Star Trek: The Original Series Reviews C

This is one of my posts where I “review” Star Trek episodes. I will be giving each one a star rating. I sometimes will make some comments about non-political parts of them that I like or don’t like. I’ll sometimes use the issues raised in the episode to discuss similar issues in real life. And I will sometimes simply high-light the progressive politics of ST. ST is in-line with the three original themes of this blog, as I explain in the first ST post where I offer some general thoughts about ST.

I have been more or less ignoring this- the need for me to become familiar with The Original Series. In general I don’t like much of what I’ve seen. In any case, I am now watching it and will be doing reviews of those episodes. I will be giving pretty low scores, probably no higher than three stars out of five- I just don’t like TOS.

Lastly. multi-culturalism is such a pervasive theme in ST that I only comment on it when it goes beyond the norm (i.e. inter-species partners).

“The Conscience of the King” See this for a plot summary

A fairly political episode, but there’s little for me to quote or build upon. Kodos was, of course, comparable to a war criminal. I wonder if he might be compared in some ways with Pol Pot.

I give it two stars out of five.

“Balance of Terror” See this for a plot summary.

There is some political stuff here, basically two categories. First, when the crew of the Enterprise learn that their Romulan enemies look very similar to Vulcans, at least one of them becomes very bigoted towards Spock. Kirk makes it clear that that sort of thing has no place on the bridge.

The commander of the Romulan ship is not as positive about war as the Romulan state and many of the men under his command are.

I give this episode three stars out of five.

“Shore Leave” See this for a plot summary.

A non-political episode. I give it two stars out of five.

“The Galileo Seven” See this for a plot summary.

A very non-political episode, but there are a couple things to comment on:

1) One of the shuttles is called “Columbus.” It’s at odds with the overwhelmingly liberal-left politics of ST.

2) Although this existed a bit in some other episodes, this one contains much dialogue where Spock’s subordinates speak dis-respectfully to him. This is usually in the form of negative comments about his dominant Vulcan half. This kind of bigotry seems to be tolerated by Spock and the other main characters.

I give this episode two stars out of five.

“The Squire of Gothos” See this for a plot summary.

A very non-political episode, with one exception. Briefly Kirk asserts that StarFleet is on a peaceful mission and that they only fight when needed. This is at least almost totally true.

I give this episode two stars out of five.

“Arena” See this for a plot summary.

The story, or at least the last five minutes of it, is fairly political. Basically it’s about the same topic I mentioned in the “Squire” above. This time around Kirk is looking for a battle in space; and on the ground he comes very close to killing an alien when it wasn’t necessary. When Kirk starts acting like a StarFleet officer again, the representative of an advanced alien race is impressed and talks about a future friendship with humanity.

I give this episode 2 stars out of five.