Star Trek The Original Series Season 2

 

Sexism- For the most part the sexism is gone in this season. It's not nearly as blatant. Any sexism is mostly background radiation, like when Kirk constantly grabs a woman's arm when she walks away. The only overtly sexist line we remembered was in Who Mourns for Adonis right at the beginning when Kirk and McCoy discuss a woman and say that she'll retire when she gets married and finds a man, like all women do in Starfleet. Kirk then says "I'd say it's like losing an officer but...." and then he sees her flirting with Scotty and says "Oh my god, I am losing an officer." It seems to imply that women aren't real officers, but Scotty, as a man, is. Other than this scene, though, it's mostly not nearly as overt as the first season, especially the first half of the first season, which is nice. It makes it a little easier to watch.

Not an Ensemble- It's frustrating watching as the show really just isn't interested in being an ensemble. Every other character who isn't Kirk, Spock, and to a lesser extent McCoy gets very little to actually do. Sulu, Chekov, and Uhura are absolutely wasted as characters. They could be great characters, but they seem to just be there to fill in a quota. Oh look, we've got a Japanese, Russian, and black woman on the bridge. Very progressive. Unlike our own time, we're going to all work together in harmony in the future. That's a fine message, but why not examine these characters as people too? Scotty gets very little to do as well, other than say that he's giving the engines all he's got. McCoy, even doesn't really get a lot of characterization of his own other than his hatred for Spock and overly, stupidly, emotional hot takes. Scotty at least gets an episode to himself where he definitely murdered those three women (Every bit of evidence we have points to Jack the Ripper, LOL). But the other characters don't really get much of a look in and they feel wasted. I sympathize with Nichelle Nichols herself when she wanted to leave the show and go be on Broadway because she didn't really get a lot to do. This is what she says happened before she met MLK and he asked her to stay. It's not like they couldn't make episodes centered around and exploring these characters. They did with Scotty once. But rarely does anyone get anything but Kirk and Spock. Kirk and Spock are great characters, most of the time, but the other characters deserve a look in as well.

Taking Risks- This season took a lot more risks. The episodes are a lot more noteworthy than the first season which was mostly just kind of bland. This season has a lot more to talk about, which is why our video is longer. We talk about every episode of the season in the video, as we did for the last season. I'll do the worst episodes first before the best ones. Followed by other notable episodes that aren't really worst or best.

Worst Episodes-

The Apple- This is a pretty standard "no perfect world" episode. The first season was filled with these episodes that were extremely skeptical of the idea that you can create a utopian society in the first place. Ironic given what Star Trek becomes. The previous worst episode in this genre was This Side of Paradise because of how the society is truly happy and there's nothing wrong with it really, other than everyone being about to die. But the episode wanted us to be skeptical of the society itself. Spock had even said that this was the only time he had ever been truly happy and Kirk takes that from him. This one is worse, however.

In this episode, Kirk violates the Prime Directive and non-consensually sets an alien society onto the evolutionary path that he wants because he thinks it's imperative that he impress his ideals on other people. I'm not usually a pro-Prime Directive person, but this episode absolutely makes me understand why it's such an important rule by showing what happens when someone violates it. Specifically Kirk. It's absolutely the anti-Picard, Picard would not blatantly destroy an alien god and impose his own values on a society. In the context of the episode, Kirk destroys their god because it's holding the ship hostage and is about to destroy it. But that's not really the point of the episode. The episode wants you to see these people living in huts forever and relying on this computer god for everything as a bad thing. "Culturally stagnant." But there's nothing wrong with the lifestyle they're living. They're not hurting anyone. Why exactly is it wrong for them to live like this if they want to? Same with This Side of Paradise. Both of these episodes feel like Roddenberry looking at the hippie movement with a sidelong glance and telling them to go get their hair cut, get a job, stop living in their communes, and rejoin mainstream society. This is part of why this show is not really progressive, even by the standards of the time. Roddenberry, himself, is a pretty conservative person, especially since he was in the military and a cop. In another episode he even seems to be pro-Vietnam War, which we'll cover later.

This episode is also weirdly squimish about sex for no reason. When they're trying to explain sex they all just kind of don't want to talk about it and try to pass it on to each other. It seems like people in the 23rd century wouldn't really care THAT MUCH about sex. Especially a scientist and doctor who deal with it as part of their job.

