Now, I'd heard of this episode by reputation as supposedly the worst episode of Star Trek, quite possibly of the whole franchise. It's not the worst science fiction episode I've ever seen, but it's heading in that direction.
****
While investigating a mysterious spacecraft, a beautiful woman suddenly beams onto the bridge of the Enterprise (seriously, they need some shielding) and knocks everyone out. When they come too, they might that she has absconded with Spock's brain, removed without leaving any marks and with Spock's Vulcan physiology somehow keeping him temporarily alive. So, they must follow her and persuade her to give it back, but she needs it to run a planet...
****
The third season of TOS see the show moved to the Friday Night Death Slot (remember no streaming or DVR back then and much of its audience had other things to do on a Friday night) and its budget slashed. The Netflix episode being the 2007 remastered version, the cost-cutting is a lot less obvious, especially on the spacecraft scenes.
Gene Roddenberry stood down from day-to-day production duties, although kept the executive producer credit.
So, anyway, this episode was written by Gene L. Coon under a pseudonym. Coon as the former producer had created a huge chunk of the lore or at least written the episodes they debut in... but I suppose everyone has at least one clunker during their writing career. I know that I have.
We start with a ludicrous premise, and it doesn't get much better from there. We've got more "sexy" costumes" from William Ware Theiss, who is frankly starting to get on my nerves now. The dialogue is mostly inane with the primitives of the icy world they visit being particularly stereotypical and the women not exactly doing wonders for female representation; they're dumb and the men are dumber - when I first saw the later cavemen, I immediately thought of Monty Python's "It's" guy. It is also unclear how this species managed to survive with the social structure as set up.
The worst bit of the episode is 'Remote Control Spock' where McCoy somehow manages to develop a device allowing a Starfleet officer to pilot his body with no training and sufficient control to win a fight.
Actually, strike that - the surgery scene at the end takes the proverbial biscuit where Spock somehow is able to talk McCoy through inserting his brain... and once it's done, there is again zero marks - his hair isn't even ruffled. Speaking of hair, Scotty has a new back-combed hair cut that makes him look much older and is distracting to boot.
The leads try their best with material they know is awful and admitted as such in later accounts on this one.
It's a pity, because there's potentially a good story underneath this and a couple of good scenes, including an application of 'science' being attacking the guards.
Conclusion
This is pretty poor - it's watchable, but I wouldn't choose to watch it again.
3/10
****
A quick glance at articles on "worst episodes of Star Trek" reveal that there are a number more to come in Season 3...
No comments:
Post a Comment