincidence, Carter Winston's fiancee, Lt. Anne Nored happens to be working security on the Enterprise. That was lucky. But Carter Winston can't be around her. Too much time has gone by! It's too painful! Anne, a hard nosed security officer, runs away in tears. Women, am I right? Spock wants Carter Winston to stay quarantined until we can be sure he's actually Carter Winston. Everyone calls Spock an asshole for not trusting the great Carter Winston. Then, first chance he gets, Carter Winston shapeshifts into some crazy tentacle monster, bonks Kirk on the head, assumes Kirk's form, and orders the ship into the Neutral Zone.

Kirk wakes up and they chase Carter Winston around the ship for a bit. But then the Romulans find out that there is a Federation ship in the Neutral Zone. And, if you know anything about Star Trek, the best way to cheese the Romulans off is to violate that Neutral Zone. Kirk realizes that the shape shifting alien pretending to be Carter Winston is actually a Romulan spy. He gets the Enterprise into the Neutral Zone, and the Romulans are within their rights to confiscate the ship and learn the Federation's precious secrets. Meanwhile, Carter Winston has damaged the deflector dish, which is kind of an important thing for space travel, so the Enterprise can't escape.

Crack security officer Lt. Nored tracked down the saboteur. The alien confirms that the real Carter Winston is dead, but he's been pretending to be Carter Winston for so long, he has feelings for her. Uh....kay? Luckily, this awkward moment is interrupted by Romulans attacking. That's when Carter Winston realizes that he's put his fiancee in jeopardy, so he shapeshifts himself into a new deflector dish, and the Enterprise is able to make their escape. Carter Winston heads off to prison, and Lt. Nored is going with him because fuck it, it's the 70's.

And now, the Fancy Lad Weather Report.

THE RANDOM THOUGHTS

• For that other time a member of the crew got shape shifted, or mind swapped, or whatever see the TOS episode Turnabout Intruder, the TNG episode Power Play, the DS9 episode The Passenger, and the VOY episode Warlord, and the ENT episode Observer Effect. Among many many many others.
• This episode features the first appearance of the other new crew member, M'Ress, the terrifying cat lady. The less said about her the better.

Keep your hands to yourself, mister.

More Tribbles, More Troubles

WHY AM I WATCHING MORE TRIBBLES, MORE TROUBLES?

In which Kirk and friends find themselves in a spot of tribble.

Where did my career go wrong?

The Lorelei Signal

WHY AM I WATCHING THE LORELEI SIGNAL?

In which one of Gene's weird sex fantasies becomes a Saturday morning cartoon.

Me, when I read the plot of this episode.

One of Our Planets is Missing

WHY AM I WATCHING ONE OF OUR PLANETS IS MISSING?

In which a TV show which has no sets does a bottle episode.

A visual representation of Shatner's contract.