Metamorphosis- They had to drag poor Zefram Cochrane into this didn't they? Even by the standards of the episode, they should have recognized Cochrane immediately and had much more of a hero worship type attitude when seeing him. Obviously First Contact the movie didn't exist yet, but the episode says that he invented warp flight and that there are universities, cities, and even planets named after him. They should absolutely immediately recognize him, but they don't even know who he is until he says his first name is Zefram. When he says his last name is Cochrane, they should have said "Oh, cool, any relation to the most famous man in history, Zefram Cochrane?" Kirk calls him "Mr. Cochrane" as if he isn't one of the most important humans to ever live in history. It's like you met Albert Einstein, and just called him "Mr. Einstein." There's even a moment early on where Kirk and McCoy say that they think they've seen him before, but don't know where. Which is just hilariously dumb. You can't not recognize one of the most important people in history. You have absolutely seen their face everywhere. Were they asleep in history class at the academy? The problem is that this could have been literally anyone. It didn't have to be Cochrane.

Anyway, that's just kind of jarring at the beginning, the real problem with this episode is in its meat. The entity that's been keeping Cochrane alive has fallen in love with him. Kirk says that it's a female entity and that gender is a universal constant, which is a very weird thing to say considering we're in space and the universe is infinite. Why would a non-coporeal entity have any concept of gender at all? Just because you can only imagine a woman falling in love with a man? Dumb. We have people on Earth, even, who identify as non-binary and genderless. It's something that would be familiar to Kirk, but I doubt the writers even knew what non-binary was. Cochrane immediately starts to think this is disgusting. The concept of this alien entity that he's had a long and fruitful relationship for 100 years is in love with him disgusts him. And Kirk, Spock, and McCoy point out how absurd this is to get upset about it. Why should he stop caring about this entity just because it loves him?

But then the episode does a complete 180 almost immediately. In the very next scene, Kirk goes out and argues that the entity can't love because it's not human and therefore can't possibly have any idea what love is. It's pretty gross considering what he had just said not five minutes ago. And then the entity goes into the body of the woman who is dying and now Cochrane is suddenly ok with having a romantic relationship with it now that it's in the body of a human woman. The episode is definitely not as progressive as it thinks it is. The only way for this relationship to work is if the entity is in the body of a sexy woman. The first scene, where they actually argue that a romantic relationship can work with a non-corporeal entity before 180'ing entirely is more what I would expect from Star Trek's usual nod to tolerance and acceptance. Ultimately, though, this episode is regressive and drags Cochrane's name through the mud. Cochrane would have known people who had relationships with aliens, almost certainly. He was the first human to officially make contact with aliens after all.

We read this as a metaphor for interracial marriage, because that was one of the prominant culture war issues of the time. And reading it like that, it's not great. You can have an interracial marriage, but only if the black woman stops "acting black" and starts integrating into "white society."

This episode also has some weird sexism where the woman in question here who gets inhabited by the entity is a diplomat working on a peaceful resolution to a war, and her presence is urgently required. But Kirk just weirdly dismisses her role in the peace talk saying "Oh they'll find someone else." As if she doesn't really matter even though she's spent years on it.

The Gamesters of Tiskelion- So this episode starts with Kirk, Uhura, and Chekov getting yoinked off the bridge of the Enterprise and turned into fighting slaves. It's kind of awkward in the first place that this show thinks it can deal with the subject of slavery. But then there's an attempted rape scene. Which is fine, there can be one of those. Like in The Enemy Within (honestly, though, that attempted rape scene makes that episode grosser just by being there). But after the attempted rape of Uhura, there's immediately a scene that seems like it's supposed to be funny. What seems to be a trans-woman is selected to breed with Chekov. Personally, I don't think they even had the concept of what a trans-woman was at the time. They barely knew that gay people existed. But it's played as comedy. This fear of trans-women. Or even fear of a "man in a dress." Or even just "an ugly woman." It's a fear of emasculation and you can see it on Chekov's face. Despite, you know, someone from the 23rd century shouldn't give two shits about gender as a concept. But the people in the 60s very much so did. This scene is not only trans panic before the concept of trans people existed in the popular consciousness, it's also especially awkward as it's immediately following an attempted rape. Kirk, of course, has a much better time with his selected mate, seducing her super quickly as he usually does when confronted with a woman. The episode is also very weirdly sexual for an episode about slavery. They're wearing what looks like bondage gear: harnesses and collars and Kirk runs around shirtless for half the episode while the other aliens are mostly half-naked as well.

