Cimorene

i kind of love this episode, so i got carried away in terms of the detail of the recap even though there are only sixteen caps behind the cut. but i mean, it has the alanis morrissette definition of 'irony', it has jim being surprisingly hardcore (which, you know, you expect him to be pretty hardcore), it has extra spock exasperation which ♥♥♥, and, best of all, it has kirk and spock kicking the asses of their obnoxious and stupid superior officers!

also, in general i love when star trek tries to comment on the cold war and stuff. i just. yeah.
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i've always rather enjoyed this episode, and there are a couple of significant things about it. for one thing, they ripped the plot off wholesale for star trek: the motion picture, which is pretty damned shameless. for another thing, i am just extra fond of plots about how humans are better than machines, and especially endings where they defeat a machine by proving that it's illogical.

if only that worked on actual software, you know what i'm saying? anyway, this recap is pretty thorough (lots of images!), but it's a mixture of real bits, summaries, and stuff that i made up.

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season two is the season of crack in star trek.  this is the episode with greek gods.  the god himself was fugly though, so i deleted all the caps of him.  inside you will find a highly shortened and not strictly accurate recap.  i'm sort of going with the new method i came up with last time, but this one is much shorter because the episode is so incredibly bad.

nineteen caps, including ( the enterprise being held by a giant disembodied hand, plus plenty of manly heterosexual poses. )

whole gallery, 35 caps.

this is, i think i can confidently say, the single most famous, widely-shown and widely-loved star trek episode. the script was written by the brilliant but reputedly assholish harlan ellison, and of course, it takes place not in space, but in the great depression.  (even sf fans seem to be more interested in going back to earth--that is, to the subject matter that's covered by non-science fiction--than in space opera--that is, futuristic and speculative fiction.)  there's no denying that the script is good and hilarious.  it's an excellent episode, one of my favourites. 

it isn't very slashy at all, though; it's set in a universe in which spock is pretty clearly kirk's loving, supportive, loyal and completely platonic best friend.  ( Read more... )

of course, it poses a problem to the adherent of the kirk-and-spock-are-boyfriends theory in a way that, in my opinion, no single other episode does.  personally, i reconcile it by setting it early in the timeline (you can pretty much imagine the tos episodes in almost any order you like--they didn't follow any actual system with the star dates until tng came along.  people have tied themselves in very elaborate knots trying to make sense out of it all and still failed), say between the naked time (1x07) and charlie x (1x08).  definitely i place it before shore leave (1x17) and most of the ones after that.

anyway, here are one and a half annotated scenes, ( the policeman ) and ( lil' ol' us? )

sequence: ( spock tucking in his stolen shirt. )

bonus:  ( +11 )

this is a repost of the first ever annotated scene i made using these dvds.  i repost it because i had to fix the picture formats, so the links in the old post are broken.  and i've just come to the episode in order.

( those are pretty good odds, mr spock. )

sequence: ( spock mind-melds with the monstah )

this is the anti-communist, communes, "happy pills", and drugs episode.  it's also the episode with leila kalomi, one of spock's few canonical romantic attachments, so from a slash point of view it's important--you'll see references to it a lot. 

basically, spock cheats on kirk with this dirty ho hippie botanist who used to have a crush on him back in school, but he does it because he's on drugs.  specifically, the whole colony are telepathically linked in a big love fest by some alien plant ejaculate spores, and they feel driven to assimilate the entire crew of the enterprise... starting with spock, because the dirty ho botanist knows the only way she's going to get to molest him is if he's higher than a kite. 

( kirk finds spock... high as a kite, hanging from a tree, being fondled by some ho. )

all right, this scene is veeeeery long.  but it's important and stuff!  ( kirk insults spock's parentage and ears in order to free spock from the evol influence of those dirty hippie commune drugs. it works. )

( a bit of innuendo, for free. )

( bonuses include spock kissing a girl. )

entertaining enough but nothing especially special--except for one of tos's 1,600,042 plots about how computers can't replace humans because humans have SOUL (and this episode is particularly notable in that spock is first to bring it up, and he uses the word "soul" when he does it).  it's also one of the 1,600 episodes in which they defeat a computer by proving to it that it is illogical, whereupon it speaks in a strange voice, emits smoke and sparks, and ceases to work.  maybe kirk has psychic control over computers.

the best thing about this episode is spock's black hooded cape.  spock looks really good in a black hooded cape.  the second best thing is everyone else's costumes, which want to have a kind of The Puritans Have Just Landed vibe going on, but keep getting themselves confused with sort of 1910 and 1930 vibes, in that they couldn't actually afford any shirts more historic than oxford button-downs.  ahem.


( spock in his cape and his shirtsleeves. and also other people. )

and, of course, ( the flirtatious sequence from the closer. )

this is a kind of stupid episode, with bad writing, bad logic, and bad guest star.  the basic premise is that their narrow escape shot them back through time to the 1960s--yes! the invention of the fabled Time Warp!  they escape by some shenanigans involving the gravity well of the sun and there's some highly funky time logic and some REALLY bad scenes involving an air force base.

however, there's also some cuteness. 

first there's the "you're talking about my boyfriend!" scene.  ( you're talking about my boyfriend! )

then there's an amusing scene where both kirk and spock are disturbed by the ( girl cooties. )

and finally, there's this cute ( touchy sequence where spock cradles kirk's wrist. )

bonus ( +5 )

star trek screencaps galleries

this is the episode which introduces the q.  they aren't named here, but in tng, later, we learn that the semi-omnipotent being encountered here is a baby q.  you can see echoes of the q scenes in "encounter at farpoint", too--the appearance on the bridge, the foppish manner, the judge's robes. 

( greetings and felicitations )

( a nicely-framed shot of mccoy )

( spock coolly tells trelane off with big words, earning a 'that's mah man' expression from kirk )

when trelane thinks kirk might not cooperate, he immediately threatens spock.  ( kirk brandishing an antique duelling pistol )

( the judge and the accused )

( flirty looks from the closer )

in other screencap news the lack of filters and artificial lighting in sga makes it, well, not as nice as it could be for icons--not to mention that it makes it hard to find good iconning caps. i've found several caches that of very thorough caps, but that just means a lot of sorting through them looking for what you want; i may have to make them myself. and man, have i seen a lot of hideous icons for this fandom so far. 

this is a very important episode for the relationship between kirk and spock, which is pretty much what it's about.  thus the great quantity of important scenes.  in fact, the first kirk/spock i wrote was based on this episode thematically, although if i had it to do over i wouldn't handle it quite the same way.

cast of extras:
COMMODORE josé mendez, evidently an old friend or friendly acquaintance of KIRK's.
CAPTAIN CHRISTOPHER PIKE, captain of the enterprise before kirk.  SPOCK served under him for over 11 years.
the KEEPER, an alien from talos iv with powerful mind-controlling abilities.

( arrival at the starbase )

( kirk defends spock to the commodore... )

( and then expresses doubts to mccoy, who defends spock to him. )

( part of me is hoping the enterprise won't come back. )

( the most painful moment kirk has ever faced )

( the captain knew nothing of this! )

( captain--jim--please! )

( the opening shot of part 2 is nice and dramatic )

( eye candy because the dress uniforms are pretty )

( the happy ending--for everybody )