Star Trek Pickups
Assorted extra episodes I’ve watched since my series write-ups, as I’m apparently devoted to this ~radical Trekkie transparency~ thing [salutes]
3x26 - 4x01 ‘Scorpion’
This two-parter literally opens with two Borg cubes being exploded, credits, then Jonathan Rhys-Davies playing Leonardo da Vinci. INSTANT GOLD. Turns out, that’s Kathryn’s holodeck fantasy: working with Da Vinci. Oh my god, mom. Anyway I enjoyed these! Enjoyed the creeping danger. Ultimately I am a woman of simple tastes: I want a horde of things the characters are scared of to run right by them, because something they are scared of is coming. #Balrog move
5x11 ‘Latent Image’
I do not know why people keeping my memories from me for my own good feels like such a credible fear for me personally, but it is? It’s like my brain has already prepared for this happening and knows exactly how I’ll freak out and is desperately hoping I’ll be able to pull myself together.
4x25 ‘One’
I love the plot of this one because it’s arbitrary. Like, if you are not using your mysterious space setting to come up with mysterious space occurrences that conveniently produce interesting character studies, then what is the POINT. I also loved the hallucinatory spookiness, my tender cyborg girl Seven “having breakfast” by just sitting alone in a dark mess hall diligently drinking some sort of space Ensure, and one of the best Doctor lines slash lines in general that I have ever heard: “There is a realm of good taste begging for your acquaintance.”
1x05 ‘The Cloud’
Janeway announcing with glowing eyes “There’s coffee in that nebula” would have made this whole episode worthwhile just on its own, but it also takes place when the Doctor was still primarily a) frustrated with everyone, b) hilariously sarcastic about it. YAY. Total fave: when he responded to B’Elena’s suggestion that he change his own program with, “Now there’s an interesting concept — a hologram that programs himself. What would I do with that ability? Create a family, raise an army…” Amazing.
2x19 ’A Private Little War’
So when I was reading up about Vulcans on Memory Alpha (…oh my god), this episode was referenced after the fact that Vulcans can voluntarily put themselves into a healing coma. Uh, gonna need to check that out thanks. And as with every time I’ve decided to watch another random TOS episode, I was rewarded with SOMETHING INCREDIBLE. Here it was not only Spock’s coma — which he gets out of by, I kid you not, half-consciously begging you to hit him, “Harder!” — but also a Cold War analogy so clear that they just went ahead and referred to it as “an arms race,” Jim and Bones wearing suede vests as shirts, and a sudden & transcendent attack by someone in a horned yeti costume. At one point Bones tries to frighten it off of Jim by growling at it.
> > Bonus: I’ve found notes I took on 8 other TOS episodes that I apparently never posted — should I?
3x23 ‘Sarek’
Much to appreciate in this one (after I got over my sad shock that something happened to Amanda??), including Picard and Riker wearing Starfleet dress tunics and fanboying over how much they love Ambassador Sarek, another variation on the always fun Space Rage epidemic, and the nerd thrill of watching Sarek explain the “terrible intimacy” of telepathy to Professor X.
1x01 ‘Encounter At Farpoint Station’
My dad has moved on to TNG in his own Trek Trek, and was talking to me about the first episode, which he said included both Q and Old Bones, so obviously I had to watch it. And it turns out that the first ep is MARKEDLY more like TOS? Long shots of people on a bridge looking concerned while dramatic music plays, all sorts of species and races striding around the Enterprise corridors, fantastical over-dramatic plots, etc etc. And like, I don’t know if it was because of this — generally more clunky and absurd and I’m just really endeared to that for some reason — but I’ll be damned if I didn’t notice my heart start to chirp out “I love this! more of Beverly, Wes, and Riker in the space mall!” which is a statement I sincerely doubt I would have made during my original TNG Trek.
1x18 ‘The Hands Of the Prophets’
I ended up watching the finale of season 1 on recommendation, and I’m putting it here so I can keep my next DS9 write-up S2-exclusive. And it was great! Science and/vs Spirituality, the ethics of education, a monk whom I’m guessing is gonna end up being the leader of some sort of Rejorm Bajoran movement, and a scene between Quark and Odo that honestly had me laughing for the entire duration. This episode was also important for my own personal Trek journey, as it finally occurred to me what a sucker I am for one of DS9’s strengths: quotidian space life. I’ve always wanted to know about the little domestic stuff, what people’s quarters are like and what their favorite food from the replicator is, and now I get it! Like, this is a show in which a plot where O’Brien has lost a sonic screwdriver somehow matters to me before it turns into a murder mystery.