All of this is really awkward, but this is not the main reason why the episode is bad. The main problem is the conclusion. Kirk fights for the freedom of the slaves and the brains in the jar promise to free them and teach them how to build a society. But there's no guarantee whatsoever that they will do that. Leaving a bunch of slaves with their former masters is a huge problem. Because they're going to fall right back into the same relationship they had before leaving. But the main problem is that this is not an alien species. This is a bunch of random people from throughout the galaxy plucked from their worlds and ships. There's even an Andorian slave here. According to an earlier episode, Journey to Babel, Andorians are citizens of the Federation. You can't just leave them here and say "ok, build a society now with all the former slaves as you're taught by your former masters." You especially can't leave actual citizens of the Federation who have been kidnapped and enslaved in the hands of their captors. I would imagine the Federation council would have something to say about that. Kirk just kind of fucks off because he doesn't want to deal with taking them to their respective worlds.

The Omega Glory- I loved this episode, but I love so bad it's good stuff. Techincally it is bad, though, so it's in this column. My sister didn't appreciate it as much as I did, but she's never been one for so bad it's good content. Psh.

So this episode starts out as a pretty normal episode, Kirk involving himself in an alien society. Seeing it being contaminated by a Starfleet officer. Apparently it's bad if another person violates the Prime Directive, but not if Kirk does it. They find a ship that is infected with a fatal disease, but they beam down to a planet which has a cure all for all diseases. The air makes people naturally resistent to diseases. The captain of the ship whose entire crew died wants to make this into a fountain of youth situation for Starfleet so that humans can live forever. But it won't work. It only works on this planet. They can't replicate it anywhere else. None of this is relevant to the episode's big reveal at all, except maybe that it feels pretty colonial. Like the Spanish Empire searching for the Fountain of Youth in South and Central America and slaughtering natives to find it.

You see, the planet has two dominant races on it. The Yangs and the Coms. The Coms are all Asians and the Yangs are all white. We start out with the idea of calling the white people "savages" which is like a Disney's Pocahontas level understanding of race relations. "Look, we're calling the white people savages! Isn't that progressive! They're both equally responsible for the fighting!" Which is kind of dumb. It at least tries to subvert the idea of evil Asian "hordes." The idea of the "Yellow Peril" that the Asian continent's people's are a threat to the European white countries somehow.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_Peril

Of course, it goes back on this premise too and actually reinforces the "Yellow Peril" idea. Because the white Yangs are actually the good guys and the Coms are the bad guys. The Yangs are actually secretly Americans. Exactly the same as Earth's Americans. Complete with an American flag and US Constitution. (Freedom is our worship word, lol) And the Coms are evil Communists. Presumably the Vietcong, because the Vietnam War was very much so in the media at the time. When they brought out that American flag, I lost it. I was laughing so hard, I couldn't stop. This episode is so stupidly patriotic for the US. Kirk even grabs the Yangs' sacred documents, further interfering in their culture and religion. They say that only the elders can read the sacred texts, but Kirk attacks and talks down to them, saying that they don't understand their own religion properly. He reads out the full Preamble to the Constitution from memory while hilariously patriotic music swells in the background. They even have a national anthem sting in the background.

To me, it was pretty interesting reading the background on this episode in the Memory Alpha article. Roddenberry was super proud of this script and pushed hard for it to be made. It was one of the three original pilot scripts that he submitted. Where No Man Has Gone Before, Mudd's Women, and The Omega Glory. Where No Man Has Gone Before was absolutely the correct choice, the other two are pretty bad. Roddenberry pushed really hard to get this episode made in the first season too, and the network fought him on it, which was the correct decision. He finally got to make it in season 2, however, and submitted it himself for an emmy. Which he didn't get. Obviously. Even Robert Justman thought this episode was trash according to this episode's Memory Alpha page:

"Robert Justman wrote a long memo to Roddenberry, in which he pointed out the flaws of the episode's script, but he thought it was too devastating, and tore it up, and made a few suggestions orally instead. "[Roddenberry] took the advice, but as anyone who has seen the episode knows, it didn't do much good". (Inside Star Trek: The Real Story, p. 137)"

It says a lot about Roddenberry that he thought this episode was just that good. He probably was grinning ear to ear as he made it, thinking he was brilliant. It absolutely lines up with everything else he works on in this series. He is a very conservative person. Nationalistic, pro-America in the Cold War, pro-Vietnam War, and anti-hippie/anti-progressive. The only thing that isn't particularly conservative about him is that he's anti-racist most of the time.

Best Episodes-

Amok Time- What a fantastic opening episode this was. The first season never really felt like a wide world. It felt kind of lonely. Just the Enterprise out in the middle of nowhere exploring the reaches of the galaxy. But this episode takes us to the home planet of Spock and we get to see that there is indeed more of a world here. We get the first real exploration of Vulcan culture in this episode as we see Spock going through his Pon Farr. The first season kind of went back and forth on whether the Vulcans actually LITERALLY didn't feel any emotions or if they supressed their emotions. Ultimately it landed on the idea that Vulcans supress their emotions. Their comittment to pure logic and lack of emotion is IDEOLOGICAL, not BIOLOGICAL. Which I love. This was ultimately for the better as it allows us to explore the much more intense feelings that the Vulcans feel when they're not supressing them and letting them escape. The Pon Farr, then, feels like the Vulcans suppressing their emotions so much that they explode all at once and will literally kill them if they don't deal with it.

I love that this is considered so shameful that they don't even tell their fellow members of the Federation about this. The Vulcans are one of the founding members of the Federation, and yet neither Starfleet Command, nor Kirk, nor the ship's Doctor have any idea what is happening to Spock. It's so shameful that they don't even tell the medical staff that would help treat them. This was always going to be a consequence of Vulcans joining Starfleet, but Spock being the first Vulcan in Starfleet was a trailblazer here. They would inevitably have to share the Pon Farr with the rest of the Federation. Perhaps this is one reason why Spock's decision to join is seen as so shameful to his father and why he is so disappointed in him most of the time.

Kirk is willing to put his career in jeopardy to help out his friend. Their relationship is so close and intense that Kirk is willing to do whatever he needs to keep Spock from dying. Spock has displayed similar affection for Kirk in season 1 and at the end of this episode. Jumping ahead a bit, when Spock finds out that Kirk is alive, Spock yells out "JIM!" in a sudden outburst of relief that Kirk is alive. This relationship is actually very strong and I can definitely understand why Kirk/Spock fanfiction became a thing. And why Kirk/Spock became the basis for fanfiction and shipping culture.

We find out that Spock has to go have sex or he's going to die. Either he can have wild, passionate sex or he can fight someone to the death. Either of those things satisfies the Pon Farr. Here we get to see some of the sexism of the Vulcan society. We're not criticizing Vulcans for being sexist, of course, since they're aliens. Only when Humans are portrayed as sexist. Vulcans have arranged marriages from birth, which was absolutely seen as awful and restrictive by the time this show came out. When they initiate the Pon Farr, the woman gets a choice, but the choice doesn't leave her with a lot of freedom. She gets to chose whether to immediately accept the arranged marriage or force her marriage partner to fight to the death. Whoever wins the fight to the death, though, gets to marry her. So she doesn't actually get the choice to opt out of the arranged marriage. Only the man who wins the fight to the death gets that choice. Indeed, the woman here talks about it as being "released" as if she's a slave to the marriage.

T'Prynn, a character from the book series Star Trek: Vanguard actually fought her own Pon Farr. She fought her arranged marriage partner to the death and killed him. This seemed to be the only way out of the marriage for women. This is apocryphal, however, but it is interesting. It's not something mentioned in the text of this episode.

Another interesting part of this episode is the character T'Pau. After the first season's pretty blatant sexism, we have a woman here who is strong and formidabble and apparently very well connected. She was the only person to ever reject a seat on the Federation council. And she was able to get Starfleet Command to divert the Enterprise to Vulcan for Spock's Pon Farr. When we watched this episode we considered the idea that T'Pol, from Enterprise, could have initially been conceived as T'Pau, which would explain why she's so well known and well connected. Indeed, according to Memory Alpha, she was the reason why Vulcans in Enterprise were portrayed as looking down on Humans. Both Blalock's performance and the other Vulcans on the show. Which I liked.

"Shortly after being cast as T'Pol on Star Trek: Enterprise, actress Jolene Blalock revealed a fondness for the character of T'Pau. "There was something about her that I've always loved," commented Blalock. "It just made an impression on me." The introduction of the character on the original series influenced the portrayal of Vulcans on Enterprise, including how Blalock played T'Pol. (Star Trek Monthly issue 84, p. 40) Writer Garfield Reeves-Stevens noted, "The reticence that T'Pau has and her disdain for Humans, that actually fueled the depiction of Vulcans in the era of Enterprise, where that was the main view – that was how all Vulcans looked upon Humans." (Starfleet Access for "Amok Time", TOS Season 2 Blu-ray)"

Mirror Mirror- Everyone knows why this is a fantastic episode. I love the Mirror Universe as a concept. It's opposite day. The Federation is a fascist dictatorship. I really like the expanded universe for the Mirror Universe, its series of books. This episode in particular, though, didn't really intend to make the Mirror Universe into a whole thing. I think the direct intention here was to tell us what the Federation is meant to stand for by showing us the opposite. And it does a good job of that. The first season didn't go into a lot of detail about what the Federation is or what it's about. Indeed, it didn't even have a concept of the Federation until the second half of season 1. Kirk worked for the United Earth Space Probe Agency for the first half of the season. Here, though, we see direction what the Federation is when mirror Spock mind melds with McCoy. A world of peace and cooperation and freedom of different alien worlds working together for their own common good.

The episode does this by having us see the reactions to the exact same situation. An alien species doesn't want to give the Federation/Empire access to their dilithium because they don't want it to lead to anyone at all dying. The Federation says "Alright, fair enough, we're peaceful we would never do anything to violate your sacred beliefs." The Empire just kills them and takes what they want. Coincidentally, this is also a much better portrayal of Federation values then, say, The Apple or This Side of Paradise where Kirk wants to destroy people's sacred beliefs and tear down their perfect society they've built for themselves.

Personally, I think this episode does a better job at portraying the Nazis than the actual Nazi episode. It's harder to talk about real issues in sci fi because there's so much baggage attached to them. The Nazi episode is directly about the real Nazis. It's a real thing that really happened. People have feelings on it one way or another. This is also why it's very difficult to get people to condemn the faults in their own society, but have no trouble condemning the faults of another society. If you talk about the police brutality in the US, for instance, a lot of people shut their brains off and don't want to hear it. But those same people will gladly condemn the brutality of China and Russia, despite those governments doing much the same things the US does.There's emotional baggage attached to the society you're in and it's hard to seperate yourself from that society.

This is why talking in metaphor makes it easier to address issues like this. It helps even to pull the writer's own baggage towards something away from the story. The Nazi episode says that the Nazi government was efficient, but Mirror, Mirror, as a metaphor for Nazis rather than actual Nazis, has no such illusions. The Empire is wasteful, as Kirk himself says, it is illogical. He is a man outside of the society and has an easier time seeing its faults than mirror Spock. The Empire encourages murder to advance in the ranks. Which lines with actual Nazis. Nazis hated each other. Fascists absolutely hate each other. They are always too busy pushing each other down. Mirror, Mirror takes that to the logical extreme and has them murdering each other to advance.

The only thing missing here was an other to blame for all of their problems. Obviously the Nazis had Jews, gays, Roma, and socialists. Our modern day Trumpists have illegal immigrants, Muslims, SJWs, and leftists. But this episode kind of leaves that aspect of fascism out. Later Mirror Universe episodes do indeed have the enemy to blame. Enterprise and Discovery portray a Mirror Universe where all non-humans are seen as inferior. Only let into the Empire by the good grace of the Empress. Spock, then, shouldn't be allowed to be a first officer of a ship. It doesn't make a lot of sense for why he is.

Another fantastic thing about this episode is that it spawned one of the best Mirror Universe books: The Sorrows of Empire, a book I highly recommend reading if you haven't. The story of Spock's rise to power and orchestration of the downfall of the Empire is intense and gripping.

I, Mudd- This is just a delightful episode. There's not a lot to say about it. The story itself is pretty standard. A race of androids that want to conquer the universe. But the real reason why this is in the best list is because it's just so damn enjoyable. The first Mudd episode is not very good and Mudd isn't really a very charismatic character in Mudd's Women. But this one sold me on the character and justified bringing him back in Discovery. Mudd is every bit the slimy rogue that Discovery portrays him as. He's spent awhile as the prisoner of these androids living in luxury as their king. But now he feels trapped and wants to leave, but the androids won't let him. And it just gets more and more ridiculous from there. Kirk and company come down and get trapped in luxury too. It ultimately culminates in a series of the crew doing a bunch of ridiculous actions to confuse the androids. Even Spock gets to full androids with the tired logic puzzle: "I always tell the truth, I am lying." Which, seems like they should have a safe guard against that one with how common it is. But really this is just a fantastic romp of an episode. Like Trouble with Tribbles. It was the first episode to convince us that Trek really could do comedy. There's no reason to even get into the sexist implications of demonizing your ex-wife! It even has one of my favorite lines:

"Why should we leave?

Because... we don't like you. Bu Bu Bu Bup!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfu9zia6LN8

Journey to Babel- This, along with Amok Time, were the first two real world building episodes, and that's why they're so good. We get to see other members of the Federation here, other than Humans and Vulcans. This is the first episode where we really get to see that the Federation is an inter-species government. We see several Federation ambassadors from different planets going to a conference about a planet's entry into the Federation. For the first time we see Andorians and Tellarites, who Enterprise later says are founding members of the Federation. The story is decent as well, if a bit soap opera. We also get to see, for the first time, Spock's parents, Sarek and Amanda. Sarek has a Vulcan heart attack and Spock wants to give his own blood to save his life. We get some really good scenes between Spock and his parents, one in particular where he fights with his mother and then when she leaves Spock touches the door, presumably regretting the things he didn't say. When Kirk gets injured by an assassin, however, Spock isn't willing to step down from commanding the ship to help with his father's blood transfusion, even though his blood is the only one that can help. Again we see the strong relationship between Kirk and Spock as Kirk is willing to get out of his sickbed and pretend to be fine so that Spock can help his father. Spock's unwillingness to sacrifice being in command is interesting here because Scotty has been in command in several episodes up until this point. We didn't know why Scotty couldn't just take command here. The episode ends on a pretty fun note when McCoy orders Spock and Kirk to stay in sickbay for a few weeks and finally gets the last word.

The Trouble with Tribbles- Like I, Mudd this one is just a fun romp. It's iconic for a reason. And like I, Mudd, it proves that Trek can do a good comedic episode. The tribbles themselves are cute and adorable and nobody, not even Spock, can resist their coos. And then they breed like crazy. There's a hilarious misuse of the word "bisexual," using it to mean "reproducing at will" instead of "attracted to both men and women." There's a great bar fight scene in which the man who sold the tribble to Uhura in the first place just wanders around taking drinks as people are being flung across the counter and tables towards him. It's also pretty hilarious that Scotty wasn't willing to start a fight when the Klingons insulted Kirk, but he absolutely was when they insulted the Enterprise. I love that we get to see Kirk just absolutely broken. "This is my chicken sandwich and coffee. This is my chicken sandwich and coffee! I want these things off the ship, I don't care if it takes everything we've got, I want them off the ship!" And, of course, the scene where Kirk opens the storage compartment and hundreds of tribbles fall on him is just iconic. The looks on his face are just perfect as he's buried in an avalanche of tribbles. This was absolutely a great choice for DS9 to revisit for the 30th anniversary.

Other Noteable Episodes-

A Piece of the Action- While this isn't quite as good as I, Mudd and Trouble with Tribbles, it's still really fun. Kirk does a fantastic gangster accent and even Spock gets a gangster line. Kirk driving a car is also just hilarious as he constantly breaks. Kirk's solution here is probably not the best, leaving one of the gangsters in charge of the other gangsters, but it's ok because of how fun the episode is. Also, they should have gone back for that tricorder that McCoy left. The original concept for DS9's 30th anniversary episode was going to be them going to this planet and everyone dressed in Starfleet uniforms going to Trek conventions, which would have been fun. But they ultimately went with Trouble with Tribbles, which is a good choice.

A Private Little War- The Klingons are arming one side of a war on a primitive world. The episode isn't really clear on WHY they're doing that. It doesn't really help them at all to do that, and Klingons just come in and militarily occupy a planet when it has something they want, as we saw in Errand of Mercy. They did the same thing in Friday's Child for no reason. It's because Roddenberry wants to write a Cold War metaphor. This is the episode that convinced me that Roddenberry is pro-Vietnam War. Kirk makes a long impassioned argument about how he has to arm the other side in the conflict with weapons that are just as advanced as the ones the Klingons gave, because that's the only way that we didn't kill ourselves in the Cold War. He explicitly mentions MAD- mutually assured destruction. But the US had the nuke and the Soviet's didn't for about five years and didn't use it on the Soviets. So we fight our wars through other countries so that we don't kill ourselves with nukes. The episode itself doesn't really even commit to its pro-Vietnam War message. It passionately argues for it the entire episode, and then wimps out at the end after one person is killed. Kirk calls up and asks Scotty to send down 1000 rifles, but then changes his mind and says he's tired at the last second.

Patterns of Force- As mentioned above, this episode doesn't really do a great job of portraying Nazis. It was a common belief at the time that Nazis were efficient, but it's definitely not the case. That idea has since been debunked, but it's portrayed here. A historian believes he can help this alien culture by modeling them after the Nazis. No historian would ever even consider such a thing to be viable, it's a very dumb idea. It also wants to boil down the problem with the Nazis as being one man who had all the power. The problem wasn't the ideology itself, but the fact that one person having power is bad. Which is a very bad thing to say, because that's not at all the primary problem with the Nazis. If the Nazis had the same ideology, but were democratically elected in a legislature, they would still be bad. The problem is the ideology. The obsession with going back to some perfect time in the past, an outgroup that made it all bad and has to be purged to go back to that good time. It's a movement. A belief. Getting rid of one bad man at the top doesn't get rid of the movement. Indeed, Spock points out, when Kirk says that, that there were a lot of people in Earth history who pursued absolute power. Kirk cuts him off, but the very next point should be, therefore that's not the primary problem with the Nazis specifically. All of this is why Mirror, Mirror is a much better Nazi episode than this. It portrays Nazis as they are: brutal, hateful, wasteful. It's a movement of people working together to create the fascist society. Not just the empress at the top. The empress is interchangeable as shown in Enterprise. There is a cult of personality around the dictator, sure, but the dictator can be changed and the ideology would still exist. This is also interesting in that it contributes to this show's weird attitude towards dictators. In Space Seed, all of the humans seem to admire Kahn, despite him being a brutal dictator who murdered millions of people. They're doing the same thing that Kirk is condemning here.

By Any Other Name- This is mostly noteable because it's a quientissential TOS episode. A weird alien species from another galaxy takes over the ship. And Kirk has to seduce one of them, Spock has to make one mad, and Scotty has to get one drunk. It's just pretty funny. Not explicitly comedy, but entertaining because of how it captures a lot of TOS tropes.

The Ultimate Computer- The first half of this episode is interesting in that it talks about the feeling of your job being taken by automation. The second half is a cop out, though, since the computer turns out to be evil. Interestingly, it's only evil because it's human. In the end, McCoy says something like this is why humans will always be superior, a computer can't think or feel. They can't have compassion and therefore that keeps men ahead of computers. Even Spock says that he thinks computers are more efficient, not necessarily better. It's interesting because of where this show is going to go with Data and The Doctor in terms of AI. It contrasts directly with Measure of a Man: Picard arguing against this episode that, no, AIs can indeed think and feel and be sentient.

After this season it was clear that the show was going to be canceled. And it's a shame, too. This season was when the show really started to come into its own, with a lot of interesting ideas to discuss and bring to the table. It had more bad episodes and more good ones as well. But because the show was clearly going to be canceled, the final episode, Assignment: Earth, is a pilot for another show Roddenberry would have tried to make to keep himself working in Hollywood after Star Trek was cancelled. It felt like a very Doctor Who type show: an enigmatic man from another planet and his female companion. The Enterprise didn't need to be in the episode at all, and very weirdly treated time travel as "routine." However, after the second season, Roddenberry led a letter writing campaign to get the show back on tv, and it did indeed get a third season. It has a bad reputation, but I'm interested to see whether that reputation is earned. We'll see you next time, starting with the infamously bad episode, "Spock's Brain."